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.
You can't go long without lying about me, can you? Get help.
Dispelling the Marijuana Myth
It is tragic that most drug education curricula fail to warn students about the insidious and seductive dangers of marijuana (also called pot). Drug education over the past 25 years has left youngsters with the false notion that marijuana is a harmless or "soft" drug, like alcohol, safe if used in moderation.
The myth that marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol has been aggressively promoted by the international drug cartels since the 1960s. Teenagers find this easy to believe because they see many adults who drink alcohol without apparent harm (even though many lives have been destroyed by alcohol). So, some teens feel free to experiment by smoking a little pot and drinking a little alcohol.
In fact, marijuana is radically different from alcohol and far more dangerous. Marijuana is very deceptive and perhaps as harmful as heroin.
Alcohol is water soluble and so, when it is absorbed into the body, it dissolves in the blood and stays in the blood as it is carried around the body to various organs. It is gradually eliminated, primarily by being metabolized in the liver and, within hours, no alcohol is left in the body. The hangover that lasts a day or so after heavy drinking is caused by poisons generated by alcohol in the body, not by the alcohol itself.
Marijuana, on the other hand, acts on the body in a very different way. Marijuana's psychoactive ingredient, THC, is strongly fat soluble but cannot dissolve in water or in blood. THC is stored for many weeks in the fatty tissues of the body.
THC is extremely slow acting. THC is one million times more potent than alcohol, but appears to be mild because very little reaches the brain during the "high" and, unlike alcohol, doesn't leave a hangover.
When marijuana is smoked regularly, THC accumulates in body fat. The THC is slowly fed back into the blood, and the user gradually slips into a state of continual sedation. In time, the steady presence of THC in the blood damages the brain, the lungs, the immune system, the chromosomes, the hormones, the reproductive system, and sexual development. The frequent pot user becomes passive and devoid of personal ambition.
Most important, the pot user doesn't realize what has happened to him because he is sedated all the time. The daily marijuana smoker is in a perpetual fog but doesn't realize it.
Because THC is continually present, the body rapidly builds up tolerance to it, and so the pot user is led to smoke more and more to regain the original high. Eventually, the high from pot fails to satisfy, and he may turn to other drugs, including alcohol, to achieve a high. Nevertheless, he usually continues to smoke pot as he uses the other drugs, because pot makes him "feel good all the time."
When using alcohol, a regular pot smoker typically drinks to excess because he is constantly numb from his steady THC blood level and requires several drinks to feel an effect. Also, pot strongly inhibits nausea and he can drink heavily without getting sick. Normally, a teenager vomits from excessive alcohol, but one who regularly uses pot can easily hold down a lethal alcohol overdose. Since THC insidiously builds up in the body, experimenting with pot often lures a youngster into a trap of escalating drug and alcohol abuse. It is not alcohol that leads to marijuana abuse; it is marijuana that leads to alcohol abuse.
Withdrawal symptoms are mild when pot use is abruptly ended because THC cannot be withdrawn rapidly; the body has its own supply. It takes one week of abstinence for the THC stored in fat to drop to half, and one month to drop to 5%.
Data from scientific studies have been analyzed to describe quantitatively the storage of THC in the body. These data show that the steady THC blood level from smoking one "joint" per day, with 2% THC, would evoke a high in a beginning marijuana smoker. The experienced pot smoker does not feel a constant high, but he is continually sedated.
The THC in marijuana today is up to 25 times more potent than it used to be. In the 1960s, the THC in pot rarely exceeded 1%, but today may be 12% to 25%.
Landmark research by Dr. Robert Heath, a world renowned brain researcher, shows the drastic effect of marijuana on the brain. He proved that marijuana's effect on the brain makes it one of the most dangerous drugs available.
Public attitudes toward drugs are continually clouded by propaganda from the drug cartels, whose profits from illegal drugs are so immense that they nearly equal the annual expenditures of the U.S. Federal Government. The major drug profits come from heroin and cocaine, but the drug kingpins know that marijuana users, in a constant state of sedation, are their prime market for cocaine and heroin. Without marijuana use, the demand for cocaine and heroin would tend to dry up as the addicts die. As long as the severe dangers of marijuana are obscured, they are assured a steady market for cocaine and heroin.
Of course, all marijuana smokers do not turn to cocaine and heroin, but a large proportion do. This is why the drug cartels want to legalize marijuana -- they would give it away if they could. The drug kingpins know that those inclined to experiment with drugs no longer first try cocaine or heroin (as was common in the 1960s); they go first to marijuana, an insidious trap, and then escalate their drug use to get a bigger high. Since pot is stored in the body for weeks, the user is seductively dragged into a state of continual sedation, his mind becomes confused, and in time his brain is permanently damaged.
It is vital that teenagers be given the truth about the deception and the dangers of marijuana and its fundamental difference from alcohol. But school-based drug courses are not giving them the truth. Some of the curricula give the impression that casual or moderate use of marijuana and alcohol is acceptable. Other curricula simply omit information about marijuana.
A 38-page report on the severe dangers of marijuana is available by sending a check for $5.25 to Massachusetts News, P.O. Box 191, Peabody, MA 01960, and asking for Dispelling the Marijuana Myth by George Biernson. The 1974 U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee report on "The Marijuana-Hashish Epidemic" is still an amazing collection of evidence on the dangers of pot. It is curious that reporting about the dangers of marijuana usage has virtually disappeared from public discussion. See also the Phyllis Schlafly Reports of May 1975 and May 1978.
And yes, I do, on occasion, have an adult beverage.
I never said so, liar.
I had a feeling he was personalizing this issue, as opposed to Kevin Curry, who's just deliberately impervious to reason...
The totalitarian impulse is indistinguishable from a belief in 'progress', 'improvement', and 'fairness'; and for the many, not the one.
...that I'd also say that there is an extreme in the direction of rights and powers of the individual, which is akin to anarchy.
I'll take Free Rebublicanism; how about you?
But I won't leave in a huff because a bunch of "us" want to have dope on the market. Anyone disappointed? `-) If so, do tell!
I hope you agree that there are ways and means that make more sense than either the WOD or a "metaphysical right" to Free Dope Trade.
Since alcohol also leads to tolerance, this explanation is almost certainly wrong. Try getting your facts from medical/scientific sources rather than pseuso-conservative propaganda sites.
Probably because, as you have so aptly shown in your posts, that they will lose the argument.
How many people have ODed on marijuana? The above quote is a contemptible lie.
Do you have anything to offer besides sycophantic falsehoods?
The difference between the three substances and weed is that those three substances have no other purpose but to harm others. Weed smokers only harm themselves.
None of my four 'drugs of choice' are harmful to anyone, unless I would apply them.
Also, weed smokers create an economy as I said (free or "black market") that corrupts others. (seen the ads on TV lately?) It also dissipates one's well-being IMHO and that's a "bummer."
Enough for now! This posting is getting... downright... addicting!
But unlike them,it's damn near impossible to apply marijuana to an unwilling victim---nor have I ever heard of anyone trying.
How is that any less true of alcohol?
You forgot to mention George P. Schulz, William F. Buckley, GOP congressman Ron Paul, GOP gov. of NM Gary Johnson, Bill O'Reilly (a couple nights ago he said that pot should be decrimminalized), conservative economist Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, ......shall I go on?
Of course, all marijuana smokers do not turn to cocaine and heroin, but a large proportion do.
Large proportion? I figure that close to 50 million people have tried pot. How many ended up being cocaine or heroin users? A few million. Just like alcohol - millions of people use booze, and a certain percentage become alcoholics. It's more a reflection on the personality of the individual, not the drug.
As for me, I don't bother with such inane studies that admit they really aren't certain of long-term effects, and then turn around and claim them anyway. I instead look at end results of the respective drugs - how many people die or suffer serious adverse health effects from them, and how many innocent people are directly and adversely affected by abusers of the drug. Alcohol wins hands down, year after year. Pot is hardly on the radar screen. You can delude yourself that your drug of choice, adult beverages, is somehow less harmful than pot, but the only person you are fooling is yourself. And it exposes your blatant double standard - your drug OK, pot bad.
It really isn't my fight - I'm a beer drinker, I can stop at the local beer distributor on the way home tonight, get a case of Yuengling lager, and me and my wife are set for the weekend. But I am not willing to tacitly accept a double standard because the wrong side of the standard doesn't affect me. You, however, wish to actively promote the double standard, and that speaks poorly of you.
Believe it or not, I do not oppose all drug laws, rather I would say that I oppose drug prohibition in favor of drug regulation. In my opinion, sensible drug regulation would control access to minors and provide harsh penalties for those who do so and for crimes comitted under the influence.
Libertarianism has its flaws.
You'll get no argument from me here. I would agree that the anarchist tendancy of the Libertarian Party is their fatal flaw. I am not an anarchist by any stretch of the imagination. I consider myself a moderate libertarian, but I must emphasize that I do not believe in no laws at all.
Ah, this venerable old chestnut. Already proven to be an urban legend created by the drug warriors.
I'm not sure I agree that libertarians or the LP have an "anarchist tendency." I think the proper functions of government are so few, compared to its current extent, that anyone who isn't critical of most new or existing legislation simply doesn't get it.
I have not tried to "win" an argument; I have only expressed my opinion. To me, this is not a game to see who is the best at debating or who has the best debating skills; nor have I said I have those skills or attempted to "win" anyone over. I posted to express my opinions, and, to some extent, posted from another site to show that I am, as everyone knows here, not inventing my statements out of thin air, as it is already well known that what I state and think is stated and thought by many people, whether or not you agree with those statements or thoughts.
Just about any weed smoker I have ever known would cheerfully grow a pot plant in their living room, if it were legal. The black market in pot exists solely because pot is illegal, not because of the nature of pot, just as Prohibition created a black market in alcohol where none existed before.
In fact, your beloved ban on pot has in many ways made drug use among teens and young adults worse. Since pot is bulky and difficult to smuggle, the cost has skyrocketed. The price of heroin, however, a compact substance easy to smuggle, has dropped, and its purity risen. So congratulations. Your approach has resulted in making heroin accessible and affordable around the country. Hope you're happy.
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