Posted on 09/21/2002 12:48:11 PM PDT by The FRugitive
DRUG CZAR ON ANTI-MARIJUANA CRUSADE
THREATENS CANADA, UNLEASHES NEW PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVE
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.
The New Ad Campaign:
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.
The New Anti-Marijuana Campaign Directed at Parents:
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 ).
Fighting Marijuana Initiatives:
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.
Threatening Canada:
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."
Sure. IMO you are a shill for the leftist pro-drug cause.
Quoting yourself isn't much of a source.
One time he attempted to falsely equate late-FReeper HeavyD's death with marijuana use. You're debating a vacuous boob prone to blatant hypocrisy, don't waste your time.
How about from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports for the United States 2000 (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 2001), pp. 215-216, which shows:
Although people may think that the Drug War targets drug smugglers and 'King Pins,' in 2000, 46.5 percent of the 1,579,566 total arrests for drug abuse violations were for marijuana -- a total of 734,497. Of those, 646,042 people were arrested for marijuana possession alone. This is an increase over 1999, when a total of 704,812 Americans were arrested for marijuana offenses, of which 620,541 were for possession alone.
Worse than morons, it shows them as liars. When kids hear about the horrors of MJ and see that it is BS, they assume that the similar stories about Heroin and cocaine are also lies. We thus encourge hard drug use by lying about MJ.
Or kids try pot and think, "well, I tried pot and I don't see the horrors that they speak of so I assume I won't see the horrors the say lurk behind crack and heroin." It amounts to, "that wasn't so bad. It was actually pretty fun. What next?"
You really didn't answer my question. Let me rephrase - where do you find this crap?
That's all well and good. You may have missed the point. When has ANYONE been imprisoned for smoking pot?
Then what does that make these conservatives?
NATIONAL REVIEW has attempted during its tenure as, so to speak, keeper of the conservative tablets to analyze public problems and to recommend intelligent thought. The magazine has acknowledged a variety of positions by right-minded thinkers and analysts who sometimes reach conflicting conclusions about public policy. As recently as on the question of troops to Bosnia, there was dissent within the family from our corporate conclusion that we'd be best off staying home.
For many years we have published analyses of the drug problem. An important and frequently cited essay by Professor Michael Gazzaniga (Feb. 5, 1990) brought a scientist's discipline into the picture, shedding light on matters vital to an understanding of the drug question. He wrote, for instance, about different rates of addiction, and about ambient pressures that bear on addiction. Elsewhere, Professor James Q. Wilson, now of UCLA, has written eloquently in defense of the drug war. Milton Friedman from the beginning said it would not work, and would do damage.
We have found Dr. Gazzaniga and others who have written on the subject persuasive in arguing that the weight of the evidence is against the current attempt to prohibit drugs. But NATIONAL REVIEW has not, until now, opined formally on the subject. We do so at this point. To put off a declarative judgment would be morally and intellectually weak-kneed.
Things being as they are, and people as they are, there is no way to prevent somebody, somewhere, from concluding that ``NATIONAL REVIEW favors drugs.'' We don't; we deplore their use; we urge the stiffest feasible sentences against anyone convicted of selling a drug to a minor. But that said, it is our judgment that the war on drugs has failed, that it is diverting intelligent energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction, that it is wasting our resources, and that it is encouraging civil, judicial, and penal procedures associated with police states. We all agree on movement toward legalization, even though we may differ on just how far.
Shills Dane?
scholar: Our prison system is overburdened with non-violent, pot-smoking "criminals" while the big time dealers never find their way to prison. 22
Where did you find that nonsense?
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.
The Cycle of Justified Violence
"Politicians and bureaucrats "justify" keeping their jobs and reelection by protecting the citizens from criminals. If there's not enough criminals they create a boogieman followed by laws to protect the people from it. Thus creating a new category of criminals. 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. The cycle of justified violence." -- Zon
Please provide that link one more time.
Sorry about that Zon. It was scholar who was belching the nonsense. I'll have to take it up with that idiot...
Yet you hang with those who desire to spread propaganda? Not a wise move...
Quoting yourself isn't much of a source.
Of course you had to conveniently omit the first part of the quote. which read, "In each person's life internal authority takes precedence over external authority..."
The source is that I have a mind of my own. Your penchant for quoting other people, ie. "sources", is your laziness and inability to write meaningful original thoughts of your own.
"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
"This forum is used by some people, Roscoe included, that want the power to initiate force, fraud and coercion against people or seek to enlist government agents to initiate force, fraud and threat of force against people on their behalf." -- Zon
"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." -- Zon
No...it is you who hang with those who desire to spread propaganda...with a billion dollars of our tax money.
"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
"Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born." -- Edmund Burke
Ok. Looked like a ping list to me. Never mind then.
Say, didn't I ask you a direct question? Ah, yes. It was - When has ANYONE been imprisoned for smoking pot?
Any answers?
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