However, the article does offer the opportunity to examine the principle prohibitionist arguments, so bear with me. Prepare your anti-emetics.)

The Reader's Digest
April 1998
"High On A Lie"
By Daniel Levine

Mail: Reader’s Digest, Box 100, Pleasantville NY 10570-0100 Fax: 914-238-6390.

The article is accompanied pictures that give a sinister appearance to the article’s arch-villains. " Behind the Pot Vote - George Soros $550,000 - Peter Lewis $500,000 - John Sperling $200,000 --> Californians for Medical Rights Campaign for the Compassionate Use Act" to legalize medical marijuana. Photo caption: "All marijuana use is medical," claims Dennis Peron, the outspoken owner of California’s largest pot club. Funded by Billionaires, the "Medical Marijuana" Movement is Blowing Smoke in our Eyes
(Ed. note: It never bothers to explain why these very rich men, who have nothing to gain from this, are pursuing what is clearly a thankless course. The article is largely about denigrating the motives of the medical marijuana supporters, but it never ventures an explanation for them. Why do we want to do what they see as such a horrible thing? What is the nature of our depravity? Certainly, Levine is not bashful in commenting on motives.)

HIGH ON A LIE

One Saturday last September, 50,000 people, most of them teen-agers, crowded into the Boston Common for the eight annual Freedom Rally. Its organizers billed it as the largest marijuana-legalization event on the East Coast. Strolling through the crowd, holding a joint, was a 17-year-old high-school senior who said his name was Bill. "If they allow sick people to use it," he said, "it can’t be that damaging."

If some teenager in the park made a similar statement about morphine, would that then be the basis for the Digest to crusade against all pain relievers?)

Sharing a marijuana pipe with two friends, a 15-year-old named Nicole agreed. "Pot is harmless," she said. "It should be legalized because there are so many medical benefits. It helps you with a lot of things. It’s the best." (Ed. note: Again, it would seem that the confusion between medical use and recreational use is being fostered by the prohibitionists. )

An increasing number of young Americans agree. They have gotten this idea from a well-funded movement to legalize the "compassionate" use of marijuana. (Ed. note: Blaming the medical marijuana movement for the increase in teenage marijuana use is not supported by any survey data. Teen marijuana use began increasing before the medical marijuana movement got significant publicity.) While every legitimate drug requires rigorous testing by the FDA before being approved, marijuana advocates are opting for medicine by popular vote. This year signatures are being gathered for medical-marijuana initiatives in a half-dozen states and the District of Columbia.
(Ed. note: Of course, this ignores the fact that the very expensive FDA approval process was designed for patented pharmaceuticals, not for a plant that no one can own. Moreover, the FDA process was designed to prevent the marketing of these products prior to being proven "safe and effective," not to justify arresting sick people who find that a plant helps them relieve their suffering. You will not find any mention of the arrest and prosecution of seriously ill people anywhere in this article.)

In fact, marijuana smoke contains over 2000 chemicals, many of which produce psychoactive reactions, cause lung damage and - in cancer and AIDS patients - increase the risk of pneumonia and weaken the immune system. Inhaling the smoke also disrupts short-term memory and leads to changes in the brain similar to those caused by heroin, cocaine and other highly addictive drugs.

Moreover, the comparison of the effects on the brain caused by marijuana, cocaine and heroin is irrelevant for several reasons.
First, it is essentially meaningless. This sounds scary, but it means nothing.
Second, opiates and other highly addictive drugs are medically available. If marijuana has a similar effect, so what?
Third, if a person is seriously ill or in great pain, what difference does it make?)

"There is no conclusive scientific evidence that marijuana is superior to currently available medicines," says Dr. Eric Voth, chairman of the International Drug Strategy Institute in Omaha. "Medical marijuana is a scam that takes advantage of sick and dying patients."
(Dr.Voth is a well-known prohibitionist propagandist, but never mind. It is not necessary to prove that marijuana is "superior to currently available medicines." Under the law, all that is necessary is to prove that it is relatively safe and effective for some patients for whom conventional medications are not. Both of these points are implicit in the recognition of the medical value of THC in Marionol. That is all that is required.)

Says Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (Ret.), director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, "Medical marijuana is a stalking-horse for legalization. This is not about compassion. This is about legalizing dangerous drugs." (Ed. note: Hardly a disinterested party.)

"Daddy Warbucks" of Drugs. - The legalization of marijuana and other drugs has been debated for more than 30 years, with a vast majority of Americans standing in opposition. (Ed. note: Surveys show that a substantial majority are in favor of medical access to marijuana, which is the question at hand.) Legalization supporters have used the argument that drugs are necessary for medical reasons. (Ed. note: Gosh, "drugs are necessary for medical reasons?" What an amazing concept. Maybe someone should start a pharmaceutical industry!) But now, for the first time, they have significant financial backing. (Ed. note: In contrast to the prohibitionists who have always had "significant financial backing." If this really is a relevant issue, then someone should do an examination of the funding levels and sources of both the prohibitionist and anti-prohibitionist movements. It is important -- as a matter of public policy -- to know that huge sums of public money are being used to support prohibitionism, but it is irrelevant to the merits of the arguments.)

In the last six years a handful of America’s wealthiest people have contributed $20 million to groups that promote medical marijuana or other radical drug-policy reforms. Billionaire financier George Soros is the biggest giver, donating more than $16 million. Others include Peter Lewis, CEO of Cleveland-based Progressive Corp., the nation’s sixth-largest auto insurer, and John Sperling, president of the Apollo Group, a holding company that controls for-profit universities and job-training centers.

In an interview with Reader’s Digest, the 76-year-old Sperling said he believes doctors should be allowed to prescribe all drugs, including heroin and LSD. (Ed. note: This does not sound like a libertarian plot to "legalize all drugs.") Lewis declined to be interviewed.

A spokesman for Soros said he does not support drug legalization. Nonetheless, Soros has donated millions since 1992 to groups led by people advocating it. Former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph A. Califano, Jr., calls him the "Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization." (Ed. note: A very well-funded prohibitionist propagandist doesn’t like the fact that someone is spending his own money to disagree with him.)

Soros created a drug-policy institute called The Lindesmith Center and has funded it with $4 million. Its director, Ethan Nadelmann, Soros’s point man on drug policy, has said he wants to "legalize the personal possession of drugs by adult Americans." (Ed. note: This is what is known as decriminalization and is not what the Digest seems to mean by legalization.)

Soros has also given $6.4 million to the Drug Policy Foundation (DPF), a leading advocate for medical marijuana. Its stated mission is "publicizing alternatives to current drug strategies." Its founder, attorney and college professor Arnold Trebach, calls himself a "flat-out legalizer" who advocates the repeal of current drug laws.

Richard J. Dennis, a 49-year-old Chicago commodities trader and member of DPF’s board of directors, supports both medical marijuana and legalization in general. In fact, says Dennis, "I’d like to see legalization for adults for all drugs, including heroin."

On DPF’s advisory board is Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Lester Grinspoon, a leading advocate of medical marijuana for over 25 years. He compares marijuana’s potential benefit to that of penicillin, predicting, "It will be the wonder drug of the new millennium." (Ed. note: This may be the low point of the article. It would have been so easy to identify Dr. Grinspoon as the author of the book Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine, that not doing so indicates a fear that the readers may find out that someone can get information that disagrees with the article. Instead, he takes one sentence out of context.)

Soros, Lewis and Sperling gained their biggest victory in November, 1996 when California voters passed Proposition 215, also knows as the Compassionate Use Act. It allows pot to be grown and smoked for "any illness for which marijuana provides relief." There are no age restrictions. (Ed. note: There are also no age restrictions on morphine or other very powerful drugs that a doctor can legally prescribe. If a child is suffering, should an effective medication be withheld?) "Illness" is loosely defined and can include headaches, chronic pain and arthritis. (Ed. note: Does he really mean to imply that "headaches, chronic pain and arthritis" are not serious conditions which require medication? This is really bizarre.) A doctor’s oral recommendation is all that is required.

(Ed. note: Of course, the Digest would never acknowledge the reason for this. Doctors cannot legally "prescribe" marijuana, and are being threatened with the loss of their ability to prescribe legal pain-relievers if they even give an "oral recommendation" for marijuana.)

The principal author of the California initiative was 52-year-old Dennis Peron, a San Francisco "medical pot club" owner who’s been arrested 15 times on marijuana charges. Peron says he worded the initiative vaguely because he believes "all marijuana use is medical."

(Ed. note: Dennis specifically said "adult use," which is a very important distinction in this context.)

Peron’s Cannabis Cultivators’ Club is the state’s largest pot club, taking in over $20,000 a day. One day last fall, Peron wandered the club greeting patrons and handed one a bulging quarter-pound bag of marijuana.

Standing in line at Peron’s smoke-filled club to buy an eighth of an ounce of high-grade Mexican marijuana was a 39-year-old named Anthony. Under California’s law, Anthony is consider a "seriously ill patient" who can purchase and smoke pot. He tokes up four or five times a day.

When asked about his ailment, Anthony answered: "Officially, hernia discomfort from overstrenuous intercourse. Actually, I can’t feel it." He said the club admitted him without any medical referral. A self-described "potaholic," Anthony has smoked dope since he was 16. My problems, he conceded, "are related to a general life-style kind of thing."

Peron’s club has operated for years, despite violating state and federal drug laws. In August 1996, state drug agents raided it, seizing 86 pounds of pot and $62,000. "The club was running a sophisticated illegal drug-distribution network," said a spokesman of California Attorney General Dan Lungren. A grand jury indicated Peron, and he awaits trial on felony drug charges. Meanwhile, Peron is running for governor of California.

(Ed. note: This is the only reference to the use of the criminal law to suppress medical marijuana. If anyone has ever been to any of these clubs, but he will quickly meet people with very serious medical conditions. This is cruelest part of the article. It pretends that there are no seriously ill people using marijuana. This is both dishonest and inhumane.)

Peron’s initiative never would have made it to the ballot without the help of Soros, Lewis and Sperling. California requires 433,269 valid petition signatures before a "citizen’s initiative" can be placed on the ballot. As the deadline neared, Peron and his unorganized group of volunteers had collected only 40,000.

That is when Ethan Nadelmann of Soros’s Lindesmith Center stepped in. He helped create Californians for Medical Rights, a sophisticated campaign organization that pushed the medical-marijuana initiative. Soros and Lewis pored $400,000 into the group, which paid professional signature gatherers who, in 90days, obtained more than 700,000 signatures.

Once the measure was on the ballot, Soros, Lewis and Sperling contributed $450,000 for advertising. Commercials featured emotional appeals for relief through the use of marijuana. The ads never mentioned that Proposition 215 would allow marijuana to be smoked for any condition, without age restriction and without a prescription.

(Ed. note: The contents of Prop 215 were not a secret.)

One of the numerous medical-marijuana clubs that opened as a result of Peron’s measure was the Dharma Producers Group in San Francisco, which bragged that it offered "medical marijuana with a Tibetan touch." The club’s "medical director," a pony-tailed 52-yar-old named Lorenzo Pace, laughed when he explained his medical-marijuana credentials: "I did preliminary research all through the ‘60s.:

California for Medical Rights has since changed its name to Americans for Medical Rights. Today it is leading a campaign to place medical-marijuana initiatives on state ballots across the country.

Rx: LSD. - While Californians were voting on medical marijuana, their neighbors in Arizona were considering an even more radical initiative. The Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act of 1996 proposed to legalize not only marijuana but also more tan 100 other drugs - including heroin, LSD and PCP (angel dust) - for medical use.

(Ed. note: This section is entirely irrelevant to the argument about medical marijuana. There are very good libertarian and technocratic arguments why other drugs should be legalized or made medically available, but they are not the same as the arguments for medical marijuana.)

Arizona’s initiative was sold to voters as a way to get tough on violent criminals. How? Open up jail space by paroling all first- and second-time drug offenders. This ignored the fact that virtually all of the 1200 inmates affected had plea-bargained down from more serious charges or had prior felony records.

In Arizona, Sperling spearheaded the campaign. He, Soros and Lewis contributed a total of $1.2 million; the DPF gave $303,000. This accounted for 99 percent of the initiative’s total funding. As in California, much of this money paid for a massive media campaign. Opponents of the initiative, caught unprepared, did not run a single advertisement.

The measure passed, but a post-election survey revealed that Arizona voters had been badly misled. Seventy-four percent did not believe doctors should be able to prescribe drugs such as heroin, PCP and LSD, as he proposition allowed; 70 percent agreed that the initiative would give children the impression that drugs were also acceptable for recreational use. The state legislature subsequently passed a statute that effectively overrode the initiative.

Fighting Back. - The organizers of Arizona’s initiative moved to place a similar measure on the ballot in Washington State. Sperling, Lewis and Soros contributed a total of more than $1.5 million.

Despite being outspent more than ten to one, opponents of the Washington initiative were not about to be caught unprepared. They took every opportunity to stress that the measure was not about compassion, but about legalizing dangerous drugs. Last November voters rejected the measure.

The defeat in Washington has not sidetracked plans for similar medical-marijuana initiatives in other states. (Ed. note: As he just got through complaining, the Washington and Arizona initiatives were not medical marijuana initiatives. These others are, and most are much more restrictive than Prop 215.) Battlegrounds include Hawaii, Florida, Kansas, Main and Alaska. An Oregon initiative would not only legalize use of many drugs but also permit the sale of marijuana in state liquor stores. (Ed. note: This is not a medical marijuana initiative.) In Washington, D.C., Initiative 59 would allow up to four caregivers, including "best friends," to cultivate pot for a "seriously ill" person. Organizers are hoping that passage of these initiatives will spur Congress to legalize medical marijuana under federal law.

(Ed. note: Initiative 57 is not being funded by the AMR group. On the contrary, it is being backed by Act-Up the militant AIDS group that has vocally denounced AMR and has distanced itself from the drug reform movement in general. Again, it is dishonest not to recognize this, but it doesn’t fit with his simple scenario. AIDS groups are among the major supporters of medical marijuana, but no one would learn that from this article.)

Says Dr. Robert DuPont, a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse: "Never in the history of modern medicine has burning leaves been considered medicine. Those in the medical-marijuana movement are putting on white coats and expressing concerns about the sick. But people need to see this for what it is: a fraud and a hoax."

(Ed. note: Just when in modern history has arresting sick and dying people been considered medicine? An article about medical marijuana that does not mention the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, the DEA’s administrative law judge, or the prosecution and imprisonment of seriously ill people is worse than a "fraud and hoax," it is complicity in murder. This is a blood libel. Yes, Mr. Levine, I know what that means. Do you?)