Posted on 09/15/2002 8:38:29 AM PDT by JediGirl
Early in the morning of Sept. 5, dozens of armed men stormed a respected medical facility where nearly 300 people desperately ill from cancer, AIDS and other illnesses got their medicine. Brandishing semiautomatic weapons in the faces of terrified patients, including a woman paralyzed from childhood polio, they destroyed all of the medicine and took prisoner the facility's operators.
The work of Osama bin Laden? Hamas? Some other international terrorists?
No. This particular terrorist raid was carried out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The facility they attacked was the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana ( WAMM ) in Santa Cruz, Calif. A co-op run entirely by and for seriously ill people - 80 percent of whom have terminal diagnoses - WAMM sold nothing. All of the medical marijuana grown was given to members without charge.
The facility was supported by the community and worked closely with local officials. According to County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt, WAMM operated in an "exemplary" fashion. After the raid - which had been planned and executed with no warning to the local government - Wormhoudt told reporters she was "appalled" by the DEA's action.
The patients WAMM served are desperately ill. For many with AIDS or cancer, marijuana is the only thing that allows them to tolerate the horrendous side effects of the harsh treatments that keep them alive. Others endure excruciating pain that conventional medicines have failed to relieve, but which marijuana helps.
Because of this raid, many of these people will die prematurely - agonizing, horrible deaths - because the only medicine that helped them has been taken away.
What could possibly motivate such cruelty?
Desperation.
All around the world, governments and scientific experts are coming to believe that marijuana shouldn't be illegal - that it is simply not dangerous enough to warrant arresting and jailing even social or recreational users, much less people using it to relieve symptoms of cancer or AIDS. The British government has already moved to make marijuana possession a nonarrestable offense.
On Sept. 4, Canada's Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs released the most exhaustive investigation of marijuana data and policy options ever conducted by any government. The 650-page report declared that criminalizing marijuana amounted to "throwing taxpayers' money down the drain in a crusade that is not warranted by the danger posed by the substance."
But marijuana - which accounts for the vast majority of illegal drug use and arrests - is the engine that drives the war on drugs and keeps massive drug-control budgets pumped up.
So even as DEA agents were shoving machine guns in the faces of sick people, White House drug czar John Walters and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson stood in front of a Washington, D.C., press conference, spouting long-discredited myths as if they were proven facts.
Marijuana, said Thompson, is "a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of all its users" - a statement contradicted by reams of scientific research.
Indeed, in 1995, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet stated flatly, "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health." This year, the British government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the Canadian Senate committee came to similar conclusions after extensive study.
But our government's drug war ideologues don't care about science. And they don't care how many sick people they literally torture to death in their desperate effort to pump up a collapsing policy.
You catch on quick, Sparky...
Yet failed to list ONE that had been imprisoned for smoking pot.
Are you thick - or what?
And, to ask for the names of people imprisoned for "smoking pot" is to ask for the names of people imprisoned for simple possession. There's no other way in which one can answer that question legitimately. In other words, this guy is in prison only because pot is illegal, and for no other reason.
Just for the hell of it, though, here's another name: Gary Batcheller serving a prison sentence of two years for simple possession of marijuana with no associated offense.
Yeah, yeah. I've yet to name even one imprisoned for smoking pot, blah blah blah, whatever. Save it for someone who gives a damn about what the definition of "is" is....
It's amazing how many $#!# heads ignore the fact that it is the war on drugs that destroyed Columbia...
Coffee is legal... do people in Columbia die at that hands of coffee cartels? Duh!
Are you describing pot? (Hang in there, Bubbaloo. Your answers will be used to sink other Liberteens...)
Even the biggest nitwit could've figured that one out...
Marijuana is considered in the "dirty testing". He cannot get a job. Most major Stores, like Home Depot, Lowes, Target, etc., who might have hired him even to do the heavy lifting off of some truck, won't touch him...it's against the company rules.
He's been in drug Rehab at least three times (a joke) and still can't stay away from the stuff...he's 22.
If he fails to come in on the day they call him up for testing, it counts as the same thing as testing "dirty". Then he goes before the Judge, and the judge decides what to do with him.
He's just another Pot Head...sad.
sw
Only difference is, I've never known of someone lighting up with Mr. Joe Camel getting "high".
Weed does make a person "high" doesn't it? So it's about the same as being drunk? Under the influence, to say the least.
I mean it when I say..What you do with your own body is YOUR choice. If I had to do it all over again, I never would have taken that first "drag" on a Kool. Others, would have never taken that first drink.
But you, girl, are young, and you are still at the stage in your life where you feel your body won't betray you...but it will, eventually.
I understand.
sw
My age is another thing. I've seen what the excesses of drinking, smoking, eating wrong, etc., have done to myself and others. Like you, I took responsibility for it myself...bad choices.
It's never too late to get "healthy", in fact, it presents a whole new challenge.
You have to understand, JD...I see you on a mission in life to legalize pot, which as we all know, is easy to obtain anyway. It's another habit I don't need, but it should stop the illegal drug flow across our borders and make money for the government. (I am not an advocate, just saying it's probably time they did).
It's seems such a waste of a good mind and ambition to throw yourself into this goal, when your persistance and talents could be used elsewhere.
Be well...sw
Ah some EC fans.
Insert "Drooling the drink, the lipstick and greasepaint" before "Down the cardboard front ..."
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