Posted on 07/25/2004 1:12:55 AM PDT by MadIvan
New super-strength marijuana readily available on US streets is prompting the White House to change direction in its war against drugs.
Research from the government-sponsored Marijuana Potency Project claims today's cannabis is more than twice as strong as in the mid-Eighties, leading to greater health risks for those smoking it at increasingly younger ages.
Now President George Bush, who had already promised a more aggressive campaign against substance abuse, has ordered that resources be allocated to fighting so-called 'soft' drugs instead of concentrating on harder forms, such as heroin and cocaine.
'We are working hard on education, but unfortunately a lot of today's parents are under the impression marijuana is harmless and that their kids trying it is some kind of rite of passage,' said Jennifer de Vallance, of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
'They might have had experience in their own teenage years with no problems, but this is not the same marijuana as in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. Today's forms are much stronger and potentially more harmful, especially to young people whose brains are not fully developed and are therefore more susceptible to adverse reactions.'
The Marijuana Potency Project, at the University of Mississippi, analysed more than 30,000 samples seized over the past 18 years by the authorities. It found that the average level of the active ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), jumped from 3.5 per cent in 1985 to more than 7 per cent in 2003.
Of more concern to the analysts is that the upward trend appears to be continuing. The average potency of 20 marijuana samples seized and tested so far this year exceeds 9 per cent, with a peak of 27 per cent in one batch from a state in the North West.
'Today's marijuana is a much more serious problem than the vast majority of Americans understands,' said John Walters, the government's director of drug control policy who has promised a clampdown on producers.
Those who support the legalisation of cannabis are not convinced. 'Whenever government officials speak about drugs issues, a more detailed examination of the facts is a good idea,' said David Borden, executive director of the Washington-based Drug Reform Coordination Network.
'These projects are always government-funded and, without criticising the researchers, officials take what they want from it and send out their press releases. There has always been a wide range of potencies. It doesn't mean people are getting more intoxicated, because the higher the potency, the less they smoke.'
Figures suggest overall drug use in America's high schools has fallen by 11 per cent in two years but the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse reports the number of children and teenagers receiving treatment for marijuana abuse jumped 142 per cent over the last decade, and that emergency hospital admissions of 12 to 17-year-olds in which marijuana was implicated rose 48 per cent in four years.
Borden acknowledges children must be steered away from drugs, but says: 'Their anti-drugs efforts have had a paradoxical effect in promoting the underground cultivation of marijuana. The number of users makes it an appealing target and there is no limit to the number of arrests that can be made, and the government uses those numbers to scare the public into thinking there is some big problem.
'All the government has been able to do is encourage people to experiment with stronger drugs than they would have before.'
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The War on Drugs is a price support system for terrorists and drug pushers. It turns ordinary, cheap plants like marijuana and poppies into fantastically lucrative black market products. Without the War on Drugs, the financial engine that fuels terrorist organizations would sputter to a halt.
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What an ass. He needs to learn some history. Britain just about destroyed the Chinese empire by supplying them with all the Opium they could want.
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It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself
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Only an ignorant ass would think that drug use affects only the user.
You sound like an expert on the subject.
Why don't you enlighten us with your wisdom?
Maybe you should try debating the facts instead of name calling.
Just a suggestion.
Rediculous distortion. I have made many posts on this thread starting 7/30 before posting to you today. Besdes, it wasn't slander, it was a correction to your math.
Nope, sorry. The paragraph under the Bush quote does not include the word "medical". Like it matters. Bush STILL said that states should have the right to choose how they deal with this "problem", even if he meant only in the medical realm.
Is Insight magazine a Soros-funded entity?
Where can I get a copy of this ultimate pro-drug legalization agenda? Somehow, I don't think the U.N. has it.
Hey, you DID know you and the U.N. see eye-to-eye on the drug issue, didn't you? Wow... I could never agree with the U.N. on anything. Hmm.
I wonder. If pot were legal back then, would you have "pulled your head out of your a$$" and stopped smoking pot when you did?
Google Soros.
Well, the solution there is to get rid of welfare.
Seriously, though, if you trade the word "joints" with the word "crack", it would make more sense. Everyone I've ever met that smoked joints, held down jobs and never took a dime off the dole. You must've found some extreme examples
of "dopeheads".
BTW, your phrase "how dopeheads only do it to themselves" reminds me of another famous phrase: "It takes a village".
Same kind of thinking: We cannot survive without big government guiding us every step of the way, and bitch-slapping us if we get out of line.
What about the idiots who think electing Kerry will automatically seal the border?
So, it IS the responsibility of the government and the legal system to protect a citizen from himself?
Did you have to take special gubmint upgrading courses to become this ignorant, or are you just naturally gifted?
Take your time answering.
Sorry, too busy. I have to log off now. Got a pile of checks from Soros to cash. He sends me one everytime I say that the War on Drugs is flawed.
Then, Wayne Newton and Yoko Ono invite me over and we plot world domination. We sip human blood from goat skulls, smoke alien drugs, and then it's off to the Virgin Room for some boinkin' and sacrifices.
The media conceal the fact that the state-by-state push for "medical marijuana" is merely the first step in the agenda to legalize all dangerous drugs. The media are helping this when instead they should insist that George Soros and those he bankrolls put their money into filing an application with the FDA and proving that their so-called medicine is effective for a specific medical use and is safe. Soros and the media are quacks pushing bad medicine.
www.aim.org
Is that your drug legalization argument?
Drug enforcement team? Porcine pieces of $hit. Bullies and brownshirts. You spend a day without your head up your a$$, then come talk to me, hole.
It's up to the feds to ALLOW that research to happen, and they're tight-assed about it. The FDA doesn't WANT it to happen, because it might lead to results that aren't in lock-step with the mantra of "marijuana is pure evil".
I'm no fan of Soros; I think we should be more concerned about his attempts to manipulate the markets.
BTW, is everyone who dares to blaspheme the gospel of the War on Drugs, funded by Soros?
Posting Guideline:
Don't jump threads - If you get involved in an argument in one thread, it's considered poor manners to restart the previous argument in the middle of an unrelated thread.
That's exactly why you should be concerned by this drug legalization agenda by Soros. It is his first step toward turning the US into a UN patsy with a national police force and total gun control.
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