cannabisnews.com: 'NY Times' Takes Hit On Marijuana Booklet 





'NY Times' Takes Hit On Marijuana Booklet 
Posted by CN Staff on October 20, 2002 at 22:30:27 PT
By Joe Strupp, Associate Editor of E&P
Source: Editor & Publisher
New York -- A Washington, D.C.-based group working to ease marijuana laws is criticizing The New York Times for creating and distributing a handbook with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy that the group claims is full of distortions and misrepresentations about the drug.The Marijuana Policy Project, in an Oct. 17 letter to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., obtained by E&P, called the 85-page booklet on marijuana distributed through the Times' Newspaper in Education program "a succession of distortions, exaggerations and strategic omission of relevant data." 
The non-profit group also complained that the timing of the handbook, released on Oct. 15, is improper because it occurred just weeks before Election Day, when marijuana ballot measures will go before voters in several states.Times officials declined to address the allegation that the booklet distorted facts. But, in a statement sent to E&P Friday, the paper defended its practice of providing such educational materials, which are used in conjunction with the daily paper. "Our main goal ... is to foster development of critical thinking skills through newspaper reading," the statement read. "We are able to do this in part by helping teachers to integrate newspapers into their curriculum."The paper also said this was the third such handbook it has produced through the White House drug office. The previous two dealt with drug messages in the media and overall drug abuse, ranging from alcohol to inhalants.The Newspaper in Education program is a separate Times business unit from the editorial department, Times officials said. Although the handbook included previously published articles from the Times, no reporters or editors are involved in its creation.MPP's letter, however, claimed that the handbook had purposely avoided using Times articles that challenge the government's position on marijuana. "The articles included have been selectively chosen," the letter stated. "Using only those that tend to support the federal government's view of marijuana."Note: Group Assails Pamphlet As Distorted, Exaggerated.The handbook can be downloaded at: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/NIE/focusonmarijuana/Source: Editor & Publisher.com (CA)Author: Joe Strupp, Associate Editor of E&P Published: October 21, 2002Copyright: 2002 VNU eMedia Inc. Contact: edpub editorandpublisher.comWebsite: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/CannabisNews - Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml
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Comment #7 posted by The C-I-R-C-L-E on October 22, 2002 at 00:23:30 PT
The Rev. Dr. Ethan Russo, MD
If human cloning is to begin, let it begin with Dr. Russo and Valerie Corral....
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Comment #6 posted by krutch on October 21, 2002 at 14:32:17 PT:
This is a laugh
"Our main goal ... is to foster development of critical thinking skills through newspaper reading," Critical thinking? How can a newspaper that is the goverment's whore like the NY Times possibly foster the development of critical thinking. It is just not what the NY Times is about. It is like the KKK trying to foster racial tolerance. If they were trying to foster critical thinking they would present points and counterpoints rather than 80 pages of prohibitionist propaganda.
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Comment #5 posted by goneposthole on October 21, 2002 at 07:10:21 PT
Pax Americana's Praetorian Guard
They won't cut out your tongue to effectively silence you, but your message is effectively removed by slick propaganda.It's a dark age. These days, I fear the truth of how our gov really operates.
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Comment #4 posted by Ethan Russo MD on October 21, 2002 at 05:51:02 PT:
My Comments on the NY Times Propaganda
1) The addiction drum is being beat, but they make no reference to the NYT article on Aug. 2, 1994, p. C3 in which Jack Henningfield of NIDA and Neal Benowitz of UCSF rated addictive symptoms of cannabis vs. other commonly used drugs including heroin, alcohol and cocaine. Overall, to summarize, Mary Lynn Mathre said in her book, Marijuana in Medical Practice (p. 179), "Marijuana was ranked lowest for withdrawal symptoms, tolerance, and dependence (addiction) potential; it ranked close to caffeine in the degree of reinforcement and higher than caffeine and nicotine only the degree of intoxication."
  We laso fail to see a reprint of the NYT Sunday magazine article circa 1996 or 1997 about Prop. 215 in California and its positive spin on medical marijuana.   There is also no reference to this article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12084124&dopt=Abstract that seriously draws into question any true addiction to cannabis.2) In a similar fashion, these materials imply permanent memory loss, learning deterioration and brain changes with social cannabis usage, when current data shows no such thing. This is reviewed in the Chronic Use Study:http://www.montananorml.org/docs/ChronicCannabisUseStudy.pdf and Pope's articles:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11576028&dopt=Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11879116&dopt=Abstract 3) Damage due to smoking is equated with tobacco. This is spurious. Again see the Chronic Use Study. Additionally, cannabis has never caused a case of pulmonary cancer. It may be relatively protective:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11245634&dopt=Abstract Cannabis does not cause emphysematous deterioration:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9001303&dopt=Abstract4) Effects of driving by cannabis are equated with alcohol. Most recent surveys have shown a low relative risk. An excellent summary is contained in the Canadian Senate Report:http://www.parl.gc.ca/Common/Committee_SenRecentReps.asp?Language=E&Parl=37&Ses=1 5) The gateway effect is trumpeted, although this has been totally discredited.6) The potency issue is presented as a danger. There is no substantial evidence that average cannabis is much stronger than in former years:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10641915&dopt=Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3292744&dopt=Abstract Stronger cannabis means that the person smokes less to gain the desired therapeutic or recreational effect. It does not ensure greater dysfunction, addiction or other sequelae.7) The amotivational syndrome is presented as fact, rather than a disproved propaganda item.8) The material continually derides Jay Leno and Sex in the City for attitudes toward cannabis not considered appropriate. Interestingly these are shows on networks not affiliated with the owner of the NYT. Additionally, there is no mention of Murphy Brown, and how her use of cannabis helped her to continue life-saving chemotherapy.9) The materials enlist students in the propaganda battle of the War on Drugs by having them write their own ads.10) There is nothing about therapeutic cannabis usage.11) The materials are not written by NYT staff but were released under their by-line. For this, they should assume responsibility for the content. None of the authors is an MD or pharmacologist.
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Comment #3 posted by DdC on October 21, 2002 at 01:46:37 PT
From Whom Do the Fascists Get Support?
Italian fascism and German Nazism had their admirers within the U.S.
business community and the corporate owned press. Bankers, publishers, and
industrialists, including the likes of Henry Ford, traveled to Rome and Berlin
to pay homage, receive medals, and strike profitable deals. Many did their
utmost to advance the Nazi war effort, sharing military industrial secrets and
engaging in secret transactions with the Nazi government, even after the United
States entered the war. During the 1920s and early 1930s, major publications
like Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Saturday Evening Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Christian Science Monitor hailed Mussolini as the man
who rescued Italy from anarchy and radicalism. "The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises. It's either Us or Them!"
Benito Mussolini Address, from Palazzo Venezia balcony October 27, 1930 "...somebody has to take governments' place, and business seems to me to be a
logical entity to do it."
- David Rockefeller - Newsweek International, Feb 1 1999. Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
MussoliniACS - Division of Analytical Chemistry - DAC Awards John P. Walters 1980Philanthropy Roundtable John P. Walters President"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even
the most stupid of those towards whom it is directed will understand it.
Therefore, the intellectual level of the propaganda must be lower the larger the
number of people who are to be influenced by it." "Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made
to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most
wretched sort of life as paradise."
From Benito Mussolini contributing to the "London Sunday Express,"
December 8, 1935 "The masses have little time to think. And how incredible is the willingness of
modern man to believe." "Another weapon I discovered early was the power of the printed word to
sway souls to me. The newspaper was soon my gun, my flag - a thing with a
soul that could mirror my own."
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini together in the heyday of 1930s fascism. "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes,
Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing,
result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek
sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."
John P.Walters, U.S. Czar of Narcotics, 10-20-02 repeating
Harry Anslinger, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics, testifying to Congress on why marijuana should be made illegal, 1937.
(Marijuana Tax Act, signed Aug. 2, 1937; effective Oct. 1, 1937.) "Arbitrary and capricious" is legal language that was used by DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young in 1988 to conclude that DEA was obligated under the Controlled Substances Act to reschedule marijuana as a prescription medicine. DEA Chief Administrator Robert Bonner proceeded to arbitrarily and capriciously disregard Judge Young's well researched and reasoned decision, which the Act allowed him to do."There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point
is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up
against blatant violations of justice. A state that supresses all freedom of
speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and
every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for
improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten
law."
- Kurt Huber [The head of White Rose], killed by the Nazis in 1943. why support prohibition
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionstuff.showMessage?topicID=122.topic"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Nazi Air Force (Luftwaffe) commander, the Nuremberg Trials Narco Terror
http://www.narcoterror.org/The Elkhorn Manifesto
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/Elkhorn.html Warning To States on Funding Faith-Based Charities 
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread11781.shtml Bush. Religious drug treatment in Texas 
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionprohibitionistwodjunkies.showMessage?topicID=13.topic Aerial Herbicide War on Drugs Poisons Land, Water 
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread11779.shtml "The mission of the Christian Coalition is simple," says Pat Robertson. It is "to mobilize Christians -- one precinct at a time, one community at a time -- until once again we are the head and not the tail, and at the top rather than the bottom of our political system." Robertson predicts that "the Christian Coalition will be the most powerful political force in America by the end of this decade." And, "We have enough votes to run this country...and when the people say, 'We've had enough,' we're going to take over!"
--Pat RobertsonOPINION: All You Really Need To Know About John Ashcroft
http://www.hightimes.com/News/2002_01/opinion.html "We should resist the temptation to identify our religious convictions with the platform of a party or the platitudes of favored politicians."--Ralph Reed, 1996"We want...as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians by 1996." --Pat Robertson, Denver Post, 10/26/92"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."-- George BushAshcraft/Dow\Monsanto Spraying Ditchweed Devastate Midwest Game Birds 
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=222.topic "How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?"--Pat Robertson, The New World Order, p.227Today's Violence is Firmly Rooted in History: From Plunder by Raids to Plunder by Trade
http://www.slonet.org/~ied/frthaz.html "We're going to bring back God and the Bible and drive the gods of secular humanism right out of the public schools of America." --Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan addressing the anti-gay rally in Des Moines, 2-11-96The Inquisitions: To Suppress Freedom Under the Flag of Freedom, Chains Must Be Placed On The Minds Of The Masses
http://www.slonet.org/~ied/frthlz.html "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."
--Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue, The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 8-16-93 The United States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion -- George Washington & John Adams, in a diplomatic message to Malta.This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. -- John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. --Thomas JeffersonIn every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1814Neither the trappings of robes, nor temples of stone, nor a fixed liturgy, nor an extensive literature or history is required to meet the test of beliefs cognizable under the Constitution as religious. So far as our law is concerned, one person's religious beliefs held for one day are presumptively entitled to the same protection as the beliefs of millions which have been shared for thousands of years. -- Judge Jack Weinstein, New York State, 1977I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. -- Thomas JeffersonQuestion with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise...-- Thomas Jefferson, in a 1787 letter to his nephewThe Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma. -- Abraham LincolnThe day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. Thomas Jefferson, 1823 The Art of War - Sun TzuTo secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands. But the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. If you know the enemy, and know yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.American High Society/DdC 
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=323.topic I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag." 
--Ralph Reed, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 11/9/91America Was NOT Founded On Christianity!
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionstuff.showMessage?topicID=83.topicProhibition Inc.
http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/politics/media/39/39226.jpgReefer Madness is Killing Our Country...Feeding the Fascist and Caging the Masses for nice tidy fortunes. Vested Ignorance in Education Depravation. Military Madness, Media and Churches blaring Bushit. Saving kids with sodomy in juvihall. Aborting more than inner cities from Midwest Ashcroft Monsanto poisons, eradicating rope for statistics. To continue raping Liberty. N.Y.Times back in line with the sons of Mussolini, Gouliani. Walters Philanthropy helping poor Korpses with tax shelters, Conserving compassion and busting the dying. Forced to piss in a bottle for a job, ethnic cleanzing of those who use ganja. Or hemps 100,000 products removed from competition. Enough embarrassing us working Americans with this Fascist Anti-Capitalism. Anti American, Anti-Constitutional, Anti-Common Desency war on cannabis. Prohibitions Profiting on Misery. Caused by Vested Ignorance Maintaining Dysfunction. Enough!Peace, Love and Liberty or the Creepy Mean Fascist D.E.A.th...DdC
Welcome to Reality
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Comment #2 posted by DANA on October 21, 2002 at 00:52:40 PT
..."free press"...
...Is there any doubt ?....Is there someone out there who believes that the media is not severly swayed,and manipulated by the powers that be?.. ..Is there someone out there who thinks that this "booklet",is harmless ?....
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Comment #1 posted by gloovins on October 20, 2002 at 23:39:13 PT
mmm ...big f%$# ! surprise
wait?? the white haws's ONDCP sponsored handbook written in cunjuntan with da NY Times on cannabis ommits crucial facts & is biased? No way .. I just don't believe it... I Am SHOCKED!
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