Czar Joined By NIDA Head
Leshner In Lying About Marijuana At Hearings;
An Appetizer Before The Buffet
(Marijuananews note: Over the next day or so
Marijuananews will have an extensive analysis of the "hearings."
Consider this an "appetizer.")June 16, 1999
Drug Chief Discourages Legalization
By JIM ABRAMS Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Legalizing drugs would only lead to more abuse, crime and social
disruption, White House drug policy chief Barry McCaffrey said Wednesday during a House
hearing about the drug legalization movement.
"Youth access to and use of alcohol and cigarettes is bad enough,"
McCaffrey told the House Government Reform criminal justice panel. "American parents
clearly don’t want children able to use a fake ID at the corner store to buy
heroin."
See
Drug Czar Returns To
Party Line,
Opposes Including Ads Warning Kids About Alcohol
and
McCaffrey
Says Rather Than Focus On Individual Drugs, The Drug Culture Should Be Targeted.
"The problem isn’t the kind of drug; it’s drug-crazed, stoned
behavior." And It Gets Weirder...
McCaffrey was backed up by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s deputy
administrator, Donnie Marshall.
He said that "once America gives in to a drug culture, and
all the social decay that comes with such a culture, it would be very hard to restore a
decent civic culture without a cost to America’s civil liberties that would be
prohibitively high."
(Marijuananews note: The DEA expressing concern about the "cost to America’s
civil liberties" is really touching.)
See
Operation
Pipeline Designed By DEA For Nationwide System To Search Cars Without Cause;
"Once they’ve given consent, they’ve dug their own grave."
and
DEA Agent
Busted By Jeff Jones At Oakland CBC – A Report From Steve Kubby
and
DEA Fails to
Intimidate County Council of Kauai on Hemp Cultivation in Hawaii
and
DEA
Impounds Car Destroys Credit Of Aids-Cancer Patient Peter McWilliams
-- Without Bringing Charges
and
Outrageous Conduct?
More On The DEA’s Use Of Unstable Woman To Frame Husband For Growing Marijuana:
"His mother’s drinking increased dramatically when she got involved with the
DEA."
But others questioned the emphasis on criminalizing drug use.
"Dysfunctional laws," said Ira Glasser of the American Civil Liberties Union,
have resulted in "massive incarceration - much of it racially disparate - and the
violation of a wide range of constitutional rights."
See
ACLU Runs Quarter Page Ad On
New York Times Op-ed Comparing Marijuana and Maritinis
and
ACLU Report On DEA’s
"Operation Pipeline" Documents
History Of Racial Inequity In Traffic Stops
and
Black Army Veteran
Files Lawsuit After Race Profiling Stop in Oklahoma;
12-Year-Old Son Was Terrorized by Police Dog -- Oklahoma ACLU
The number of drug offenders in state and federal prisons has
gone from 12,000 in 1980 to 281,000 in 1997, said Scott Ehlers of the Drug Policy
Foundation, which advocates drug law reforms.
"Drug use and addiction should be treated as public health issues, not criminal
justice problems," Ehlers said.
Opinions differed among the panel members.
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the subcommittee, said there can be no retreat in
the war on drugs because "the simple truth is that drugs destroy lives."
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who said he lives in a drug-infested
neighborhood in Baltimore, said he opposed the criminalization of drugs.
"I am for making sure that people are treated. We must have a more humane
society," Cummings said.
McCaffrey agreed that treatment is crucial, explaining that the administration had
requested $3.5 billion for treatment and research programs for next year, up 5.5 percent.
But he said any trend toward legalizing drugs would be disastrous, leading to increased
addiction, more crime, more traffic and workplace accidents, as well as more child abuse
and neglect.
Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at
the National Institutes of Health, warned that even short-term use of marijuana can
affect the brain, a person’s memory and their learning skills.
(Marijuananews note: Alan Leshner is am embarrassment to
the scientific community. There is simply no data to support his statement, and much to
contradict it. Not that anyone would question any reefer madness.)
See
American
Journal Of Epidemiology Report That Long-Term Use Of Marijuana
Does Not Lead To A Decline In Mental Function Got Minimal Coverage,
Perhaps Because Scores Actually Fell More Among Non-Users Than Among Heavy Users!
and
NIDA’s
Traveling Road Show "Understanding Drug Abuse" By Michael D. Cutler, Esq.
and
Medical
Marijuana and the Degradation of Science -- NIDA Funds More Than 85 Percent Of The
World’s Research On Health Aspects Of "Drug Abuse" And Addiction and
Suppresses Medical Marijuana.
"Even occasional drug use can be dangerous, and there is no
way to predict who may suffer drastic consequences as a result of experimenting with
drugs," Leshner said.
McCaffrey said that message has gotten through to people who experimented with drugs in
the 1960s and 1970s. He cited a survey showing that among Americans who have tried drugs
in the past, 73 percent believe that parents should forbid children from using drugs at
any time.
(Marijuananews note: We couldn’t say it any better:
From the New York Times: June 16, 1999
"Drug and Alcohol Treatment Rooted to Immigrants’ Backgrounds
People from the former Soviet Union, for example, often distrust not only their peers,
but also people with authority. ‘We are talking about an enormous level of
resistance to outside persuasion, because all the messages, all the lies, in the
totalitarian society were delivered by authority figures’ said Dr. Kagen of
the Educational Alliance.)
Supported