cannabisnews.com: An End To Marijuana Prohibition





An End To Marijuana Prohibition
Posted by CN Staff on October 01, 2004 at 10:21:57 PT
By Ethan A Nadelmann
Source: Anchorage Press 
Never before have so many Americans supported decriminalizing and even legalizing marijuana. Seventy-two percent say that for simple marijuana possession, people should not be incarcerated but fined: the generally accepted definition of “decriminalization.” Even more Americans support making marijuana legal for medical purposes. Support for broader legalization ranges between 25 and 42 percent, depending on how one asks the question. Two of every five Americans - according to a 2003 Zogby poll - say “the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and only make it illegal for children.”
Close to 100 million Americans - including more than half of those between the ages of 18 and 50 - have tried marijuana at least once. Military and police recruiters often have no choice but to ignore past marijuana use by job seekers. The public apparently feels the same way about presidential and other political candidates. Al Gore, Bill Bradley and John Kerry all say they smoked pot in days past. So did Bill Clinton, with his notorious caveat. George W. Bush won't deny he did. And ever more political, business, religious, intellectual and other leaders plead guilty as well. The debate over ending marijuana prohibition simmers just below the surface of mainstream politics, crossing ideological and partisan boundaries. Marijuana is no longer the symbol of Sixties rebellion and Seventies permissiveness, and it's not just liberals and libertarians who say it should be legal, as William F. Buckley Jr. has demonstrated better than anyone.As director of the country's leading drug-policy-reform organization, I've had countless conversations with police and prosecutors, judges and politicians, and hundreds of others who quietly agree that the criminalization of marijuana is costly, foolish and destructive. What's most needed now is principled conservative leadership. Buckley has led the way, and New Mexico's former governor, Gary Johnson, spoke out courageously while in office. How about others?Marijuana prohibition is unique among American criminal laws. No other law is both enforced so widely and harshly and yet deemed unnecessary by such a substantial portion of the populace. Police make about 700,000 arrests per year for marijuana offenses. That's almost the same number as are arrested each year for cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, Ecstasy, and all other illicit drugs combined. Roughly 600,000, or 87 percent, of marijuana arrests are for nothing more than possession of small amounts. Millions of Americans have never been arrested or convicted of any criminal offense except this. Enforcing marijuana laws costs an estimated $10-15 billion in direct costs alone.Punishments range widely across the country, from modest fines to a few days in jail to many years in prison. Prosecutors often contend that no one goes to prison for simple possession - but tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people on probation and parole are locked up each year because their urine tested positive for marijuana or because they were picked up in possession of a joint. Alabama currently locks up people convicted three times of marijuana possession for 15 years to life. There are probably - no firm estimates - 100,000 Americans behind bars tonight for one marijuana offense or another. And even for those who don't lose their freedom, simply being arrested can be traumatic and costly. A parent's marijuana use can be the basis for taking away her children and putting them in foster care.Foreign-born residents of the U.S. can be deported for a marijuana offense no matter how long they have lived in this country, no matter if their children are U.S. citizens, and no matter how long they have been legally employed. More than half the states revoke or suspend driver's licenses of people arrested for marijuana possession even though they were not driving at the time of arrest. The federal Higher Education Act prohibits student loans to young people convicted of any drug offense; all other criminal offenders remain eligible.This is clearly an overreaction on the part of government. No drug is perfectly safe, and every psychoactive drug can be used in ways that are problematic. The federal government has spent billions of dollars on advertisements and anti-drug programs that preach the dangers of marijuana - that it's a gateway drug, and addictive in its own right, and dramatically more potent than it used to be, and responsible for all sorts of physical and social diseases as well as international terrorism. But the government has yet to repudiate the 1988 finding of the Drug Enforcement Administration's own administrative law judge, Francis Young, who concluded after extensive testimony that “marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”Is marijuana a gateway drug? Yes, insofar as most Americans try marijuana before they try other illicit drugs. But no, insofar as the vast majority of Americans who have tried marijuana have never gone on to try other illegal drugs, much less get in trouble with them, and most have never even gone on to become regular or problem marijuana users. Trying to reduce heroin addiction by preventing marijuana use, it's been said, is like trying to reduce motorcycle fatalities by cracking down on bicycle riding. If marijuana did not exist, there's little reason to believe that there would be less drug abuse in the U.S.; indeed, its role would most likely be filled by a more dangerous substance.Is marijuana dramatically more potent today? There's certainly a greater variety of high-quality marijuana available today than 30 years ago. But anyone who smoked marijuana in the 1970s and 1980s can recall smoking pot that was just as strong as anything available today. What's more, one needs to take only a few puffs of higher-potency pot to get the desired effect, so there's less wear and tear on the lungs.Is marijuana addictive? Yes, it can be, in that some people use it to excess, in ways that are problematic for themselves and those around them, and find it hard to stop. But marijuana may well be the least addictive and least damaging of all commonly used psychoactive drugs, including many that are now legal. Most people who smoke marijuana never become dependent. Withdrawal symptoms pale compared with those from other drugs. No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose, which cannot be said of most other drugs. Marijuana is not associated with violent behavior and only minimally with reckless sexual behavior. And even heavy marijuana smokers smoke only a fraction of what cigarette addicts smoke. Lung cancers involving only marijuana are rare.The government's most recent claim is that marijuana abuse accounts for more people entering treatment than any other illegal drug. That shouldn't be surprising, given that tens of millions of Americans smoke marijuana while only a few million use all other illicit drugs. But the claim is spurious nonetheless. Few Americans who enter “treatment” for marijuana are addicted. Fewer than one in five people entering drug treatment for marijuana do so voluntarily. More than half were referred by the criminal-justice system. They go because they got caught with a joint or failed a drug test at school or work (typically for having smoked marijuana days ago, not for being impaired), or because they were caught by a law-enforcement officer - and attending a marijuana “treatment” program is what's required to avoid expulsion, dismissal, or incarceration. Many traditional drug-treatment programs shamelessly participate in this charade to preserve a profitable and captive client stream.Even those who recoil at the “nanny state” telling adults what they can or cannot sell to one another often make an exception when it comes to marijuana - to “protect the kids.” This is a bad joke, as any teenager will attest. The criminalization of marijuana for adults has not prevented young people from having better access to marijuana than anyone else. Even as marijuana's popularity has waxed and waned since the 1970s, one statistic has remained constant: More than 80 percent of high-school students report it's easy to get. Meanwhile, the government's exaggerations and outright dishonesty easily backfire. For every teen who refrains from trying marijuana because it's illegal (for adults), another is tempted by its status as “forbidden fruit.” Many respond to the lies about marijuana by disbelieving warnings about more dangerous drugs. So much for protecting the kids by criminalizing the adults.The debate over medical marijuana obviously colors the broader debate over marijuana prohibition. Marijuana's medical efficacy is no longer in serious dispute. Its use as a medicine dates back thousands of years. Pharmaceutical products containing marijuana's central ingredient, THC, are legally sold in the U.S., and more are emerging. Some people find the pill form satisfactory, and others consume it in teas or baked products. Most find smoking the easiest and most effective way to consume this unusual medicine, but non-smoking consumption methods, notably vaporizers, are emerging.Federal law still prohibits medical marijuana. But every state ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana has been approved, often by wide margins - in California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Maine, and Washington, D.C. State legislatures in Vermont, Hawaii, and Maryland have followed suit, and many others are now considering their own medical marijuana bills - including New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Illinois. Support is often bipartisan, with Republican governors like Gary Johnson and Maryland's Bob Ehrlich taking the lead. In New York's 2002 gubernatorial campaign, the conservative candidate of the Independence party, Tom Golisano, surprised everyone by campaigning heavily on this issue. The medical-marijuana bill now before the New York legislature is backed not just by leading Republicans but even by some Conservative party leaders.The political battleground increasingly pits the White House - first under Clinton and now Bush - against everyone else. Majorities in virtually every state in the country would vote, if given the chance, to legalize medical marijuana. Even Congress is beginning to turn; last summer about two-thirds of House Democrats and a dozen Republicans voted in favor of an amendment co-sponsored by Republican Dana Rohrabacher to prohibit federal funding of any Justice Department crackdowns on medical marijuana in the states that had legalized it. (Many more Republicans privately expressed support, but were directed to vote against.) And federal courts have imposed limits on federal aggression: first in Conant v. Walters, which now protects the First Amendment rights of doctors and patients to discuss medical marijuana, and more recently in Raich v. Ashcroft and Santa Cruz v. Ashcroft, which determined that the federal government's power to regulate interstate commerce does not provide a basis for prohibiting medical-marijuana operations that are entirely local and non-commercial. (The Supreme Court let the Conant decision stand, but has yet to consider the others.)State and local governments are increasingly involved in trying to regulate medical marijuana, notwithstanding the federal prohibition. California, Oregon, Hawaii, Alaska, Colorado and Nevada have created confidential medical-marijuana patient registries, which protect bona fide patients and caregivers from arrest or prosecution. Some municipal governments are now trying to figure out how to regulate production and distribution.In California, where dozens of medical-marijuana programs now operate openly, with tacit approval by local authorities, some program directors are asking to be licensed and regulated. Many state and local authorities, including law enforcement, favor this but are intimidated by federal threats to arrest and prosecute them for violating federal law.The drug czar and DEA spokespersons recite the mantra that “there is no such thing as medical marijuana,” but the claim is so specious on its face that it clearly undermines federal credibility. The federal government currently provides marijuana - from its own production site in Mississippi - to a few patients who years ago were recognized by the courts as bona fide patients. No one wants to debate those who have used marijuana for medical purposes, be it Santa Cruz medical-marijuana hospice founder Valerie Corral or National Review's Richard Brookhiser. Even many federal officials quietly regret the assault on medical marijuana. When the DEA raided Corral's hospice in September 2002, one agent was heard to say, “Maybe I'm going to think about getting another job sometime soon.”The bigger battle, of course, concerns whether marijuana prohibition will ultimately go the way of alcohol Prohibition, replaced by a variety of state and local tax and regulatory policies with modest federal involvement. Dedicated prohibitionists see medical marijuana as the first step down a slippery slope to full legalization. The voters who approved the medical-marijuana ballot initiatives (as well as the wealthy men who helped fund the campaigns) were roughly divided between those who support broader legalization and those who don't, but united in seeing the criminalization and persecution of medical-marijuana patients as the most distasteful aspect of the war on marijuana. (This was a point that Buckley made forcefully in his columns about the plight of Peter McWilliams, who likely died because federal authorities effectively forbade him to use marijuana as medicine.)The medical-marijuana effort has probably aided the broader anti-prohibitionist campaign in three ways. It helped transform the face of marijuana in the media, from the stereotypical rebel with long hair and tie-dyed shirt to an ordinary middle-aged American struggling with MS or cancer or AIDS. By winning first Proposition 215, the 1996 medical-marijuana ballot initiative in California, and then a string of similar victories in other states, the nascent drug-policy-reform movement demonstrated that it could win in the big leagues of American politics. And the emergence of successful models of medical-marijuana control is likely to boost public confidence in the possibilities and virtue of regulating nonmedical use as well.In this regard, the history of Dutch policy on cannabis (i.e., marijuana and hashish) is instructive. The “coffee shop” model in the Netherlands, where retail (but not wholesale) sale of cannabis is de facto legal, was not legislated into existence. It evolved in fits and starts following the decriminalization of cannabis by Parliament in 1976, as consumers, growers and entrepreneurs negotiated and collaborated with local police, prosecutors and other authorities to find an acceptable middle ground policy. “Coffee shops” now operate throughout the country, subject to local regulations. Troublesome shops are shut down, and most are well integrated into local city cultures. Cannabis is no more popular than in the U.S. and other Western countries, notwithstanding the effective absence of criminal sanctions and controls. Parallel developments are now underway in other countries.Like the Dutch decriminalization law in 1976, California's Prop 215 in 1996 initiated a dialogue over how best to implement the new law. The variety of outlets that have emerged - ranging from pharmacy-like stores to medical “coffee shops” to hospices, all of which provide marijuana only to people with a patient ID card or doctor's recommendation - play a key role as the most public symbol and manifestation of this dialogue. More such outlets will likely pop up around the country as other states legalize marijuana for medical purposes and then seek ways to regulate distribution and access. And the question will inevitably arise: If the emerging system is successful in controlling production and distribution of marijuana for those with a medical need, can it not also expand to provide for those without medical need?Millions of Americans use marijuana not just “for fun” but because they find it useful for many of the same reasons that people drink alcohol or take pharmaceutical drugs. It's akin to the beer, glass of wine, or cocktail at the end of the workday, or the prescribed drug to alleviate depression or anxiety, or the sleeping pill, or the aid to sexual function and pleasure.More and more Americans are apt to describe some or all of their marijuana use as “medical” as the definition of that term evolves and broadens. Their anecdotal experiences are increasingly backed by new scientific research into marijuana's essential ingredients, the cannabinoids. Last year, a subsidiary of The Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal, speculated whether marijuana might soon emerge as the “aspirin of the 21st century,” providing a wide array of medical benefits at low cost to diverse populations.Perhaps the expansion of the medical-control model provides the best answer - at least in the U.S. - to the question of how best to reduce the substantial costs and harms of marijuana prohibition without inviting significant increases in real drug abuse. It's analogous to the evolution of many pharmaceutical drugs from prescription to over-the-counter, but with stricter controls still in place. It's also an incrementalist approach to reform that can provide both the control and the reassurance that cautious politicians and voters desire.In 1931, with public support for alcohol Prohibition rapidly waning, President Hoover released the report of the Wickersham Commission. The report included a devastating critique of Prohibition's failures and costly consequences, but the commissioners, apparently fearful of getting out too far ahead of public opinion, opposed repeal. Franklin P. Adams of the New York World neatly summed up their findings:Prohibition is an awful flop.We like it.It can't stop what it's meant to stop.We like it.It's left a trail of graft and slimeIt don't prohibit worth a dimeIt's filled our land with vice and crime,Nevertheless, we're for it.Two years later, federal alcohol Prohibition was history.What support there is for marijuana prohibition would likely end quickly absent the billions of dollars spent annually by federal and other governments to prop it up. All those anti-marijuana ads pretend to be about reducing drug abuse, but in fact, their basic purpose is sustaining popular support for the war on marijuana. What's needed now are conservative politicians willing to say enough is enough: Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain each year. People losing their jobs, their property and their freedom for nothing more than possessing a joint or growing a few marijuana plants. And all for what? To send a message? To keep pretending that we're protecting our children? Alcohol Prohibition made a lot more sense than marijuana prohibition does today - and it, too, was a disaster. Note: The drive to legalize picks up.Ethan A. Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. This article first appeared in National Review on July 12.Source: Anchorage Press (AK)Author: Ethan A. NadelmannPublished: Vol. 13, Ed. 39 September 30 - October 6 2004Copyright: 2004 Anchorage Publishing, Inc.Contact: info anchoragepress.comWebsite: http://www.anchoragepress.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Drug Policy Alliancehttp://www.drugpolicy.org/Alaska H.E.M.P.http://alaskahemp.org/If The Voters Plant It, Will It Grow?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19580.shtmlCourt Chooses Privacy Over Pothttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19488.shtmlAn End To Marijuana Prohibition http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19112.shtmlAlaskans to Vote on Pot Legalization in '04 http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18067.shtml
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Comment #13 posted by rchandar on October 15, 2004 at 21:47:28 PT:
afterburner
yeah--how many kids were separated from their parents because of this sick injustice? how many tears must we shed, in a land that calls itself free? how many innocent people must be hurt or murdered, in the pursuit of "justice"?but they don't listen. it's no wonder that most americans have "tuned out" to what politicians--and government--says to them, literally orders them to believe.--rchandar
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Comment #12 posted by afterburner on October 02, 2004 at 12:06:09 PT
keep pretending that we're protecting our children
as they are taken away from their parents, or as their parents are taken away from them to be caged like animals for a plant. As the children ignore the government propaganda, based on their own experience with cannabis, and finding no harm, no foul, then some foolishly ignore the government warnings about truly dangerous and addictive drugs. As we encourage children to develop a prejudice against cannabis patients and tokers eventhough we allow advertising of truly dangerous pharmaceuticals (like Vioxx: Vioxx woes put FDA process under scrutiny - Seattle Post Intelligencer - 1 hour ago http://tinyurl.com/6lghw ; London firm files lawsuit over Vioxx - London Free Press - 12 hours ago http://tinyurl.com/6nanu ), tobacco and alcohol.
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Comment #11 posted by Hope on October 02, 2004 at 11:07:36 PT
My gosh!
I'm out of something to say.Bet you guys are glad!
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Comment #10 posted by Hope on October 02, 2004 at 11:04:41 PT
Rabble Rousers
I'm roused. I'm in tune. I'm aligned with the "rabble".We need the silent among us, we need the gentle and tolerant, we need the intellectuals and we need the scientists. We need a few intelligent rabble rousers, too.Especially this one. He's our old friend and he's hurting and he's mad.
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on October 02, 2004 at 10:58:19 PT
Hope
Thank you. I will be glad when this is over and we won't need to even think about voting. It's a real sidetrack and we need to be patient and considerate. At this point everyone knows what's happening and everyone has made up their minds. People read the Internet and know the issues. We are smart people and we don't need to be reminded of what we already know and have been told. 
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Comment #8 posted by Hope on October 02, 2004 at 10:50:00 PT
FoM
Be strong, and resilient, please. It's almost a done deal. Be strong.
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Comment #7 posted by Hope on October 02, 2004 at 10:48:11 PT
FoM
It's still your site. But it is about our issue. You know I love you and you know I know that you are smarter than I am about maintaining this site.
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on October 02, 2004 at 10:45:35 PT
Lehder
Your torch shines bright. Many more will be lit from it.The Democratic party should be made aware of this. There's still time for what you're doing to register.
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on October 02, 2004 at 09:09:05 PT
Lehder 
It's ok if you don't like CNews. I understand that not everyone likes everything. This isn't a web site for politics but cannabis issues. Voting is a private issue and people shouldn't be preached at or made to feel dumb for thinking thru their own thoughts on the elections. It's a real respect issue. 
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Comment #4 posted by Lehder on October 02, 2004 at 09:03:38 PT
whatever
Then removeitif you must. I've left this forum in part because I've been censored too often. I think my strategy could be very effective, but if you prefer a perpetual drug war, that is your right and it is your board. But I think you could let it stand just to see what sort of comments it gets. The drug war is a political issue, but maybe this board has to do only with research into the science of marijuana, or maybe it's only for mourning its victims, not to change the laws.
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on October 02, 2004 at 08:57:30 PT
Lehder
Vote for whoever you want but everyone here knows who they will vote for and why. I'd appreciate it if we don't try to get this topic all stirred up again. Thanks. I said I would remove posts if it gets out of hand and I will. 
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Comment #2 posted by Lehder on October 02, 2004 at 08:53:42 PT
Revolucion!
My voting record, beginning from 92, is going to look this: Clinton ( Pothead ), Browne, Browne, Bush. I'm in a swing state, too. Maybe my one little vote will be the one that really counts. And I guarantee you that my vote WILL be counted, unlike many of yours!Just about every little pissant little town in the country has a Democratic campaign office right now. I plan to stop by a few of them and explain my record and my intended vote this year. Otherwise my Bush vote would be counterproductive. It would be better if I had thought of this a few months ago. I could have started a web page called "Potheads for Bush." I expect that somewhere between a half dozen and a half million Potheads would join with me, and our page could speak to Democrats then as a single powerful voice! But it's not entirely too late for action.Some say that Nader is a spoiler. Maybe so. That's why he's been removed or restricted form the ballot in some states - as a result of Democrats' legal efforts in the expectation that I will then vote for Kerry. Well, that's dirty pool, and I can be a spoiler too. If the Democrats cannot make the drug war an issue that they are willing to discuss - and of all the times we've been through, surely this is the time - then I'm voting against them in the most effective way possible. If they lost an election because their margin of victory in Florida, about 500 counted votes, was insufficient to defeat Bush, then they can lose to him again because of my vote and those of 499 like minded loud mouths. But remember, it's the loud-mouth part that makes the vote worthwhile. At least I know why I'm voting for Bush while so many automatons have not a clue about their own motivations."Anybody but Bush" is the rallying cry of so many Democrats. 
They're talking about Nazis and the destruction of the Bill of Rights, just as we have for decades. They imagine that their troubles began with George Bush and will end with John Kerry, while we know far better that tyranny began with the war on drugs.If the Democrats are worried about George Bush and the Patriot Act and their Bullshit Bill of Rights, if they're worried about goons crashing through their doors, their homes ransacked, their fortunes confiscated and their children carried off to be sold to Christians, then let them consider: for Potheads these grievious insults are all in a day's work, a day in the life as the beat goes on.So if the Dear Leader is now at the doors of Democrats and Potheads alike and wishes to share with them the same Affection with which he has honored us Potheads, then let the Democrats experience his Beneficence as we have. It's nothing we have not long warned them about, and it will make little difference to us. That needs to be emphasized to them, and I'll stop by several Democratic offices to politely but firmly let them know.The Democrats have one chance to win my vote. In the upcoming debate on domestic policy, Kerry must say it: "Relegalize." Otherwise, it's just more of the same. Not even an issue that merits recognition. And this time my man could win. I wonder how that feels?(If you like, you can print this comment - or write a better one - and drop it off at Dem quarters to save time wasted trying to explain things to them. That will also allow them to compare notes, and have a written document from which they can take their talking points. That's how I'll do it. I have, after all, several stops to make! Our time is valuable.)
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Comment #1 posted by Lehder on October 02, 2004 at 07:18:44 PT
Kerry: doper and prosecutor
Don't worry about how John Kerry as president will treat potheads. He's smoked dope himself and understands that you have turned to drugs out of despair. He will offer you treatment and education. No wonder they gave him a fuckin' medal. Q&A with John Kerry at City College of New York.
4/14/2004: NEW YORK, NY: C-SpanSylvia Tyler: (I'm) Sylvia Tyler. I'm a Harlem resident. I'm a member of the Democratic State Committee. I'm a friend of Charlie Rangel.I want to talk about the war on drugs.John Kerry: About What?S.T: The war on drugs. I think that anyone that looks at it would admit that it's been a failure. Would you take a new look at it. A new approach so that it could start being successful. Because it feeds into the prisons. It's devastating to our community in particular. And I we really need to be honest about it. It's a failure. And we need to change the name, change everything. Change the focus.J.K: Let me say it's a wonderful question I...I I was very involved, in the 1970's when I was a prosecutor, in the early stages in what we learned about the drug issue in the United States. In fact I started a drug task force in the district attorney's office. And as a senator I served as chairman of the narcotics and terrorism committee of the foreign relations committee and I did a lot of work there on how with deal with this problem on an international basis.Here is my take on the war on drugs.We have never ever had a real war on drugs in the United States of America. And the reason that we've never had a real one is because we've always left out two of the most critical components of a legitimate war, treatment and education. And as long as treatment and education are the step children of this effort and all you do is incarcerate and interdict we're going to continue to have a major problem. We've changed attitudes in America about smoking. That's an addiction. We've changed attitudes about drinking. That's another addiction. Another narcotic.If we did a better job of intervening and at working at the issue of giving young people a stake in the world around them, You'd reduce a lot of the imperative for drug use. The despair and the other reasons that people turn to drugs in this country.It's a you've got to have an holistic approach, we don't. And I promise that I will restore that kind of full measure approach to the problem of drugs. http://mysite.verizon.net/aahpat/2kerrtake.htm
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