cannabisnews.com: Drug War Invades State Elections





Drug War Invades State Elections
Posted by CN Staff on June 01, 2003 at 08:05:48 PT
By Robyn E. Blumner, Times Perspective Columnist
Source: St. Petersburg Times 
The drug warriors are nervous, very nervous. Last month, Maryland's Republican governor signed legislation reducing the maximum punishment for anyone caught using marijuana as medicine to a $100 fine. Eight states are even more lenient, having legalized medical marijuana; and Canada is expected to soon decriminalize possession of small amounts of the drug. With all this going on, the office of the nation's drug czar is getting more desperate to keep the marijuana genie in the bottle.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy has resorted to extreme claims, suggesting in past television ads that smoking marijuana promotes terrorism, or will make you shoot your friend. In one ad that ran last year, two male teens are smoking pot in a comfortable den when one picks up a gun he thinks is unloaded and accidentally shoots his buddy. The text at the end says, "Marijuana can distort your sense of reality."I can imagine teenagers rolling their eyes - that is after they stop laughing.The drug warriors have it backward. What really can distort one's sense of reality is a blind crusade against marijuana use - a drug to be sure, but a substance that is less dangerous and addictive than alcohol and tobacco. But the crusade launched by ONDCP offers little nuance, conflating marijuana with every other illicit substance, including crack. (Drug czar John Walters has derided medical marijuana as an idea as looney as "medicinal crack.")A hysterical letter from ONDCP sent in November to every local prosecutor in the nation declared that "no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana," and continued with claims that "marijuana and violence are linked" and "marijuana is not a medicine, and no credible research suggests that it is." Posh! Serious and credible studies dispute both claims, including a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine and commissioned by the ONDCP that found marijuana effective in addressing symptoms of "nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety."Because the battlefront for easing marijuana restrictions is in the states, Walters and the other princes of prohibition in the Bush administration - Attorney General John Ashcroft and Asa Hutchinson, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration - have abandoned the classic Republican refrain of home rule and local control. Instead, they have been doing everything possible to defeat the voters' will, including unleashing the DEA in California to harass sick people who say marijuana helps them control their pain and other ailments.Snipped:Complete Article: http://www.sptimes.com/2003/06/01/Columns/Drug_war_invades_stat.shtmlSource: St. Petersburg Times (FL)Author: Robyn E. Blumner, Times Perspective ColumnistPublished: June 01, 2003 Copyright: 2003 St. Petersburg TimesContact: letters sptimes.comWebsite: http://www.sptimes.com/Related Articles:Legislation To Move Anti-Medicinal Pot Funds http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16408.shtmlBuying Initiatives - Daniel Forbes http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16350.shtmlHouse GOP Targets Medical Marijuana States http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16349.shtmlEhrlich Signs Marijuana Lawhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16363.shtml
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Comment #11 posted by kaptinemo on June 02, 2003 at 08:32:22 PT:
They got it! THEY FINALLY GOT IT!
Sorry, I don't normally indulge in shouting, but I couldn't help it; something I've been rattling on about for *years* has finally been acknowledged in the so-called mainstream press.The antis have always been able to use the massive resources (meaning, of course, taxpayer dollars extorted under threat of jail if you don't 'render unto Caesar') of the Federal DrugWar machine to oppress the cannabis culture and all of it's aspects. But the repression has usually been very direct and unsubtle: raids and jail time.But then they (foolishly) ventured into the gray area of attempting to coerce public opinion by utilizing those same tax dollars, rationalizing it all as 'public service announcements'. (How the public is served by the government lying to it and using the public's money to commit that lying is a matter for debate.) At that point, they went off balance and became vulnerable.That vulnerability increased after the 1996 referenda of Prop200 and Prop215 became laws. Because for a government at any level to use taxpayer's money to influence elections is against the Hatch Act.Dan Forbes has done a masterful job of tracking the slime trails of those who have done precisely that, at just about every level of government from the Feds on down. His work on the Ohio referendum proves that that unwarranted Federal influence existed during the recent elections. Namely, that Federal officers indeed used taxpayer funds given locally to anti groups inappropriately for exactly that illegal purpose. The Nevada elections are an even more blatant example, with Walters showing up and stumping against the referendum as if he were a candidate, not a 'public servant' who is supposed to maintain at least the 'semblence' of impartiality.This is, of course, nothing new. McCaffrey did the exact same thing under the Klinton Regime, and managed to leave Fed 'service' before the OMB watchdogs could bite his backside for his indiscretions.For now, the Republicans, with typical arrogance, believe that their control of the House and Senate, not to mention the Supreme Court and the Executive Branch, makes them invulnerable to legal attack. But with more States experiencing huge budget crunches thanks to wastrel spending of a non-existant 'surplus', many State governors and legislators are facing some very hard choices...like early prison release for non-violent offenders. Such as cannabists. (Which of course begs the question as to WHY such harmless people were locked up with murderers and rapists if they had been no threat to the public to begin with and are deemed by the States as being eligible for early release. This in itself is a scandal waiting to break wide open.)This budget crunch will be exacerbated if lawsuits demanding curtailment of the incestuous Fed practice of showering anti groups with money succeed and draw punitive damages. Just one crack in the facade, and the practice will be abandoned by the Feds, as the local States are easier to sue. I have always maintained that the Feds have built for themselves a Potemkin Village with regards to the DrugWar: all show, no substance. Strip away the facade of invulnerability and the rotten understructure is revealled. And then the hard questions begin. Questions the Feds and their State allies are loathe to answer.The author of this article is dead right when she says the Feds are afraid. Given what they've done, they have reason to be...
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Comment #10 posted by 2Spooky on June 01, 2003 at 11:14:39 PT
Keen
Thanks, that went well to get to the pdf report.What I really lament though is the fact that the story itself was censored from the public media :(Aint deregulation of the media grand?
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Comment #9 posted by Jose Melendez on June 01, 2003 at 10:55:28 PT
spooky
sorry, I was having trouble posting the necessarily long URL that makes the screen go far too wide...try:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=drug+ads+increase+youth+marijuana+use+ratethen scroll down to [PDF]War on Drugs: The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaignthere's an html version there, both take long to load so I grabbed snippets for you to read... I try not to take things out of context, and attempt to credit sources wherever possible. 
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Comment #8 posted by 2Spooky on June 01, 2003 at 10:41:50 PT
Interesting
I was completely stonewalled when I tried to follow your link.
Thanks for posting the info.
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Comment #7 posted by Jose Melendez on June 01, 2003 at 10:28:41 PT
strange but true
both google.com and about.com point to an article entitled White House Anti-Drug Ads Backfiring and reference the same article, which has been removed, but cached by google.See:http://alcoholism.about.com/sitesearch.htm?terms=white%20house%20anti-drug%20ads&SUName=alcoholism&TopNode=/&type=1http://substanceabuse.about.com/library/weekly/aa022103.htmI'm guessing someone changed the page and removed the offending artice. Maybe it's the same folks that post the message: "Think you know everything about marijuana?" CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS WebOrder Code RS21490April 10, 2003 War on Drugs: The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign Mark Eddy Specialist in Social Legislation Domestic Social Policy Division Summary:Authorization of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, a multi-media federal program to persuade America’s youth not to use drugs, expired at the end of FY2002. The 108th Congress is expected to consider the reauthorization of the campaign as part of the reauthorization of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). The campaign’s effectiveness has been questioned, and the program has engendered its share of controversy. Nevertheless, ONDCP, which runs the campaign, is optimistic that recent changes in campaign strategy will result in lower rates of youth drug use. This report will be updated as legislative activity occurs.Background:Although it accounts for less than one percent of the federal drug-control budget, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign is, for many Americans, the most visible aspect of the war on drugs. This is by design. The campaign’s strategy is based on the belief that its efforts to persuade young people not to use illegal drugs (sic) will work only if its advertisements are seen repeatedly by large numbers of youth and those who influence them, such as their parents, teachers, clergy, and mentors. According to recent congressional testimony, the campaign’s broadcast, print, and Internet ads reach about 90% of all teens at least four times per week at a cost to taxpayers of less than $8 per teenager per year. 1 The media campaign was authorized by the Drug-Free Media Campaign Act of 1998.
2 This law, less than two pages in length, instructed the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (commonly referred to as the “Drug Czar”) to “conduct a national media campaign ... for the purpose of reducing and preventing drug abuse among young people in the United States.” The anti-drug advertising campaign is an attempt at behavior change, forms of which have been used in other government campaigns and are used by non-governmental organizations and commercial marketers. It seeks to reinforce existing anti-drug attitudes in youth and adults and reverse the attitudes of those who have positive ideas about illegal drugs, thereby reducing the number of drug-using youth. The media campaign is a public-private partnership. Most of the campaign’s advertisements have been produced by the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA), a non-profit organization that recruits advertising agencies to develop creative conceptson a pro bono basis. Appropriated media campaign funds are then used to cover the costs of actually making the finished ads. The Partnership itself receives no federal funding. Its relationship with the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has made PDFA the single largest public service initiative in the history of advertising. Program Funding The Drug-Free Media Campaign Act authorized appropriations to ONDCP of $195 million for each fiscal year from 1999 through 2002 – a total of $975 million – to pay for the campaign. The Administration had originally proposed a somewhat less generous $175 million per year budget, for a total of $875 million, although subsequent budget requests were for larger amounts. Actual appropriations through FY2002 of $930 million amounted to $55 million more than ONDCP originally sought and $45 million less than the authorized level. Although the authorization expired at the end of FY2002, funds were appropriated to continue the campaign in FY2003, albeit at a reduced level. (SeeTable 1.) In total, over the past 6 years, Congress has provided $1.08 billion to the media campaign, making it one of the country’s largest advertisers.)(snip) Page 3 
In 2002, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) conducted a systematic review of more than 200 Federal programs to assess their performance in a number of areas. The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign has not demonstrated the results sought and does not yet have adequate performance measures and related goals. The OMB recommended actions include: (1) continued emphasis on developing acceptable performance measures and goals; (2) allowing sufficient time for the effects of recent ONDCP actions to be realized before pursuing changes to the program; (3) seeking no funding increases for the program; and (4) making FY2005 funding contingent upon improved results(Snipped)
PDF OMB Report: War on Drugs: The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign
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Comment #6 posted by Jose Melendez on June 01, 2003 at 09:58:08 PT
(snif)
"The Office of National Drug Control Policy has resorted to extreme claims, suggesting in past television ads that smoking marijuana promotes terrorism, or will make you shoot your friend."from: (link too long to post here causes wrap problem, do a search on google.com for "drug ads increase youth marijuana use rate")White House Anti-Drug Ads Backfiring  
 
White House anti-drug ads released after September 11, 2001 - the ones alleging that recreational drug use aids terrorism - may actually increase use among teens, according to an evaluation released last month by Westat Inc. and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania for the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).The review found "little evidence" that the federal Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which recently spent more than than $4 million dollars to air a pair of anti-drug public service announcements (PSAs) during January's Super Bowl broadcast, is having any favorable effects on youth's attitudes toward marijuana or other drugs."There is no statistically significant decline in marijuana use to date, and some evidence for an increase in use from 2000 to 2001, authors determined. "Nor are there improvements in beliefs and attitudes about marijuana use between 2000 and the first half of 2002. Contrarily, there are some unfavorable trends in youth anti-marijuana beliefs.For example, authors noted, "Those who were more exposed to the Campaign (from November 1999 to January 2001) tended to move more markedly in a 'pro-drug' direction as they aged than those who were exposed less.The Westat and Annenberg review is their second straight evaluation criticizing the White House ad campaign. A previous review released last spring reported similar results, which prompted Drug Czar John Walters to modify the ad campaign to focus primarily on marijuana and the alleged link between illicit drugs and terrorism. Last June, Walters promised members of the US Senate that he could turn the ad campaign around by the fall of 2002.National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Executive Director Keith Stroup said that despite Walters' promises, the White House ad campaign continues to have the opposite effect on teens than the one lawmakers intended. "This is a colossal waste of taxpayer's dollars, Stroup said, noting that the ad campaign costs an estimated $195 million per year. "The more often teens see these ads, the less likely they are to say no to marijuana and other drugs. Clearly, teens are dismissing these ads and their message as nothing more than government propaganda."Stroup concluded, "By overstating marijuana's potential harm, our policy-makers undermine their credibility, and their ability to effectively educate the public of the legitimate harms associated with more dangerous drugs."To read the full text of the NIDA report, visit http://www.nida.nih.gov/despr/westat/   
From:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread10890.shtmlComment #32 posted by hombre sin problema on September 11, 2001 at 10:54:33 PT 
US will respond to WTC attacks... 
...by stepping up the war on drugs. 
Timing is Everything: Drug War is TREASON! 
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Comment #5 posted by Lehder on June 01, 2003 at 09:42:32 PT
"medicinal crack"
I have no problem with the concept of medicinal crack. South Americans have chewed the coca leaf for 5000 years, and cocaine was once used as a local anaesthetic in eye surgery; in fact, I do not know of any other topical anaesthetic. I'm sure that cocaine must have some use in treating forms of sexual dysfunction, as it is popularly combined with sex. The pure form of cocaine, crack, would interact with the body in the same way as its salts, and John Walters' ignorance is no reason to dismiss it as a medicine: >>Drug czar John Walters has derided medical marijuana as an idea as looney as "medicinal
   crack."He presumes a lot, and presumes a lot about me (by this time he presumes that I'm a crack addict too, I'm sure), but knows nothing.The story is the same with heroin. I've read that the U.S. is the only country in the world where heroin is prohibited as an anaesthetic.When I hear JOhn Walter's loud, obtuse bigotry, when I see police stand by as peace marchers are beaten and spat upon in Cleveland's Little Italy, and when I see every day the relentless expression of ignorance and violence that is served by Mom with apple pie, then I know that we will never reach any compromise with drug warriors. Either they must exterminate us ( possible ) or we must exterminate them ( not in our natures ) OR we must live separately from them and live by our own standards. People must be offered a choice.The fifty states must be released from the federal bondage that requires a single set of uniform rules for all 280 million people, and freed to each devise their laws individually. It's just stupid to expect John Walters and me to get along as neighbors.
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Comment #4 posted by Jose Melendez on June 01, 2003 at 09:09:35 PT
oops
Can I change that link?
Criminalize Cannabis Prohibition: Drug War is Treason
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Comment #3 posted by Jose Melendez on June 01, 2003 at 09:05:06 PT
turn your head and...
"while the United States Central Intelligence Agency launders over $200 billion per year of drug money thru Wall Street, "Careful, there. You'll have people believing 9-11 was a black op to deflect the news cycle away from the debate Asa Hutchinson LOST to New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. Timing is everything. (cough)From:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread10890.shtmlComment #17 posted by FoM on September 11, 2001 at 06:15:19 PT 
Off Topic 
What in the world is going on in New York? Two planes crashed in the World Trade Center. My oh my.[ Post Comment ]
 
 
Comment #16 posted by nate h. on September 11, 2001 at 05:58:00 PT 
the law on drugs 
Kind of ironic that Hutchinson would say:
"The law is a master teacher that guides conduct in this country," Many conservatives oppose the drug war on the grounds that it encourages people to flout the law. When you've got a dumb law that can't be enforced, society's enforcers (cops, judges, politicians) look like asses and the law-breakers look like heroes.If Hutchinson really wants the law to serve as "a master teacher that guides conduct" he should support legalization, followed by tough restrictions on driving stoned, selling to minors, etc. NH
Toronto, ON[ Post Comment ] 
 
Comment #15 posted by sm247 on September 11, 2001 at 05:35:49 PT 
Transcript !!! 
I can't wait for the transcript some friends want me to print it of for them too!! People like hutch (wheres Starsky???) renew my faith that we are smarter than they are.
Never noticed the typo Forest btw pass the chocolates!
 
Criminalize Cannabis Prohibition: Drug War isTreason
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Comment #2 posted by Richard Paul Zuckerm on June 01, 2003 at 08:48:59 PT:
Dr. Andrew Weil
I agree with Dr. Andrew Weil (I am not sure of the exact spelling of his last name)[A physician with a practice in Arizona] that people have a natural desire to reach a higher consciousness, including through the use of intoxicants. It is patently unfair to deny responsible citizens an opportunity to use intoxicants responsibly. It is also unfair for Americans to be punished for the use of intoxicants to beat loneliness, while the United States Central Intelligence Agency launders over $200 billion per year of drug money thru Wall Street, www.fromthewilderness.com. Didn't William Shakespeare refer to "a man more sinn'd against than sinning"?
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Comment #1 posted by goneposthole on June 01, 2003 at 08:25:24 PT
pardon me, but
moralizing can distort your sense of reality. A lesson not too late to learn.Two Commandments for the Molecular Age  1. Thou shalt not alter the consciousness of thy fellow men.
  2. Thou shalt not prevent thy fellow man from altering his or her own consciousness. Articulated by Dr. Timothy Leary, Ph.D.
auto-gender-neutralization by dimitri
http://www.deoxy.org/2command.htm
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