Pro-Pot Group Challenges Bush Marijuana Policy (BARF ALERT)

Focus On The Family | January 9, 2003 | David Brody

[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.

[MrLeRoy]

alcohol is commonly accepted as being used without having an actually narcotic effect and is different than chemicals ingested to do so

False. Alcohol acts on the same brain pathways as opiates (see http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/gallery/pharmacology/volpi.htm); the mildly relaxing effect of a small amount of alcohol is no different than the mildly relaxing effect of a small amount of opiate.

[headsonpikes]

I will give you credit for persistance, if not for insight.

I would suggest you re-read de Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America' for an insight into the dangers of 'democratic' social and political pressures.

So you really think the FDA has the authority to forbid the consumption and cultivation of tomatoes.

Feh. You deserve your fate.

[unspun]

None of that supports your claim that "Libertarians' goal [is to] transform the USA into the NSA, the Narcotic State of America."

Perhaps not intentionally, but that is a very real, potential result of releasing narcotics to the great American marketing machinery. Once again, see abortion. See television. ;-`

[MrLeRoy]

And the FDA has been given the authority to decide what is safe to market and not to market, in the way of food and drugs.

Contrary to the Constitution.

[MrLeRoy]

Depends upon what the phrase "among the states" means. It doesn't say "solely between one state and another." If I talk among people, I talk to any number of them at once, including one.

I don't see the relavance of this---unless you're trying to argue that "commerce among the several States" somehow includes commerce that occurs entirely with a single state.

[unspun]

So you really think the FDA has the authority to forbid the consumption and cultivation of tomatoes.

Yes, if they have harmful pesticides, or herbicides, or food poisoning. Or more relevant, the FDA has the authority to forbid the sale of rye flour, if it contains certain ergots at certain levels.

[vin-one]

what about personal responsibility, people who take care of themselves.
Get real, you expect the gov't take care of everyone out there.
"it imposes upon the rest of society to take care of the mess".

It takes a village right, you and Hillary should get along very well.

[unspun]

See post.... 54 is it? above from nicmarlo.

I've got to do my work now.

[MrLeRoy]

I have title to my body, to answer your question, and a responsibility to society not to do violence with it

So far so good---and irrelevant to the question of drug use.

(or even to it).

Provide support for your claim. Is becoming obese doing violence to your body? May government regulate our diets to prevent this?

Doing narcotics supports an enconomy that does violence to society.

Only in ways that are consequences of anti-drug laws. It would be no more true that doing legal narcotics supports an enconomy that does violence to society than it is true that using alcohol supports an enconomy that does violence to society.

When people blow their minds (or their brains out) it imposes upon the rest of society to take care of the mess.

No, society imposes that cost on itself.

[MrLeRoy]

See post.... 54 is it? above from nicmarlo.

That post does not establish that cannabis acts in a significantly different way than alcohol. And even if that was true, you have not responded to the point that alcohol and opiates (such as heroin) act in the same way, so your attempt to distinguish alcohol from all narcotics fails.

[unspun]

we have the freedom to govern.

What we? Where exactly is the right to dictate a person's habits indicated in the Constitution??? By the states (or local government).

Depends on the habit (blowing up things in the back yard, racing on the city streets, manufacturing anthrax genes, doing narcotics).

[vin-one]

Bump to the list.....

[tacticalogic]

Dancing toward the door.

[MrLeRoy]

see abortion

I rebutted this argument of yours two days ago in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/804289/posts?page=115#115: "Apples and oranges---abortions are much harder to conceal (and take much more skill to provide) than drugs." You never responded then; why are you peddling the same defeated argument here?

[Anoy11_]

"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."..... And how many of those people drink milk and eat cookies? milk and cookies ought to be banned as well, obviously

[headsonpikes]

MR. Spun, would you like to see what a totalitarian looks like?

Just look in the mirror and consider the fact that the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, in fact, every nation that has succumbed to the totalitarian impulse was chock-a-block with folks just like you, who thought that governments, by their very nature, are supreme and unlimited.

Many posters here think that is an error.

You seem to be comfortable with the intellectual company you keep, however.

That's your problem.

[unspun]

I rebutted this argument of yours two days ago in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/804289/posts?page=115#115: "Apples and oranges---abortions are much harder to conceal (and take much more skill to provide) than drugs." You never responded then; why are you peddling the same defeated argument here?

I don't stalk for your posts, MLR. ;-)

You seem to be saying that legalization to buy, sell, market mary-jane and (and any other narcotic) does not make it more available. That on the face of it is... self-evidently wrong.

Really do have to work.

[nicmarlo]

Alcohol, narcotics, and cannibis are not one and the same thing, no matter how much you want to spin it.

[MrLeRoy]

Alcohol, narcotics, and cannibis are not one and the same thing

Of course not---cannabis is much safer than alcohol.

[unspun]

Just look in the mirror and consider the fact that the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, in fact, every nation that has succumbed to the totalitarian impulse was chock-a-block with folks just like you, who thought that governments, by their very nature, are supreme and unlimited.

Achtung! Who, little ol' me?

No, I don't think that. Neither do I think that a free society must be imposed upon to accept license in place of liberty, when it comes to some cockamamie "inalienable right to have, use and market narcotics."

It may sound insulting to Libertarian sensibilities, but the People have the right to govern with our government.