Posted on 01/09/2003 6:41:06 PM PST by Sparta
A pot-legalization group is taking on the White House over marijuana.
A group that wants to see marijuana legalized is angry with the Bush administration because they say the government is being too critical of pot.
The issue all started with a letter from Scott Burns, the deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control. In the letter, Burns told district attorneys across the country that they must better educate the public about marijuana use.
Keith Stroup, who heads up the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), claims the administration is going over the top suggesting that marijuana is the biggest drug threat in America.
"We're simply going to call them on this lie," Stroup said. "The Bush administration, for some reason, is in the process of ignoring the real drug problems we face and instead focusing their entire anti-drug apparatus on responsible marijuana smokers."
But Burns said it's time to get serious about the problem.
"It's something that the administration, I believe, has an obligation to talk about," Burns said.
He added that in some parts of the country heroin is the biggest problem. In other parts, it's cocaine. But the common thread is marijuana.
"We can't ignore marijuana," Burns said. "Sixty percent of the folks addicted to drugs in this country are using marijuana. If we don't talk about it and talk about it loudly, we're ignoring two-thirds of the problem."
As for his letter to prosecutors to raise awareness about marijuana, he said the response has been sobering.
"I've received calls from prosecutors all across the country who have said, 'I didn't know,' " Burns said.
That is precisely the reason for the letter: to make sure everyone knows that the problem is getting worse every day.
From the National Institute on Drug Abuse web site: "Opiates are made from opium, a white liquid in the poppy plant. They're also referred to as narcotics."
Reading material is one thing, ingesting it is quite another.
instead of showing greater concern about the root cause of why so many people need to distort their realities and/or run away from their problems
Only liberals think that's any of government's business.
Guess I just proved your opinion incorrect.
So you've abandoned your attempts to simultaneously defend the legality of alcohol and the illegality of marijuana?
I have no problem with stating, over and over again, I agree with the legality of alcohol, with restrictions, and the illegality of narcotics/weed. Is that clear enough for you?
Your problem is you think there should be no one telling adults what to do, unless, in your opinion, it’s an “okay” rule, according to your own personal standards. However, governments exist to protect ALL members of society from those who would/could do things to harm them or infringe upon their freedoms of safety and well-being.
For this we need laws; I want to be protected from people who think it’s okay to ingest mind-altering substances, from people with dulled or deluded senses from using mind-altering substances, just for fun.
Reading material is one thing, ingesting it is quite another.
Irrelevant to the point of my analogy: defending the right to do X is not defending doing X.
instead of showing greater concern about the root cause of why so many people need to distort their realities and/or run away from their problems
Only liberals think that's any of government's business.
Guess I just proved your opinion incorrect.
No, more like I just proved you a liberal.
So you've abandoned your attempts to simultaneously defend the legality of alcohol and the illegality of marijuana?
I have no problem with stating, over and over again, I agree with the legality of alcohol, with restrictions, and the illegality of narcotics/weed.
What you do have a problem with is providing a rational defense of this position---which explains why in post 104 you bailed out of your failed attempt to do so.
Alcohol is a mind-altering substance.
And gun-grabbers want to be protected from shootings, and non-smokers from secondhand smoke, and the food police want to protect us from fatty foods, and [insert your personal protection desire here]. The point is, you have a right to be protected from someone causing you harm. You do not have the right to insist on a carte-blanche prohibition because they MIGHT do something - that is the attitude of a liberal - penalizing the possibility of misconduct, not misconduct itself. So ingesting pot at home is the same as ingesting booze at home, and they should become criminal only upon additional conduct that endangers others. Likewise with guns - they only become a problem when used in an unsafe, illegal manner.
I have no problem defending my positions, but I'm not a scientist or doctor. Sometimes, all it takes is common sense to understand why a government must take action to protect innocents in society, obviously, you lack the commen sense necessary to understand why people should not have a RIGHT to take substances, for fun, which alters their mental/emotional states and, by so doing, affects and effects those around them, friends or strangers, financially, emotionally, and otherwise.
If you truly believe a person smoking a joint in his or her living room right now harms or infringes upon your safety or well-being, pick up a Yellow Pages and find yourself an ambulance chaser to file a claim for you in civil court. Let us know how you do.
Your mindset here is the same as the cops raiding the bars in Fairfax County, arresting patrons - on the grounds that they just might drive drunk later. And both are just as wrong.
Prove it---tell us what you think should be done about "the root cause of why so many people need to distort their realities and/or run away from their problems."
I have no problem defending my positions
You have utterly failed to defend the idea that alcohol should be legal but marijuana illegal.
people should not have a RIGHT to take substances, for fun, which alters their mental/emotional states
Then why not ban alcohol, which alters the user's mental/emotional states?
That's ironic. The liberals don't give a whit about the 2nd Amendment, and you don't give a whit about the concept of limited government (read the 9th and 10th Amendments and get back to me). So you both wish to criminalize activity (gun ownership, pot use) on your perceptions that it may harm you, therefore it should be illegal. You're both on the same page.
So EVERY TIME any person smokes marijuana that person then goes out and harms someone?
and society itself.
How does Joe Smith's smoking a joint in his living room "harm society itself," and how is this harm any of government's business?
Ah, our good friend common sense. Common sense drug laws. Common sense gun laws. Common sense smoking regulations. Common sense food laws are coming soon to a government near you. You are entititled to your own common sense. That, however, does not make it MY common sense, so that is why we have the concept of limited government - to keep you from imposing YOUR common sense on me. Because I'll damn well drink beer tonight when I get home and get a good beer buzz if I damn well please, and if I were inclined to smoke pot, I would do that as well and you could go pound sand. Because your rights to govern me as to my behavior end once I'm on my property. Or they used to, until you and your coherts in the liberal busybody community decided that I was unfit to tend to my own affairs.
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