US Warns of Marijuana Risks

MSNBC ^ | 17 September 2002

[JediGirl]

WASHINGTON, -( AP )- The nation's drug policy director warned parents Tuesday against trivializing the dangers of marijuana to their kids, warning them that more teens are addicted to pot than to alcohol or to all other illegal drugs combined.

MANY PARENTS and children have outdated perceptions about marijuana, said John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They believe marijuana is not addictive, that it's less dangerous than cigarettes or that it has few long-term health consequences.

In reality, more teens enter rehabilitation centers to treat marijuana addiction than alcohol or all other illegal drugs combined, Walters said.

"Our effort is to correct the ignorance that is the single biggest obstacle to protecting our kids," he said as he announced an advertising campaign by his office and 17 education, public health, anti-drug and family advocacy groups.

[Roscoe]

As has been pointed out to you time and again, under a libertarian system these things would not be the threat they are now.

The unsupported nonsense has been advanced repeatedly.

[dcwusmc]

Bump, Jedi Girl and thanks for the ping.

[Dead Corpse]

As have your turgid one liners. You are completey irrelavent at this point and losing ground fast.

[DaveCooper]

The nation's drug policy director

thinks we're stupid.

[truenospinzone]

The unsupported nonsense has been advanced repeatedly.

It certainly has. So, if you're aware that the entirety of your argument in favor of the WoD is "unsupported nonsense", why can't you stop "advancing" it?

[WyldKard]

Libertarians want legalized drugs and open borders.

I certainly don't want open borders.

Also, what you say doesn't refute my point. The resources spent trying to counter something like marijuana are better spent dealing with hard drugs, and REAL crime, and terrorism.

[Roscoe]

"Yeah, just remember...for every National Guard helicopter out flying, looking around for that "demon weed", thats one less copter patrolling the borders." -- WyldKard

Libertarians want legalized drugs and open borders. His complaint is rank hypocrisy.

[Virginia-American]

Yeah, just remember...for every National Guard helicopter out flying, looking around for that "demon weed", thats one less copter patrolling the borders.

Libertarians want legalized drugs and open borders.

Therefore, not all re-legalizers are libertarians. Some, like William Buckley, are in fact well-known as conservatives. There may be some D*m or liberal re-legalizers, but I don't know their names.

[WyldKard]

Libertarians want legalized drugs and open borders. His complaint is rank hypocrisy

Um...since when? I'm not a member of the Libertarian Party. Even if I was, I'm entitled to my own thoughts.

If thats okay with you, oh mighty and powerful Marse Roscoe! Am I allowed to think for myself? Am I allowed to support legalized MJ AND closed borders.

Looking forward to more of those impotent one liners you call a well-resoned debate...

[Roscoe]

"unsupported nonsense"

It is therefore not surprising that every court that has considered the question, both before and after the Supreme Court's decision in Lopez, has concluded that section 841(a)(1) represents a valid exercise of the commerce power. See, e.g., United States v. Edwards, ___ F.3d ___, ___, 1996 WL 621913, at *5 (D.C. Cir. Oct. 29, 1996); United States v. Kim, 94 F.3d 1247, 1249-50 (9th Cir. 1996); United States v. Bell, 90 F.3d 318, 321 (8th Cir. 1996); United States v. Lerebours, 87 F.3d 582, 584-85 (1st Cir. 1996); United States v. Wacker, 72 F.3d 1453, 1475 (10th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 136 (1996); United States v. Leshuk, 65 F.3d 1105, 1111-12 (4th Cir. 1995); United States v. Scales, 464 F.2d 371, 375 (6th Cir. 1972); Lopez, 459 F.2d at 953.

Proyect attempts to distinguish this body of authority by arguing that, while growing marijuana for distribution has a significant impact on interstate commerce, growing marijuana only for personal consumption does not. Despite the fact that he was convicted of growing more than 100 marijuana plants, making it very unlikely that he personally intended to consume all of his crop, Proyect contends that no one may be convicted under a statute that fails to distinguish between the cultivation of marijuana for distribution and the cultivation of marijuana for personal consumption. This contention is without merit.

Lopez did not purport to undermine the long-standing doctrine that "Congress may regulate activity that occurs wholly within a particular state if the activity has a sufficient nexus to interstate commerce." Genao, 79 F.3d at 1335. The nexus to interstate commerce, moreover, is determined by the class of activities regulated by the statute as a whole, not by the simple act for which an individual defendant is convicted. Thus, Congress unquestionably has the power

https://www.tourolaw.edu/2ndcircuit/november96/96-2060.html

[Virginia-American]

The DEA is better than most agencies at dealing with informants and getting humint

I'd like some documentation of that before I allowed them near anything important. They have the reputation of being crooked and incompetent (how many times have their 'informants' fingered the wrong house?)

[Roscoe]

Therefore, not all re-legalizers are libertarians. Some, like William Buckley, are in fact well-known as conservatives.

When did Buckley endorse the Libertarian call for drug legalization? In fact, wasn't his position limited to marijuana?

[WindMinstrel]

When I was in intel (back in the early/mid 90s) they were well known for their success in humint gathering. The courses I took with the DEA spoke highly of their abilities as well. I doubt you can get hard statistics on their humint efficacy (at least, not declassified statistics), but among the US intelligence community they're regarded as among the best.

[Virginia-American]

The thread's topic is about mj. I don't know what Buckley's position is on re-legalizing heroin, cocaine, etc

[WindMinstrel]

When did Buckley endorse the Libertarian call for drug legalization? In fact, wasn't his position limited to marijuana?

No. As early as 1996 he wrote

... About ten years later, I deferred to a different allegiance, this one not the presumptive opposition to state intervention, but a different order of priorities. A conservative should evaluate the practicality of a legal constriction, as for instance in those states whose statute books continue to outlaw sodomy, which interdiction is unenforceable, making the law nothing more than print-on-paper. I came to the conclusion that the so-called war against drugs was not working, that it would not work absent a change in the structure of the civil rights to which we are accustomed and to which we cling as a valuable part of our patrimony. And that therefore if that war against drugs is not working, we should look into what effects the war has, a canvass of the casualties consequent on its failure to work. That consideration encouraged me to weigh utilitarian principles: the Benthamite calculus of pain and pleasure introduced by the illegalization of drugs.

[truenospinzone]

I realize you're playing a semantics game, but just to clear it up for any onlookers, what you mean is that "Libertarians" want open borders. You are, of course, well aware that the majority of the people you debate with on these threads are not "Libertarians", as in members of the Party; they are, in fact, libertarians, and as such don't automatically subscribe to the LP platform verbatim. In fact, one of the chief reasons many of the "Small-l's" here are not members of the LP is that they disagree with the immigration stance of the Party. So, unless you can document a specific libertarian on FR in favor of open borders, and are actually debating with that specific FReeper, your rote one-liner response has absolutely no bearing on the discussion at hand.

Imagine that.

[Virginia-American]

among the US intelligence community they're regarded as among the best.

Hard to believe, but I'll take your word.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

If its legal, how do you keep Madison Avenue out of it? Is that a concern?

You can still regulate it. I'd say the Amsterdam model works pretty good. In Amsterdam licensed coffeeshops can sell it in small quantities, but nobody's allowed to mass-market it the way, say, Marlboro would.

[Roscoe]

You are, of course, well aware that the majority of the people you debate with on these threads are not "Libertarians", as in members of the Party; they are, in fact, libertarians, and as such don't automatically subscribe to the LP platform verbatim.

If "libertarian" can mean anything you want it to, then it doesn't mean anything at all.

[The FRugitive]