Posted on 01/02/2003 5:17:17 AM PST by Sparta
BENTON - Prosecutors around the country are being urged to take a stand against attempts to legalize or decriminalize controlled substances - in particular, marijuana.
“Those who support drug legalization are well funded and highly adept at manipulating the media,” reads a Nov. 1 letter to prosecutors from the president of the National District Attorneys Association, Dan M. Alsobrooks. “And they do not mind deceiving the American public as well.”
The letter warns of “incremental victories” by those in favor of legalizing drugs and notes the “key role” local prosecutors play in anti-drug efforts.
Included with the letter was an open letter also dated Nov. 1 from Scott M. Burns, deputy director for state and local affairs for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, urging prosecutors “to take a stand publicly and tell Americans the truth” about marijuana and warning of “deceptive campaigns to normalize and ultimately legalize the use of marijuana.”
“I think it would be a nightmare to legalize it,” agreed Scott County Assistant Prosecutor Paul Boyd. “It would lead to so many more people out there high operating machinery and other things.” Boyd will be sworn in as the next county prosecutor at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Of the 16 million drug users in America, 77 percent use marijuana and 60 percent of teenagers in treatment have a primary marijuana diagnosis, according to Burns. “No drug matches the threat posed by marijuana.”
Marijuana, Burns writes in the letter, is not harmless but has risen as a factor in emergency room visits 176 percent since 1994, surpassing heroin.
Burns writes of the increasing potency of marijuana and its addictive properties in addition to being a “gateway drug” for many people.
“I would agree that marijuana is a gateway drug to hardcore drugs,” Boyd said. Marijuana is “the great seducer,” Boyd said, because “it breaks down a person’s defense to say ‘no’ to the harder drugs.”
John McMinn of Charleston, administrator for the Circuit 33 Drug Court, also agrees that marijuana remains a problem for the courts.
According to National Institute of Justice statistics on arrests, 39 percent of the males and 26 percent of the females test positive for marijuana, and 53 percent of male juveniles and 38 percent of female juveniles test positive. “Roughly 80 percent of adult offenders in the 33rd Circuit Court come in with some kind of a drug issue be it alcohol or some other drug,” McMinn said.
“More people enter drug treatment every year because of marijuana as their drug of choice,” he added.
McMinn said a 2001 study of students in grades 8-10 showed 20 percent of 8th graders had used marijuana and 9 percent were current users, defined as having used the drug within the past 30 days. By the 12th grade, nearly half of the students had tried marijuana and 22 percent were current users.
McMinn does think research on medicinal and therapeutic properties should be pursued: “There is still so much research left to be done regarding the use of marijuana - the good and the bad.”
However, “there are other drugs that will work as well as marijuana,” he added, with some of the alternatives being more addictive and others that are just as effective while being safer.
The same probability that you have in common with Hillary Clinton deomcrats. The glorification of marijuana and the drug culture.
And don't give me any crap that the Clinton's were "drug warriors". Most pro-pot intiatives were passed during the Clinton's reign(92-00) with the help of the money of Hillary friend and Socialist #1 George Soros.
It is striking that the Libertarian/Hillary(Soros) agenda was defeated on November 5th, 2002, when all the major pro-pot(drug) state(AZ, NV, OH) intiaitives were defeated at the ballot box.
Oh well, at least your bitterness over those losses is showing.
And you can buy it on Sundays.
IOW, the 60's motto, "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem".
Huh? You(MrLeRoy) were the one frothing over the issue of marijuana legalzation in Nevada. A blast from your pro-pot propagandizing past, MrLeRoy.
LeRoy, you are really bitter that the Nevada voters rejected your Libertarian "infinite wisdom", IMO.
And you're scared to death that people will stop believing that marijuana has supernatural evil properties, and that the fact that it kicked your ass is simply due to your own weakness. IMO.
You got it, dude...those who would use the ridiculously unsuccessful WarOnSomeDrugs to deprive folks of their cicil liberties are part of the problem of an oversized and over-bearing Federal Leviathan. See, y'all can be taught...LOL!!
FReegards...MUD
Actually I wouldn't say "scared to death", but concerned that people will take the Hillary/Soros/MrLeRoy line that drugs as no big thing.
I am not as concerned since the beating your pro-drug side(Hillary/Soros/MrLeRoy) took at the ballot box on November 5th, 2002, with your pet pro-drug state intitatives.
JMO tactical, but I beleive you wish that Gore had won in 2000, especially since his idealogical predecessor(Clinton) had ushered in an era where pro-drug intiatives won at the ballot box.
LOL...but you nailed it as to why we'll never see Nyquil targeted...Proctor ands Gamble pays their BigGuv'ment dues!!
FReegards...MUD
BTW...other than BigBeer and BigLiquor fighting against the legalization of pot, you can see why the Guv'ment's against its legalization, too. How do they tax it if you can grow it in yer backyard?
You got it, dude...(Mudboy Slim)
Welcome to the 60's, albeit you are 40 years late, although I am sure Hillary, Bill, JFKerrey, Patty Murray, Harry Browne(etc.etc.) will fill you in on what you missed.
I have no idea why mainstream journalists can't put this together themselves, maybe it taxes their teeny brains, or conflicts with the editorial slant of their bosses.
The following is from MarijuanaNews.com, but the data is straight fromt the U.S. Government.
Why so little faith in people? "Drugs" covers a lot of territory. Some, like caffeine aren't a big thing. Others, like meth or heroin loom much larger. Still others like alcohol or marijuana lie somewhere in between. Seeing them as evil incarnate is no closer to reality than seeing them as "no big thing". Public policy has to be based on objective, substantiative criteria, or it will be seen as specious and arbitrary. Your entire argument relies on associating the reformers with a socialist who is friendly to Hillary Clinton. It is little more than an ad hominem attack. Logically, it is irrational and irrelevant, yet you persist in the notion that it is, in and of itself, the only criteria worth considering. It is no more a basis for determining policy than Harry Anslinger's statements about white women having sex with jazz musicians.
I am not as concerned since the beating your pro-drug side(Hillary/Soros/MrLeRoy) took at the ballot box on November 5th, 2002, with your pet pro-drug state intitatives.
The most important issue is ability of the voters to decide for themselves. If the issue itself was that cut and dried, there wouldn't ever have been a referendum. The fact that there was enough support to challenge the federal government on the issue should be a clue that there is something basically wrong with the way the federal government is handling it.
JMO tactical, but I beleive you wish that Gore had won in 2000, especially since his idealogical predecessor(Clinton) had ushered in an era where pro-drug intiatives won at the ballot box.
IMO, Clinton did have a hand in helping get those initiatives passed. Not because he supported them, but because they were a symbolic rebellion of the kind of federal omnipotence that his kind of policies represent. You refuse to see the danger in arbitrary power, you only care that it be used to advance an agenda to your liking.
Our disagreement is more over the means than the ends, but you will only debate in terms of the ends, and then only in perjoratives, like "pro-drug", because while the end justifies the means to you, you rightly fear that it will not stand examination in the light of day.
I have seen the "ends" of your policy and it happened in the late 60's and 70's where rampant drug use was no big deal and generally accepted.
Clinton tried to bring back those halcyon days back, but failed.
You have a right to defend the perpetuation of the drug culture of those times, but don't tread on me when I point out the failures of your "golden" era.
You all have the narrow view, that all inanaimate objects are equal, when they are not, IMO.
Firearms protect innocent life and property, how many lives have a joint, crack pipe, or heroin needle saved or protected?
I know, I know, marijuana is the "wonderweed" that would have helped save Karen Carpenter from anorexia(blah, blah, blah) while ignoring the fact that marijuana is an integral part of the pathological drug culture.
By the way, what are your thoughts on Rep. Dan Burton's recent comments on decriminalization? If you are not familiar with them, I can provide you with a FR link.
Dan Burton, the guy who gave the liberal press fodder and forever cemented his image as a right wing nut case in the liberal press by shooting at watermelons to "prove" that Vince Foster was murdered, that Dan Burton?
Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies.
Although I would vote for Dan Burton over any democrat on the basis that I agree with him 90% of the time if he was my Congressman.
And I would send him a note that taking a Dale Carnegie course may do him some good.
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