cannabisnews.com: Bush Team's Prohibition Drug Policy is a Bust 





Bush Team's Prohibition Drug Policy is a Bust 
Posted by CN Staff on August 30, 2003 at 08:23:22 PT
By Bruce Alexander Knight
Source: Oregon Live
John Walters, White House director of the National Office for Drug Control Policy, visited Portland this month "to learn about the challenges that local leaders face and successes this city has achieved," according to his Aug. 13 opinion piece, "Fight against drug abuse will be won at local level," in The Oregonian. Unfortunately the drug czar has not yet learned the central lesson that prohibition doesn't work.
Yes, the fight must be fought and can be won at the local level. What Walters and his superiors fail to acknowledge is that countries and communities that attack drug abuse as a medical problem are far more successful at minimizing it than those pursuing his prohibitionist approach. Walters says "66 percent of the men arrested in Portland last year tested positive for drugs." He also says law enforcement is critical, "since citizen involvement works best . . . where laws are upheld and people are discouraged from bringing drugs into the neighborhood in the first place." Sadly, as when alcohol was illegal, the war on drugs drives prices and profits up, luring the desperate and unscrupulous to get into a lucrative black market. Nobody pushed marijuana in schools before it was banned. Walters is right to say that "there is no single route to success" and that "lasting progress against drugs requires a balanced strategy of community drug prevention, treatment and law enforcement." Disappointingly, his administration's approach relies too heavily on locking up users and skimps on prevention and treatment. The drug czar is also right that local communities must tackle the problem and help deliver change. Several states and localities have done just that by legalizing medical marijuana use, but he and the administration are doing their best to harass patients, doctors and legal providers. As with federal interference in 100-percent-legal assisted suicide in Oregon, this policy tramples state and individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the highest law of our land. Walters concludes that "by confronting this issue openly and honestly, we can achieve real results." Lacking the intellectual honesty to admit that the alleged cure is worse than the disease, drug warriors' results are rising abuse rates, loss of Americans' freedoms, and the largest per-capita prison population in the world. Prohibition precludes rational regulation and other peaceful controls. Isn't it time to let states and communities tackle the problem in ways that really work? Portland consultant Bruce Alexander Knight is a former chairman of the Libertarian Party of Oregon and three-time congressional candidate in Oregon's 3rd District. Source: Oregon Live.com (OR)Author: Bruce Alexander KnightPublished: August 30, 2003Copyright: 2003 Oregon Live LLCWebsite: http://www.oregonlive.com/Contact: http://www.oregonlive.com/contactus/Related Articles & Web Site:SOMM-NEThttp://www.somm-net.org/It's Right & Ethical To OK Marijuana as Medicinehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17141.shtmlDrug Czar: Medical Marijuana is a Ployhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17070.shtmlPatients Defend Medical Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17028.shtmlMedical Marijuana Giving Cops a Headache http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16993.shtml
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Comment #12 posted by Jose Melendez on September 01, 2003 at 07:14:09 PT
 > Peace.
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/139/4/258 'Models treating undetectable viral loads as left-censored produced slightly higher upper confidence bounds of 0.23 for the marijuana–placebo difference and 0.09 for the dronabinol–placebo difference.'http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/139/4/258Conclusions: Smoked and oral cannabinoids did not seem to be unsafe in people with HIV infection with respect to HIV RNA levels, CD4+ and CD8+ cell counts, or protease inhibitor levels over a 21-day treatment. http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/summary/139/4/258'These findings suggest no major, short-term harmful effects and possibly some beneficial effects of cannabinoids in HIV-infected patients taking protease inhibitors. Larger, longer trials are needed to confirm the findings.' 
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Comment #11 posted by The GCW on August 30, 2003 at 20:50:24 PT
Arthropod
If You are thanking Me, You are thanking Him who sent Me; for I have prayed to know what to tell You, and so I have only told You what He gave for Me to share with You.Thank Him who sent Me and You. He is talking to You through Me.Thank You.The scariest people walking earth today are disobedient Christians.Christians follow Christians. They don’t follow Me. There are so many disobedient Christians, that Obedient Christians should stop calling themselves, Christians.Before You knew Me, You had an excuse, but now You know Me and now You have no excuse. If You decide to follow Me, simply love Your brother.But don’t become a Christian. Instead, become an Obedient Christian. There is a difference. I don’t know how to break this to You, Arthropod, but there are only 2 kinds of people on this earth: obedient Christians and disobedient Christians. And again Christ defined obedient, by saying You have obeyed the commandments if You love Your brother. And somehow, I think You already love Your brother.I don’t pray to hell, so I don’t really know hell. I pray for the spirit of truth and so I know the spirit of truth. Believe Me when I tell You, there is every reason to seek the spirit of truth. And it sounds like You are half way there.The President? He is a disobedient Christian. At best. No president is going to fix what We have here. The pres. is the reason We have what We have. No. We need more than a president. We need more than a disobedient Christian. We need a planet of people that loves their brother. Creating a planet of killers, does not create a planet of people that loves their brother. I don't have faith in Christians. I have faith in Christ. I have faith in Christ God Our Father, who when We obey Him, will give Us access to the spirit of truth, which is the communication system, Christ died for Us to have, when We obey Him. In that communication system, Christ will put His mind inside Your mind. And I promise this aint no jive,,, it IS real. The spirit of truth will teach You all things, and then there is no need for any church full of disobedient Christians. And again, and again, to obey Him means to love Your brother.Accept Me; for I am in Him and He is in Me and I am not in disobedient Christians and disobedient Christians are not in Me.To Me this is elementary. You can read about it also, in John 14 - 16 and in 1 John and use the New American Standard Bible, which is written in the same English We speak today.  That is where the Bible talks about the "spirit of truth". You can also read about the spirit of truth in Urantia. And for what it's worth; I believe cannabis has helped Me know Christ God Our Father and the spirit of truth. Cannabis may have helped Me become the person I needed to be to know Him.Become more than an Obedient Christian, become a Green Collar Worker too.With all His love,The Green Collar Worker
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Comment #10 posted by Arthropod on August 30, 2003 at 17:14:13 PT:
GCW
I might have become a Christian if I had known you earlier in my life. Your message is a beam of light in the vast darkness that calls itself the Christian religion these days. I don't think I've personally met a single Christian that hasn't tried to either convert me or tell me I was going to whatever version of hell they believe in if I didn't change my ways.
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on August 30, 2003 at 11:36:56 PT
Just A Note
Whoever was kind enough to hawk the articles in CNews name I want to say thank you and I really appreciate it!
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Comment #8 posted by Virgil on August 30, 2003 at 10:57:30 PT
The article is a turning point
The issue before us is the failed policy of prohibition even if the Constitution were not at issue. This article says what needs to be said over and over instead of "Marijuana is a dangerous drug." It hit the nail on the head when it hammered the issue of prohibition and put the P-word out there.Now we are getting somewhere.
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on August 30, 2003 at 10:43:48 PT
EJ and The Lepers Too
He was very brave. We must be brave too.
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Comment #6 posted by E_Johnson on August 30, 2003 at 10:41:31 PT
Walters is casting stones
I guess what it boils down to is -- we are the victims of a public stoning.Throwing someone in prison for pot is not too far off from stoning a woman to death for adultery. Being in prison is like dying, because in many ways, your life is over.
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on August 30, 2003 at 10:36:21 PT
I've been thinking about the Nazarene lately
That guy from Nazareth had a lot of guts. I was thinking about the incident in the Gospels where Jesus intervened in a woman being stoned to death by her community for adultery.That was a risky situation, to say the least. Stonings are organized so that intervention is not possible. They all gather in a tight circle around the victim, who is typically bound in a sack or buried in the ground, with only her head showing. There's no way to intervene without becoming a target yourself. The victim can't run away with her rescuer. It's all set up to prevent intervention. People who do these things want them to get done.It took a lot guts to try to stop a public stoning. The story of Christianity could have ended right there.I read that the people of Galilee at that time were very violent. It was like Serbia or Afghanistan, where the clan rivalries involve blood vendettas that go back through centuries of armed feuding.If that's so, then Jesus had even more guts than we can imagine, to be preaching peace in Galilee.
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Comment #4 posted by The GCW on August 30, 2003 at 10:23:30 PT
Christ God Our Father 
summed up the commandments, in saying LOVE YOUR BROTHER.You can not love Your brother and cage Him for using a plant, at the same time.You can not love Your brother and kill him, either.But then that stone 10 Commandment thing is nothing. Christ God Our Father does not so much represent the past as He represents the future.There are reasons to, LOVE YOUR BROTHER.When We believe in Him and love Our brother We get something We are not allowed to have if We do not love Our brother. When We obey, We have access to the spirit of truth. The spirit of truth, helps Us know all things.With out the spirit of truth, You might as well be another John Walters, running around rebelling the request of Christ.Biblically, John Walters, must be pissing off Christ God Our Father, for His actions are wicked on every Biblical facet.Caging humans for using a plant, does not now nor ever will, please Christ God Our Father.John Walters is a Biblical disappointment, not just to Me, but to the Ecologician who created and gave Us all the plants on the very 1st page of the Bible and said they were good.Don't believe Me? Just go ask Him Yourself. 
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Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on August 30, 2003 at 10:05:53 PT
I know where the monument should go
They need to take that Ten Commandments monument out of that basement in Alabama and move it to the lobby of the ONDCP where all of those professional liars and bullies can see for themselves that God Himself said THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS.And God did not include a footnote with an exception for the Drug Czar.If they inspect the Ten Commandments closely, they will find that nowhere did God see fit to tell the followers of Moses anything whatsoever about getting high.
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Comment #2 posted by The GCW on August 30, 2003 at 09:52:08 PT
lying, murderous, thieving, uncompassionate feds 
While lying, murderous, thieving, uncompassionate feds insist cannabis is bad, the spirit of truth says cannabis is a superplant. Who are you going to believe? Ignorant cannabis prohibitionists should get a clue, and allow progress and peace on earth. Civilized society must re-legalize cannabis because caging humans for using a plant is sick and is contributing to overuse of the incarceration system. Without those wicked qualities: lying, murderous, thieving, uncompassionate etc. there could be no practice of caging humans for using a plant.
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Comment #1 posted by i420 on August 30, 2003 at 08:50:10 PT
Lies, Misinformation, and the Bush Administration
Walters concludes that "by confronting this issue openly and honestly, we can achieve real results." Lacking the intellectual honesty to admit that the alleged cure is worse than the disease, drug warriors' results are rising abuse rates, loss of Americans' freedoms, and the largest per-capita prison population in the world. Honesty??? What a joke. Somebody give the man a bar of soap.
Open wide for mommy.
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