Drug Czar on Anti-Marijuana Crusade

Drug czar John Walters is a busy man these days. Between engineering yet another installment in the Office of National Drug Control Strategy's ( ONDCP ) bizarre series of ads linking marijuana users to terrorism and violence, trotting out a new offensive aimed at curbing teen pot use, trying to put out brush fires in places like California and Nevada, and threatening to disrupt cross-border trade with Canada if marijuana were legalized there, Walters appears to have a full-blown case of marijuana mania.

Beginning this week, TV viewers around the country are being treated to the latest version of the notorious Superbowl "drugs aid terror" commercials, this time targeting marijuana. The text of one ad is as follows: "This is Dan. This is the joint that Dan bought. This is the dealer that sold the joint that Dan bought. This is the smuggler that smuggled the pot to the dealer who sold the joint that Dan bought. This is the cartel that uses the smuggler that smuggled the pot to the dealer who sold the joint that Dan bought. And this is the family that was lined up by Dan's cartel and shot for getting in the way."

A second ad features teen pot-smoker "Stacey," then shows an image of her dealer, then moves up the chain to the person who supplies the dealer. But the final image is of a bed-ridden woman: "This is Carla, who was hit by a stray bullet from Stacey's supplier and paralyzed for life," the voiceover intones ominously.

Walters, who recently had to announce that earlier ONDCP propaganda campaigns had flopped, said this one was different. "These ads are different," he told Good Morning America as part of his media blitz. "We toughened up the behavior not only to look at the harms drugs can do to young people, but using their idealism, their drug buying to things they care about."

But Good Morning America also talked to young people about the ads, and some of their responses cannot be encouraging for Walters. Elisa Roupenian, a college student interviewed on the program, said her friends objected to linking drug use here to violence in other countries. "It made people mad because they pointed the finger at teenagers," she said. "Some people think that if the government didn't create the war against drugs that made such a huge black market, the terrorists and the drug cartels wouldn't be able to make such a tremendous profit," she said.

Nevertheless, expect more such ads to follow. The drug czar has a $1 billion propaganda budget for the next five years.

Walters and Surgeon General Richard Carmona on Tuesday kicked off this new effort with a Washington, DC, press conference and an "open letter" advertisement that began appearing in newspapers around the country this week.

"Did You Know? Marijuana puts kids at risk," the copy reads. "It is the most widely used illicit drug among youth today and is more potent than ever. Marijuana use can lead to a host of significant health, social, learning and behavioral problems at a crucial time in a young person's development. Getting high also impairs judgment, which can wreak havoc on teens in high-pressure social situations, leading to risky decision-making on issues like sex, criminal activity or riding with someone who is driving high. And don't be fooled by popular beliefs. Kids can get hooked on pot. Research shows that marijuana use can lead to addiction. More teens enter treatment for marijuana abuse each year than for all other illicit drugs combined."

"There's a myth that marijuana isn't as dangerous as smoking," asserted Carmona at the press conference. "That's not true. It's dangerous and addictive." Carmona and Walters were able to get 17 national medical, educational, and anti-drug groups to sign onto their letter, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National PTA.

The DC dog and pony show was interrupted, however, when DC Statehood Party candidate Adam Eidinger jumped onstage as Walters spoke. Holding a sign saying "Free Bryan Epis," the California medical marijuana provider scheduled to be sentenced to federal prison next month, Eidinger denounced the prosecution of Epis and the persecution of medical marijuana users, throwing out flyers until he was ejected by Secret Service agents ( http://www.drugwar.com/pczarinterrupted.shtm ).

Walters also announced this week that he plans at least three trips to Nevada to lobby against that state's initiative to remove civil and criminal penalties for the possession of up to three ounces of marijuana.

Aside from accusing the Canadian Senate's panel that recommended legalizing marijuana of being fools, Walters has also blustered about the impact Canadian legalization could have on cross-border trade. Walters called the Canadians "naive" to believe that marijuana has any medical uses. "The claim that marijuana is an efficacious medicine is a lie," he told a Detroit news conference. "It is used by people who want to legalize marijuana, cynically."

In his Detroit appearance Walters warned that the US would take unspecified additional actions at the border if Canada legalized pot. "We will do what is necessary to protect this country," he said.

Throughout the past two weeks Walters has repeatedly made such claims as "marijuana is a dangerous drug," "American drug users contribute to terrorism," that US pot prohibition is based on scientific evidence, and "today more young people are being admitted and presented for treatment of marijuana than for alcohol."

While some academics, activists and drug reformers are attempting a point-by-point rebuttal of Walters' lies, half-truths, and distortions, others are arguing that it is an exercise in futility.

"Walters is a rabid dog and chronic pathological liar," said NORML's Allen St. Pierre. "But the drug reform movement does not have the media access to rebut him line by line, except on the Internet," he told DRCNet. "He is a bullshit factory; to reply in kind would take too long and wouldn't be heard."

That doesn't mean the movement should just lie back and let itself be slandered, St. Pierre said. "We can respond in two ways. First, everyone who thinks this campaign is stupid and a waste of money can get on the phone and tell Congress to cut funding," he suggested. "We can also contact the media that are running these ads and threaten to boycott them. We can write letters saying, 'I saw you run this ad and I will not tolerate it and I will boycott your stations and tell your other advertisers that I'm not seeing their ads because I'm not watching your stations,'" St. Pierre suggested.

For Kevin Zeese of Common Sense for Drug Policy, the anti-pot offensive is a sign that the prohibitionists are running scared. "They know they're losing the education war on marijuana. With a higher percentage of the population having had personal experience with marijuana as the population ages, the public is catching onto the truth," he told DRCNet. "So Walters has to resort to false statements. What they don't want to face up to is the fact that no matter how safe or unsafe a drug is, the sensible policy option in to bring it within the law, regulate it and control it."

The debate about marijuana's safety is irrelevant, Zeese argued. "All of these claims have been refuted before," he said. "We have to focus on the reality that the most sensible policy is legal control."

To: Zon
Our prison system is overburdened with non-violent, pot-smoking "criminals" while the big time dealers never find their way to prison.
You really didn't answer my question. Let me rephrase - where do you find this crap?
87 posted on 9/21/02 6:53 PM Eastern by Libloather

I told you in post #91. I see you're trying to put across the implication that I have already responded to you on this issue. As of your post #87 I have not yet responded to you. I responded in post #91.

Edmund Burke and his theory of positive liberty. His views were one of the reasons that the "Several States" insisted on the Bill of Rights.

Most of the early founders were believers in negative liberty...small decentralized government. Not a huge emcompassing federal behemoth dictating what substances we could or could not ingest.

They would never have concieved of Federal Gulags for citizens that were not of a military nature.

Zon: If you would actually think for a change and click on the link to whom I was responding you would know where I quoted from. 91

Please provide that link one more time. 92

What is your problem!? I'll repost the quote you've been asking about just as I already I did in my post #91 and see if you can find the link.

scholar: Our prison system is overburdened with non-violent, pot-smoking "criminals" while the big time dealers never find their way to prison. 22

Can you find the link yet, or are you still having problems?

Sorry about that Zon. It was scholar who was belching the nonsense. I'll have to take it up with that idiot...93

Considering your pitiful "performance" on just this one incredibly simple issue of who posted what and where the link is, you calling any person an "idiot" further discredits yourself.

Apology not necessary. I suggest you think first! before you post.

Just for the purposes of disclosure, "Dane" is an admitted ex-druggie. So until he turns himself in for the crimes he commited and is jailed or shot (as he would have others who made the same life choices he made), pay no attention to him whatsoever. Except to slap him in the head as you walk by.

Your above itlalicized pargaraph is hyperbole to the extreme, and I thought it could never happen, but you(AAABEST) prove there are all sort of wonders in the world.

Someone who says a bad word about pot should be shot is your credo, IMHO.

Oh BTW, HeavyD on FR said that pot use over many years never caused him any harm, I will bring that quote up as he was defending his "heavy" drug use on a thread defending another and leftist pot head who died before the average age, Carl Sagan.

Man...listen I am living proof that heavy,long term pot use can be harmless,I have never had pneumonia,my lungs are crystal clear,I am reasonably lucid,my motor skills are above average,as is hand to eye coordination,I am able to remember characters and events from books I read in school and just last week.

People only notice the mental midgets who screw up on drugs not the users who are nondescript.I suspect that alot of people would suprised to know how many people actually smoke pot.

58 Posted on 08/21/1999 20:32:10 PDT by HEAVYD [ Reply | To 56 | Top | Last ]

Biographer: Carl Sagan Drew Inspiration From Getting High

Thank God I got out and exited the drug culture.

When has ANYONE been imprisoned for smoking pot?

WASHINGTON, June 16 (UPI) - A new study (Tuesday) says nearly 60,000 marijuana offenders are in jail in the United States at any given time.

The study, by the Federation of American Scientists, says more than one- fourth of those inmates are incarcerated for personal possession of marijuana, with no other drugs involved in the offense. Copyright 1999 by United Press International

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3766be45611d.htm

Wow! Roscoe, you know how to quote other people that you agree with -- even though you often quote them out of context. How about posting arguments in your own words. That way people may think you have an original thought of your own and not just think of you as a status-quo parrot. It occurs to me that just about any halfwit can parrot other people more often than using their own words, but one must have their own thoughts and words and use those in their responses to gain credibility.

In each person's life internal authority takes precedence over external authority. That some people choose to sacrifice their own authority to external authority is always a net negative/loss to themselves and society.

"Runaway now little man", the peasant said to the king.

Just to make sure you got the question this time - When has ANYONE been imprisoned for smoking pot?

Any answers - yet?

(You two yokels are working yourselves towards a thread dedicated to this very subject. Any input before making fools of yourselves?)

A dishonest post on your part. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you did not read the article. It was not a Buckley piece. If your disconnect is an honest one, that is perhaps related to your lack of reading comprehension, then I understand.

Bill Buckley is not your hero socialist and Hillary friend George Soros who funds the pro-drug cause to the hilt.

This statement defies logic.

His views were one of the reasons that the "Several States" insisted on the Bill of Rights.

How "imaginative."

The actual reason:

"But it is universally understood, it is a part of the history of the day, that the great revolution which established the constitution of the United States, was not effected without immense opposition. Serious fears were extensively entertained that those powers which the patriot statesmen, who then watched over the interests of our country, deemed essential to union, and to the attainment of those invaluable objects for which union was sought, might be exercised in a manner dangerous to liberty. In almost every convention by which the constitution was adopted, amendments to guard against the abuse of power were recommended. These amendments demanded security against the apprehended encroachments of the general government--not against those of the local governments." -- Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243 (1833)

Lock up the boogieman-pot-smokers and let the violent criminals reenter society so they can create more violent crimes and the people will speak out against the violence and cry out for politicians and bureaucrats to do their job.

That is the aspect of this issue that I didn't want to get into in my previous post, but you are exactly right!!

Funny thing about the war on drugs--if I wanted a joint of MJ or any other drug--I wouldn't have a clue where to find it, but I know I could find a 12 yr old who could clue me in.

In each person's life internal authority takes precedence over external authority. -- Some nameless Net crackpot

"To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws." -- John Adams
"There never was a government without force. What is the meaning of government? An institution to make people do their duty. A government leaving it to a man to do his duty or not, as he pleases, would be a new species of government, or rather no government at all." -- James Madison

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