Major Defection! The
Washington Post Sort Of Comes Out For Medical Marijuana For DC...
Sort Of...
See
The Washington Post
Had To Report On The Initiative Results, So They Did…
and
The New York Times
Reveals The New Medical Marijuana Research Policy
Is Just A Stalling Tactic That Will Do Nothing To Help Patients,
While The Washington Post Reveals That Frankly It Doesn’t Give A Damn.
– One and A Fraction Articles
and
Tale of Two Capital
City Newspapers:
The Washington Post and The Ottawa Citizen On Medical Marijuana
-- Maybe We Should Apologize To King George.
and
McCaffrey Named New
Editor-In-Chief of the Washington Post – Exclusive To Marijuananews
and
Washington Post and
New York Times on IOM Medical Marijuana
Compare and Contrast – A Split In The Establishment?
The Drug Czar’s Quote In The Post Wins The Prize.(Marijuananews
note: This is enormously important. The Pravda of marijuana prohibition has broken ranks
with the party line and the Drug Czar. Although this piece is full of weasel-words and
equivocations, it is still a break in a very brittle ideology that cannot afford to have
any questions raised.
See
Drug Czar’s Office Endorses
Arresting, Jailing Medical Marijuana Smokers;
Canada’s Parliament Resumes Historic Medical Marijuana Debate -- NORML Press Release
The suppression of the medical marijuana initiative in DC was an insult to the
Post’s readers. Of course, the Post insults their intelligence on a regular basis.
Here for example. This borders on incoherence, but at least they are defending democracy,
which seems like a nice thing for a paper in DC.
Oddly, we may owe it all to Bob Barr and his heavy handed allies. If they had just let
the votes be counted and then killed it, the Post might not have been embarrassed into
defending the rights of its readers.)
See
"If you say it's okay
for D.C. to legalize marijuana, then what's next?
Legalizing cocaine? Or heroin? Or perhaps rape and murder?"
-- The Appalling People Who Govern Us Continue To Block Medical Marijuana In D.C.
September 24, 1999
From The Washington Post
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
MEDICAL MARIJUANA'S NEXT STEP
INITIATIVE 59, the measure that legalizes medical use of
marijuana in the District, won voter approval by a huge margin last fall. But the
results are only now known, thanks to the decision of U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts,
who ruled last week that a congressional ban on marijuana legalization in the District did
not extend to sealing last fall's tallies. Still, the vote should not be read by would-be
cultivators, distributors and users of marijuana as a signal to start planting seeds.
Congress is likely to have the last word on this issue.
Although we recommended a "no" vote on Initiative 59
last November, we said that District residents had every right to register their views on
the issue and have their votes counted by the Board of Elections and Ethics. So we
agree with jubilant city leaders that the court's decision is a victory for D.C.
self-government.
See
Congress
Prohibits Counting The D.C. Vote On Medical Marijuana
And This Offends Even The Washington Post
The so-called Barr amendment blocking D.C. funds from being spent on the measure was an affront to District voters.
But that doesn't mean that Initiative 59, as drafted, is a sound measure. The initiative
legalizes the possession, use, cultivation and distribution of marijuana if "recommended" by a physician for serious illness.
(Marijuananews note: How is it possible that the editors of the
Post don’t know that doctors can only "recommend" -- not
"prescribe" -- medical marijuana, because of Federal laws? They have avoided
thinking about the issues and it shows.)
See
Threats
Against Doctors Who Recommend Medical Marijuana More Subtle Than 2 Years Ago,
But Arizona Narcs Will "Refer" Doctors To Feds -- 3 Articles
We still believe that doctors, scientists and the Food and Drug
Administration -- not voters -- are the best judges of how and under what conditions
unlicensed drugs can be used to help the sick.
(Marijuananews note: The Post is nothing if not elitist. It is
the house organ of the Federal power system.)
If pain of the terminally ill, nausea from chemotherapy or appetite suppression from
AIDS are not responding to standard therapies and can be alleviated by the use of a regulated
drug prescribed by a doctor, then the law should be flexible enough to allow that to
happen.
But that is a matter for the regulatory process, not the ballot box.
(Marijuananews note: They seem to be saying that doctors should be allowed to
do something that doctors are allowed to do. Hardly a revolutionary position. We
used to be the land of the free, now we are the land of the allowed. And there is
not a whole lot of allowing going on.
Of course, at no point do they recognize that sick and dying
people are being arrested for using medical marijuana. Consequently, they do not recognize
that the purpose of the medical marijuana initiatives is to stop the arrests, not to
approve a medicine, the royal prerogative of our lords and masters in DC.)
Georgia Republican Rep. Robert Barr's new threat to nullify Initiative 59 makes matters
worse.
(Marijuananews note: I agree, but it is not quite clear from the above why the Post
thinks this.)
The city should be able to develop a scientifically acceptable, but tightly controlled,
compassionate-use program that does not do violence to drug laws. At least Congress should
let the city try.
Copyright: 1999 The Washington Post Company
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