cannabisnews.com: The Other Perspective





The Other Perspective
Posted by CN Staff on February 24, 2003 at 07:57:06 PT
Commentary By Manon G. McKinnon
Source: Duluth News-Tribune 
In his January State of the Union address, President Bush said, "Another cause of hopelessness is addiction to drugs. Addiction crowds out friendship, ambition, moral conviction and reduces all the richness of life to a single destructive desire." He asked for $600 million more to treat another 300,000 addicts.Only a week earlier, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a study confirming the gateway hypothesis that youthful use of marijuana leads to later use of cocaine, heroin and other drugs -- and to addiction. The president is hoping to save 300,000 of those current and future addicts before they are lost for good.
Perhaps "destructive desire" and gateway risk were on the minds of voters last November as they dealt a significant setback to state initiatives legalizing pot. In Ohio, Arizona, Nevada and South Dakota, voters overwhelmingly rejected the opportunity to oppose the drug war instead of the drugs.This is quite a shift from the years between 1996 and 2000 in which the proponents of drug legalization marched from victory to victory until, by the end of 2000, eight states had approved the smoking of marijuana as medicine and the weakening of antidrug laws. Well-funded legalizers crafted a message of compassion for the sick and wrongly incarcerated, and the voters bought it.Based on that background, many expected more drug approval from the states targeted in 2002. Time magazine extolled "The New Politics of Pot," and mused "Can it go legit? How the people who brought you medical marijuana have set their sights on lifting the ban for everyone."This time it didn't work. The pro-drug initiatives went down by 61 percent in Nevada; by 67 percent in Ohio; by 57 percent in Arizona; and by 63 percent in South Dakota. In Michigan and Florida, pro-drug initiatives were beaten back before making it to the ballot.What turned the tide? Possibly it was that very recognition of deceit in the medical claims for smoked marijuana and the fiction that rapists and murders are going free while police fill jails with "nonviolent marijuana users." Perhaps voters simply realized that they had been lied to, and that legalization would only spread more drug misery.The voters were right. A joint of today's super-strength marijuana is not medicine -- and it is not innocent fun. Marijuana enfeebles the immune system; it produces five times the lung damage of tobacco; it assaults the brain and nervous system in the same way as heroin or cocaine, priming the brain for serious addiction.Pot erodes memory and learning. It impairs the ability to judge and react. Marijuana accounted for 110,512 emergency room episodes in 2001. The prospect of a drugged citizenry, moreover, does not bode well for a free society.The war on drugs is not lost. A tough and integrated drug strategy based on interdiction, treatment, prevention and law enforcement cut drug use by half -- and by up to 81 percent among teens -- during the 1980s. Those strategies are being applied today and teen drug use, following a 1990s increase, is again headed down.Legalizing drugs means more drugs and more drug addicts for whom, said the president, "the fight against drugs is a fight for their own lives." To be sure, "destructive desire" is not something to enshrine into law.Manon G. McKinnon is a nationally distributed independent journalist who specializes in reporting and commentary about illegal drugs. Source: Duluth News-Tribune (MN)Author: Manon G. McKinnonPublished: Monday, February 24, 2003Copyright: 2003 Duluth News-TribuneContact: letters duluthnews.comWebsite: http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/Related Articles:Bush's Focus on Antidrug Ministry Irks Somehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15537.shtml Is Pot Actually a Gateway Drug? http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15292.shtmlHigh Road: Marijuana as a Gateway Drug http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15281.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by herbdoc215 on February 24, 2003 at 10:47:42 PT
My LTE for the week...couldn't resist
McKinnon, Someday your turn to grow feeble and die will comeI hope God shows your black heart more mercy than you have shown any of us from your white tower. “Possibly it was that very recognition of deceit in the medical claims for smoked marijuana”, this has to be the most obtuse things I have ever read. I am a disabled veteran with 13 spinal fusions and a medical cannabis patient, cannabis has lowered my intake and need for morphine at least 80% for last 10 years. How is that for a gateway drug? Gateway back to a real life for me and many others is more like it; so you need to keep your pious, holier-than-thou opinions confined to things you actually know about like noose tying and minority dragging.       In exile in Canada,    Steven Tuck      
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Comment #3 posted by delariand on February 24, 2003 at 10:34:08 PT
Crafted?
"Well-funded legalizers crafted a message of compassion for the sick and wrongly incarcerated, and the voters bought it."Well funded? Organizations like NORML can't hold a candle to the government's taxpayer dollars. Compare the amount spent annualy on the WoD to the amount spent annualy by every grassroots organization in the country, and you'll see there is no comparison. The government far outstrips anyone else for a single reason: They can take your money, and spend it on a cause you don't support. Cannabis legalization is funded only by those who support cannabis legalization.And what's this I hear about 'crafted'? If you want crafted, how about the government's longstanding stance that 'Marijuana has no medical value', despite countless independent studies proving otherwise, not to mention the Federal Medical Marijuana program that was conveniently closed to new applicants when people started to realize how beneficial this drug could be as a medicine.Take your head out of your rear end and look around, it's been up there so long you can't tell that you're not smelling roses.
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Comment #2 posted by John Tyler on February 24, 2003 at 09:36:29 PT
free society
"does not bode well for a free society", I will tell you what does not bode well for a free society is goverment that feels it has the right to invade every aspect of our lives. In the late 1800's real drug addiction was treated as a medical problem. The addict population then was about 1%, 100 years and scores of billions of dollars later the addict population is still about 1%.  
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Comment #1 posted by Dark Star on February 24, 2003 at 08:14:24 PT:
Hooked
This so-called expert has taken the Drug War propaganda hook, line and sinker, learning nothing in the process.If the trend is changing, why are so many state legislatures considering medical marijuana bills?He needs a new topic to spout off about at this point.
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