Posted on 07/31/2002 8:50:30 AM PDT by Wolfie
Former White House Drug Spokesman Bob Weiner Blasts John Stossel ABC 20-20 Report as 'Distorted, Inaccurate Excuse for Legalization'
Former White House drug policy spokesman Bob Weiner is blasting last night's ABC 20-20 drug piece by John Stossel: "It was a distorted and inaccurate excuse for drug legalization.
It blows off the successes and real reductions in use generated both by government drug policy and efforts by parents, teachers, coaches, businesses, community coalitions, religious leaders, and law enforcement."
Weiner, who was Director of Public Affairs for the White House Office of National Drug Policy May 1995-August 2001 under Drug Czars Lee Brown, Barry McCaffrey, and the Bush transition, pointed to what he calls "radical inconsistencies in Stossel's reporting. He repeatedly ignores or downplays each positive finding about drug policy."
"Stossel throws in the important data point that drug use is down by 50 percent but then says throughout the piece that use is the same and we are losing the war. He never says that crack cocaine -- the primary crime-causing drug in recent years -- is down by two-thirds. He finds one police chief who says it's all fruitless -- understandable in a particular high usage area -- but ignores and does not report the myriad of police who tell experts that crime and drugs are down because criminals and dealers are taken off the streets. He ignores the fact that the governments anti-drug media campaign the last four years has coincided with a 40 percent reduction of youth drug users and 25 percent improvement in parent anti-drug communication with youth -- huge success rates in precisely the intended target audiences.
"Stossel pushes his inaccurate points that the drug war 'creates crime' when it is precisely the opposite: drug use generates murders, domestic violence, and date rapes. He soft pedals marijuana use, with assertions by an archetypical long haired user that 'marijuana hasn't killed anyone,' but has no one pointing out that marijuana is the second leading cause of car crashes as well as the primary drug in teen drug treatment
"He has no understanding of foreign efforts, either," Weiner asserted. He quotes disputed CIA Colombia cocaine increase numbers based on their flawed, cloud-covered data despite Colombia's surveys showing significant drops in cultivation and the success of the spraying of 30 percent of its cocaine acreage. He never mentions that Peru and Bolivia obtained over 60 percent reductions and Colombias five year plan envisions an equally obtainable 50 percent reduction," says Weiner, who has been on two recent Colombia missions with McCaffrey.
"He asserts that Europe is succeeding with a liberalized policy but does not mention that drug seizures in Europe have doubled the last three years and use has gone up, indicating that Europe may face our drug and crime problems of past decades that we have escaped from by the comprehensive education and law enforcement efforts we are now making. Stossel dismisses former Drug Czar McCaffrey's assertions of the 'disaster' of European legalization trends by saying 'not what we heard', hardly a scientific methodology.
"Finally, Stossel barely mentions the concession of his own legalization advocates that 'maybe more would use drugs'. He insists that 'The war on drugs is a war on ourselves.' To dismiss the point that under legalization more would use drugs -- and that hospital emergency rooms would be flooded, crime and dropouts would rise, families would be disrupted, and the toll would be immeasurable -- is like asking Mrs. Lincoln on that fateful day, 'Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln how was the play?'"
Weiner concluded by asserting, "I have never seen a worse piece of major journalism on drug policy other than perhaps a similar one done by Geraldo Rivera years ago when he refused to use interview points by the Drug Czar which disagreed with Geraldo's thesis."
EBUCK
Ok, a point I found interesting, that I hadn't noticed before was that drug use when down during the 80s.
But then it leveled off and hasn't dropped in over 10 years.
Now, we have been doing MORE of the same - stricter laws, tougher penalties, more drug cops, forfeiture, etc. etc.
CRIMINAL ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS HAVE NO EFFECT ON DRUG USAGE RATES.
The drug warriors basically took credit for something that was primarily a shift in societal attitudes after the excesses of the 1970s, during the 1980s.
I'd like to see that one backed up.
Of course. It's a cottage industry running dad and mom through the legal system with their son who was spied smoking a pipe a half a mile away by a cop with night vision. It's that incredibly stupid.
I personally believe that no level of government legitimately has the power to prohibit. And I will give the same reason I always do: When the evidence and crime become one in the same, you have just opened the can of worms that allows corrupt(or just zealous) police and justice systems get rid of any opposition. Secondly, when a "government" can define an action as a crime where there is no victim, you no longer have a free state, for anything can become a crime.
States should have the legitimate power to regulate public actions. Regulate and prohibit are opposites.
Unless, of course, he's telling the truth?
Given the difficulty in determing "how many" people do drugs, I would tend to suspect that those numbers were "cooked" to make it seem like the "Just Say No" campaign was working.
What do you think the Indians put in their peace pipes? A few drags on one of those and nobody felt like fighting anymore.
Seriously, the Indians have been using mind altering drug for years (cocoa leaves, mushrooms, peyote, marijuana are all native to the Americas). The Europeans and Asians have been using opium for thousands of years.
That's assuming that they have the stones to watch the program. They don't. Nor do they have the honesty to admit any wrong on their part.
I would have you research Justice Thomas and some of his rulings. He is very much a supporter of the 10th Amendment.
EBUCK
Burke asserted that Washington & Jefferson were said to exchange smoking blends as personal gifts. Washington reportedly preferred a pipe full of "the leaves of hemp" to alcohol, & wrote in his diaries that he enjoyed the fragrance of hemp flowers. Madison once remarked that hemp gave him insight to create a new & democratic nation. Monroe, creator of the Monroe Doctrine, began smoking it as Ambassador to France & continued to the age of 73. Burke. "Pot & Presidents." in Green Egg. CA. June 21, 1975
EBUCK
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