"Canada is exporting to us the crack of marijuana." --JOHN WALTERS, White House drug czar

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2004 Time, Inc. ^ | August 23, 2004 | Anita Hamilton

[robertpaulsen]

"Heroin addiction rose 50% from 1992-1999."

Yep. Usage went from .04% to .06%. Currently it's about .1%.

I believe I read that the increase is due to the fact that heroin is now so pure it may be snorted rather than injected.

Why are you bringing heroin into this thread? What's next, abortion? Gun control?

[robertpaulsen]

"Is God a "scumbag", sweetiepie?"

Are you saying that God is a drug dealer, selling recreational drugs to children? A new low, William.

"The vast majority are there for cannabis."

"Nearly 40,000 Americans are presently incarcerated in state and federal correctional facilities for marijuana violations. Of these, 28,650 marijuana offenders are state inmates, and 10,538 are federal prisoners. In all, marijuana prisoners compose 14 percent of all state and federal drug inmates."

Get your facts straight.

"Again, if cannabis were to vanish from the Schedule, and all cannabis related activities, including in foreign countries, were to cease, the DEA would effectively lose the greater part of it budget and the greatest part of it's power."

"Marijuana prohibition continues to fuel the federal drug war. Nearly one-third of all federal drug referrals were for marijuana offenses, compared to 28% for powder cocaine, 15% for crack cocaine, 15% for methamphetamine, and a surprisingly low 7% for all opiates."

They'd lose, at most, one-third. But, if marijuana were legal, how much would their role increase to prevent marijuana exports from the U.S.?

[R. Scott]

If we can drug test transportation workers coast to coast because of safety concerns why can't public school students/teachers be tested for health and safety in education/work place??

I would change the statement -
If we can drug test transportation workers coast to coast because of safety concerns why can't public school students/teachers be tested for health and safety in education/work place??
If we can drug test transportation workers coast to coast because of safety concerns why can't public officials and our elected representatives be tested for health and safety in education/work place??

[Ken H]

[Heroin] Usage went from .04% to .06%. Currently it's about .1%

IOW, it's getting worse.

Why are you bringing heroin into this thread?

I meant to ask you the same after your post #34:

Would that also increase the use of hard drugs? I would think so, especially since the gangs are now focused on nothing but.

[Ken H]

Usage went from .04% to .06%. Currently it's about .1%

Actually, the USDOJ puts the addiction rate at about 0.34%:

There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992.

-- www.usdoj/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm

[Ken H]

Link should be: http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm

[Free and Armed]

Ah, the "crack of marijuana". I'm no hippie, but that sounds like good stuff.

[TigersEye]

Talk about outrageous hyperbole. Whiskey is stronger than beer. Duh. Alcohol is alcohol it's just a matter of concentration. No difference in the drug itself. Same here.

Sports cars are the crack of automobiles. /braindead propaganda

[TigersEye]

Somehow every 'marijuana' thread ends up discussing heroin. Reminds me of the favorite tourist question at the Chamber of Commerce in my old Rocky Mtn. hometown. "When do the deer turn into elk?"

[William Terrell]

Are you saying that God is a drug dealer, selling recreational drugs to children? A new low, William.

Good attempt at a dodge, but no cigar. You called people in federal prison "scumbags" because they provided others with cannabis. God provided cannabis for all mankind.

So, I ask again, are you calling God a "scumbag"?

"Nearly 40,000 Americans are presently incarcerated in state and federal correctional facilities for marijuana violations. Of these, 28,650 marijuana offenders are state inmates, and 10,538 are federal prisoners. In all, marijuana prisoners compose 14 percent of all state and federal drug inmates."

Get your facts straight.

Why yes, very good. But there are 50 states, and 1 federal. That cite is 14%, combined. If you look at 5 different places on the web you find 5 different sets of numbers.

My logic is that, there being about 60% of prisoners in federal prisons for drugs, the mode and method of cannabis trafficking being in packaging larger and more easily discoverable than the small packaging of other Scheduled substances (not to mention that cannabis emits odors of burning rope and other substances don't have a obvious smell), the fact that, while a future federal inmate may be charged with possession of these other substances, a large, if not the largest, part were caught using cannabis is the initial cause. While they may be in the prison on a conviction for other offenses, they are really there for the use of cannabis.

This goes to my original position that you unSchedule cannabis, the DEA is a goner.

Also, Bureau of Justice Statistics, which I assume NORML is citing, did not count a number of populations for their estimates, like those fed prisoners in state and local jails and holding facilities and convicted but unsentenced prisoners, which, at the current level of the drug war will be large at any one time.

Statistical analyzes always use the most surface data, the cost being high for even the thinest surface skim and the cost of any kind of deeper relationship prohibitive.

I maintain that my "facts" are much closer to reality than their "facts".

They'd lose, at most, one-third. But, if marijuana were legal, how much would their role increase to prevent marijuana exports from the U.S.?

Well, on the negative side of my position, there will always be factions that have the greatest contempt for the innate wisdom of the "common man" and will express it by trying to save him from himself, by force. So, indeed, there may always be some form of DEA.

But there will always be some form of the flu, too.

My analysis of the situation is that while the DEA is concerned with cocaine, many opium derivatives, and other exotic drugs, it's public perception of power is based on cannabis.

It's bricks may be hard drugs and chemical cocktails, but cannabis is the mortar that holds the entire unwieldy mass together both legally, publicly and politically, but the bricks are tiny and the mortar courses thick.

You have to remember that whether a person deals in smoking opium or heroin, methamphedemines or PCP, he will smoke cannabis just like he will most probably drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes.

[robertpaulsen]

"I maintain that my "facts" are much closer to reality than their "facts"."

There are 77,000 in federal prison on drug charges. 10,538 of those are for marijuana. That works out to about 14%.

14% is not a "vast majority".

[William Terrell]

And I explained the reasoning that once cannabis is off the Echedule, the Dea will cease to exist as such, other than a repository for those who want to save people from themselves.

[robertpaulsen]

"... once cannabis is off the Echedule, the Dea will cease to exist as such ..."

I disagree. IF cannabis were legal, the DEA would be confined to hard drugs -- that mission would have the support of 99% of the American public, yes? It would certainly have your support, wouldn't it?

So no, theDEA would not go away. Actually, as I said before, I think it would grow -- and for a good logical reason.

[Not A Snowbird]

She was a wonderful young girl," says her principal, Dan Newell.

Wonderful young girls don't run drugs.