Posted on 09/18/2003 6:58:11 AM PDT by MrLeRoy
EVERY SO OFTEN, you can see a new rip, however small, in the American cultural fabric, a subtle sign that what was once presumed to be a settled issue is now up for grabs. Last week there was a moment at a drug treatment center in Rainier Valley that was one of those times.
That’s when John Walters, the White House “drug czar,” came to Seattle backed by a platoon of bodyguards—and unwittingly admitted that the feds’ 60 Years War on marijuana didn’t have the grip on the American public that it once did.
Walters’ announced purpose in coming to town was to stand before the assembled media and say that federal, state, and local agencies should work hand in hand in combating drug use in Seattle, and that more resources should be devoted to the treatment of drug addicts (though he offered no new money for local treatment programs).
Walters decried general drug use (heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine), and then he got down to the real reason for his trip: to inveigh against Seattle’s I-75, which was before voters Tuesday, Sept. 16. The local ballot measure would make enforcement of marijuana laws the lowest priority of Seattle police and the city attorney’s office, which is responsible for prosecuting misdemeanor pot cases.
Walters called I-75 the result of “living in the past and ignorance, a wink and a nod, ‘Let’s play dumb’” on marijuana. It’s not the first time Walters has traveled outside the D.C. Beltway and tried to bigfoot a local measure that would soften, however imperceptibly, marijuana laws. He did it last fall in Nevada, and earlier this year officials from his Office of National Drug Control Policy campaigned against a local measure in Missouri. In both cases, he won.
But the Emerald City is harder slogging for the czar than the Silver State.
This week, the measure was winning overwhelmingly before all absentee votes were counted. Surprisingly, Seattle’s media, even the usually pliant television news, largely declined to help Walters make his case to the public. Only KOMO-TV sent a cameraperson to the press conference, but it didn’t air any footage that evening. Other than that, there were only a few print and radio reporters, and their subsequent coverage was hardly the level of drum banging Walters’ visits have generated elsewhere.
But the Seattle media also missed a shift in the pot war. You had to listen hard, but it was there: Deep in his remarks about I-75, Walters made an admission you wouldn’t have heard from federal drug enforcement officials even during the Clinton administration.
“The real issue is should we legalize marijuana,” Walters said. “Let’s have a debate about that.”
Ever since the 1930s and propaganda films such as Reefer Madness, the feds have waged a multibillion-dollar war on marijuana use. Rarely have they acknowledged that millions of Americans actually like pot and use it responsibly, let alone that there might be a need for a national debate on how America should treat marijuana under the law.
ASKED WHAT FORM the debate would take and how the White House would kick start the process, Walters—usually a polished, intelligent advocate for his position—went into duck-and-cover mode. He blamed marijuana advocates and their financial backers like billionaire George Soros, who supported last year’s failed legalization initiative in Nevada, for stifling debate and for preventing “clear information” from reaching the American public. He also accused them of risking youngsters’ lives in the deal. Walters had nothing to say about the estimated 700,000 Americans sitting in state and federal prisons on marijuana charges or about the more than 700,000 Americans arrested each year because of pot—each of whose lives and well-being is at risk for partaking of a substance that millions in this country (and a country to the north) have accepted as not being the Demon Weed the feds claim it to be.
All the same, what Walters said was an admission pot advocates found amazing.
“That is fascinating to hear from the man who on every occasion refuses to debate us,” said Bruce Mirken, spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project, who added that his group, partially funded by billionaire Peter Lewis, has offered before to square off with the czar. “He flat-out refuses. I’ll debate John Walters anytime he wants.”
Mirken might want to think about warming up with Tom Carr, Seattle city attorney. Carr ran for office in 2001 as the liberal answer to years of civil-rights-abusing Mark Sidran. But in introducing Walters at the press conference, Carr sounded like he was applying to become deputy drug czar.
Saying that he was “proud” to stand shoulder to shoulder with Walters, Carr said that I-75 would “have us look away from the marijuana problem.”
But in an interview last month, Carr described his opposition to I-75 as a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 and never portrayed marijuana as a sizable problem in Seattle.
Many Seattleites would seem to agree, based on this week’s vote. The tally late Tuesday night had I-75 winning by more than a 15 percent margin.
Funny stuff, this coming from the czar of propaganda.
He also accused them of risking youngsters’ lives in the deal.
I'm proud. He didn't forget to throw ou tthe "its for the children" argument.
Did you forget your (/sarcasm)tag? The "children" can get it now on practically any street corner. If legalized, taxed and controlled like hard liquor is (at least in Texas, where hard liquor is sold only in liquor stores and you have to be 21 to walk in the door), it would not be any more available to kids than it is now, possibly even less available. Sure, you will still have irresponsible adults purchasing it for resale to minors, but you have that problem now, which negates that argument.
Yes, he did. But since it provided an opportunity to debunk that argument, I for one am willing to forgive him.
How does vigorously arguing one side of an argument stifle or prevent the other side from reaching the public? Do the stupid "pot makes you shoot your friends" ads stifle debate and for prevent clear information from reaching the American public?
Better yet, where in the Constitution does it give the feds the power to make any drug illegal? When they made alcohol illegal it required a constitutional amendment. I guess we're all too enlightened now for actually following the supreme law of the land, the Constitution.
I'd also like to see the part of the Constitution that authorizes his job and the power that goes with it.
It's in the classified part.
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