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.
What is wrong with allowing individual states decide how they will treat the recreation use of drugs?
If he won't, I will. Nothing pisses me off more than someone stealing my money to pay the freight for people who can't handle themselves.
Well, that's a relief. For a moment there, I was beginning to think we couldn't trust them.
And of course it is a gateway. Just think about it, even on the purely psychological level. Not to mention the fact that friends who smoke pot are more likely to have stronger drugs that they will, in social situations, pressure people to take, or even, as happened to me, put stronger drugs in a supposed reefer.
Buffyt, the fact that you wrote "Pot is pot" disqualifies you from participation in any future discussion of the subject. The greenest novice knows that there are widely varying strengths, and the reasons why.
The Internet will tell you anything you have itching ears to know, by the way. As conservatives, we should all know that.
How so, my pro-WOSD FRiend? Anybody who wants pot now can get it whenever they want it...do you really believe the nonsense that marijuana usage will go up dramatically when marijuana is legalized?! And even if it does--which I don't believe, BTW--do you really believe the nonsense that potheads will all become wards of the State?!
Seriously, dude, yer arguments ring shallow to anyone who ain't drinking the BigGuv'mentKoolAid...MUD
As opposed to those who cheer the current age of nanny-state socialism?
Kevin, you and your buddies are the socialists here. Too bad you can't just admit it.
I'd have a smidgen of respect for you if you at least admitted your control-freak tendencies, instead of posing as a conservative.
BTW, Happy New Year.
When did you start smoking dope?
Don't take you Lib'ral BigGuv'ment types long to go straight to the name-calling, does it, my FRiend?! Then again, like all Lib'rals, I can see that you don't want a civil consversation on this issue to proceed 'cuz it will expose the ridiculousness of this abysmal failure we've dubbed the WarOnSomeDrugs.
Or are you willing to debate this issue using the facts and logic?!
MUD
Looks like a good argument for growing your own
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