Posted on 10/17/2003 7:06:26 AM PDT by knighthawk
After about two decades as a foreign correspondent, I returned to the United States to find my country in a war I had barely heard of before. A lot of young people were dying by swallowing poison pills or injecting the poison into their veins. Americans took to calling it the war on drugs.
Thousands had died by then, and before long thousands more would be killed because of organized gangs that were operating all over the world and harvesting billions of dollars. They still are killing, often gang against gang, but with far more powerful weapons than they had in earlier days. In some countries, they even use explosives to force open banks and their vaults - sometimes by night, often audaciously in daylight.
Quite early, going back to the early decades of the 20th century before the war started in full, the killers understood that drugs were far and away the most valuable article of trade around - that they could bring in thousands or even millions of times more money than the most precious metals or works of art.
To this day, there is still argument, usually vicious, between Americans who believe on the one hand that the war on drugs must be won and the murderous gangs that trade in them stamped out - and on the other hand that the war is an unwinnable waste and the best course is just to legalize almost everything.
There are Americans of great knowledge in the field of narcotics who fight legalization, arguing that users would be led step by step into addiction to increasingly worse kinds of narcotics. The struggle centers on marijuana because it is the most widely used illegal drug in the country. The specialists say legalization of it would create mass addiction and vastly multiply the cost of drug treatment.
John Walters, the head of federal drug enforcement, says that of the 7 million Americans who need treatment for drug addiction, 60% are hooked on marijuana. "Marijuana is at the heart of drug problems," he says.
Experts also point out that one marijuana cigarette contains as much tar as four tobacco cigarettes.
Supporters of legalization say it's cruel to withhold a drug that could ease the pain of certain patients, such as cancer victims. But there is nothing helpful in marijuana that is not already legally available in alternative medications.
This week, the Supreme Court ruled that doctors cannot be punished for recommending marijuana to patients. That decision does not come close to settling the differences between opponents or supporters of legalization.
For years I have known, admired and learned from one of the most prominent specialists in the field: Dr. Herbert Kleber, professor of psychiatry and director of the division on substance abuse at Columbia University. For years I've kept a statement by him in my desk that should be the final word on the subject:
"The pro-marijuana groups have been very clever in positioning marijuana as a necessary agent for treating a variety of medical problems. They have succeeded in convincing the voters in a number of states of this. The reality is that there are either already effective medications for the indications for which marijuana is being pushed or no evidence that marijuana would be effective for those indications where no current adequate medications exist.
"There's an increasing divide between the way the American public tends to regard marijuana as a medication or as a harmless recreational drug and the scientific community, which continues to define the danger related to marijuana. For example, marijuana has now been shown to cause physical dependence and physical withdrawal.
"There are hundreds of thousands of people who seek treatment every year with marijuana as their primary drug. Unfortunately, the American public too often is sold a bill of goods by a clever campaign funded by a small group of billionaires who have engaged in extraordinary advertising and political manipulation."
What "specialists"---John Walters?
What a crock of sh*t.
(gasp!) I'm gonna tell!
Don't you know caffeine is a DRUG???
:)
Let's face it our government always knows better than G-d, if there is one, for surely the "establishment clause" means that that the US is an atheist nation.
Well hey if that’s the case then we obviously need to outlaw cigarettes as well and make them and their dangerous junkies subject to the WOD.
Supporters of legalization say it's cruel to withhold a drug that could ease the pain of certain patients, such as cancer victims. But there is nothing helpful in marijuana that is not already legally available in alternative medications.
Yeah sure, the difference being that the person in pain could grow their own and go around the multi-billon dollar pharmaceutical industry and its outrageous skyhigh prices.
You don't think that has anything to do with keeping marijuana illegal do you?
Nah...couldn't be. /sarcasm
I know and I'm really strung out on it. Tried to go cold turkey but just can't. {:o))
I know and I'm really strung out on it. Tried to go cold turkey but just can't.
We'll toss you in prison for using it---for your own good, of course.
What ways?
with a higher potential to create dependency, even.
False:
| Drug Category | Proportion of Users That Ever Became Dependent (%) |
|---|---|
| Tobacco | 32 |
| Alcohol | 15 |
| Marijuana (including hashish) | 9 |
| Cocaine | 17 |
| Heroin | 23 |
- Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base (1999), Institute of Medicine
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