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MANY PARENTS and children have outdated perceptions about marijuana, said John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.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.

[WindMinstrel]

Milton Friedman wrote some on that:

The question of advertising is a very difficult question. I must confess that my libertarian instincts lead me not to want to prohibit advertising, and yet I am repelled at the notion of seeing a pretty young lady on the television screen saying, smoke my brand of cocaine instead of his, or my brand of smack or crack. So I am very much torn on the question of advertising, but again we don't have to decide all those issues. We now prohibit much advertising of hard liquor, and that is why I tried to say let's treat drugs the way we treat alcohol now, which is a mixture of regarding it primarily as a medical problem, but on the margins, on the fringes, as a criminal problem.

[WindMinstrel]

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

So debate the effin' issue, knave, and stop trying to label people as Libertarian

[tacticalogic]

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."

And up until about 1937 we had about 160 years' worth of "long-standing doctrine" that said they couldn't.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Hmm. I'd have to say I'm for the decriminalization of marijuana, but I think a case can be made against other more harmful drugs that state intervention may be warranted. But then on a regulatory level, along the lines of an FDA or something, rather than a prohibitionary one.

[mysterio]

I support completely ending the war on drugs. I do not want to see one more dime spent on it. Decriminalize every one of them.

[WyldKard]

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

Translation: Wah. I'm pissed, because none of you libertarians are fitting my tortured definition of the "Evil LP Member", and that's not allowed! I'm not allowed to be wrong! It is illogical! Error....error!

*explosion*

[marron]

but nobody's allowed to mass-market it the way, say, Marlboro would.

My main concerns about legalization are mass-marketing, drug use as a criteria for receiving disability payments(you can't work due to drug use, therefor you are disabled), and the US being drawn into guaranteeing the purity of the product.

What are your thoughts?

[truenospinzone]

If "libertarian" can mean anything you want it to

No, libertarian just can't mean whatever Roscoe says it means.

[JediGirl]

[WyldKard]

What are your thoughts?

I personally don't think pot is any worse than alcohol or tobacco. I would regulate it in the exact same way. Put whatever warning lables that you want. (Something like: Hey dummy! Putting burning vegitation smoke in your lungs can be harmful!!). This is far from my ideal situation, merely the "most realitic" one.

A compromise would be a coffeehouse solution. But unlike the Dutch, you need to take the production and supply out of the black market.

As for those hard drugs, those "Rare white powders". Frankly, I wouldn't shed many tears if they stayed illegal. Once again, not the ideal solution, but one perhaps a bit more realitic.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

My main concerns about legalization are mass-marketing, drug use as a criteria for receiving disability payments(you can't work due to drug use, therefor you are disabled), and the US being drawn into guaranteeing the purity of the product.

The mass marketing thing worries me, too, because of the purity of the product. I'd hate to see something happen along the lines of cigarettes---that the mass marketer adds other things to the standard Mk 1, Mod 0 joint in order to make it "more addictive" or create some sort of brand loyalty.

I would not, under any sort of circumstances, subscribe to the notion that drug use entitles you to any sort of disability payment at all. That is a flat-out recipe for disaster.

Basically, I think the Amsterdam Model works just fine. Only licensed, registered coffeeshop-sized enterprises can sell it, and private citizens can grow it and consume it privately.

[Roscoe]

No, libertarian just can't mean whatever Roscoe says it means.

Which is why reference is made to orthodox Libertarian theology as expressed in the party platform or by its leading apologists.

[Roscoe]

It is illogical!

Orthodox Libertarianism is illogical, undefined libertarianism is meaningless.

[WyldKard]

Orthodox Libertarianism is illogical, undefined libertarianism is meaningless.

So Roscoe, can one be Conservative, but not a member of the Conservative party? (An actual political party...although pretty much tied in hand in hand with the Republican party.) If one is Conservative, but not a member of the Conservative party, does that make them illogical?

Why are we not allowed to believe in a good deal of what the LP stands for, but have major disagreements with a lot of the other stuff the LP stands for? Are you suggesting that if a Conservative doesn't toe the line with the Conservative party, or a Republican doesn't toe the line with the Republican party, they are an "undefined Conservative" or an "undefined Republican"

Once again, Roscoe, you try to bog down the debate with one liners and semantics, because you can't actually make a logical, coherant debate on anything. Pity...

[f.Christian]

Is this news/ACTIVISM?

[eno_]

Pot^H^H^HFreeping is a pain in the ass if you like it. It's never ending. It creates an urge to smoke^H^H^H^H^HFreep and when you don't have it, you probably substitute with cigs^H^H^H^HC-SPAN. It's not the greatest thing to be doing. Better to steer clear of all of it. But that's just me today. Tomorrow you might get a different story.

[Roscoe]

And up until about 1937 we had about 160 years' worth of "long-standing doctrine" that said they couldn't.

Cite?

Whiskey was subjected to federal taxation and regulation since the 1st Congress, and to state regulations even earlier.

"Some form of limitation on spirits has been part of this continent's history since the first European settlers arrived. Originally, these limitations were imposed to prevent drunkenness among the colonists."

"Though cannabis was widely cultivated in America for three hundred years, both as a fiber resource and for its medicinal properties, its use as an intoxicant was rare until the beginning of the twentieth century."

[eno_]

I advocate starting with pot because it is more than half the problem. Other illegal intoxicants are comparatively niche markets to begin with, and once the War on (some) Drugs is less of a big business, rational decisions are more likely to prevail.

[Texaggie79]

Don't you realize that they must demonize the more harmless drugs so they don't look like @$$holes for arresting people for having it?

[Roscoe]

So Roscoe, can one be Conservative, but not a member of the Conservative party?

The Libertarian party platform sets out orthodox libertarian dogma, as derived from the theology's simplistic "no initiation of force" doctrine and the abstract designs which flow from it.

As Russell Kirk pointed out, conservatism is built upon "Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters, calculators, and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs."