Distorted figures from the DEA
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"Mook23" no_...@nowhere.com
I was browsing the web a while back and happened on the re-hab figures on the DEA website. Now, the DEA claims that since re-hab attendance for "cannabis addiction" is up over the past few years, more and more people are finding themselves addicted to cannabis. Now, if one REALLY looks at the situation, they will understand that it has nothing to do with addiction at all. Bsically, you're brought up on charges of posession and you can avoid jail by going to re-hab. What are you going to choose? Obviously the increase in re-hab attendance is a reflection of the increasing numbers of non-violent posession arrests that the DEA seems hell bent on continuing even though the cost to the tax payer is staggering.
"Dave Hill" daveh...@mwt.net
It sounds like you're complaining. You guys are always saying how you don't want prisons filled up, and you don't want people going to jail. Okay, so they offer a person a chance at rehab to AVOID being jailed--- and you gripe about that too. I don't get it. Seems like a pretty good deal to me. You talked about the staggering cost to the taxpayer--- well, rehab costs a lot less than shipping people off to prison; plus, it keeps would-be prisoners integrated into society, PLUS it gives them a chance to get off drugs.
Here's a quote from Columbia Unversity's Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA). It's from their 1998 report "Behind Bars: Substance Abuse and America's Prison Population", page 13.
"Failure to use the criminal justice system to get nonviolent drug- and alcohol-abusing offenders into treatment and training is irrational public policy and a profligate use of public funds. Releasing drug- and alcohol-abusing and addicted inmates without treating them is tantamount to visiting criminals on society. Releasing drug-addicted inmates without treatment helps maintain the market for illegal drugs and supports drug dealers." You can read the entire 260-page report at the web site listed below.
Thanks to Michael Hess, by the way, who provided the link for all of us a couple of weeks ago. I had read some of their papers, but missed this one until Michael pointed me to it.
http://www.casacolumbia.org/publications1456/publications_show.htm?do... 45 Dave Dave
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"Dave Hill" daveh...@mwt.net
Hmm, the link I posted to the CASA report did not include the final two digits "45" as part of the URL. Just add them to the end of the URL, and it will take you to the report--- or just click on CASA's "Publications" link and scroll down to the 1998 report on prisoners. Sorry for the technical difficulties, folks.
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"Michael Hess" bbsn...@carolina.rr.com
See Dave it's like this, people should not have to go to rehab for drinking a gl*** of wine or two in the evening. That's the equivalent as compared to consuming some marijuana. Actually consuming marijuana is more on a par with coffee but I don't want to confuse you with facts.
<snip Califano quote> Yes Dave, we all know that CASA couches its narrative in favor of the huge drug rehab complex...
Here's what Merck has to say on it, turns out you're all wet and the original poster is quite correct: http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/section15/chapter195/195e.htm "...Any drug that causes euphoria and diminishes anxiety can cause dependence, and cannabis is no exception. However, heavy use and complaints of inability to stop are unusual. Cannabis can be used episodically without evidence of social or psychologic dysfunction. The term dependence probably is misapplied to many users. No withdrawal syndrome occurs when the drug is discontinued, but some heavy users report disrupted sleep and nervousness when they stop.
Use of cannabis is widespread. Surveys that showed diminishing prevalence of use from 1979 to 1991 show an increase in use by persons 12 to 17 yr old until 1995. Prevalence may have leveled recently. Of the 65 to 70 million Americans who have tried cannabis, about 2 to 3% are daily or near-daily users. Not all daily users are addicts. Use of cannabis is a drug problem (as indicated by the increase in prevalence and in the number of persons seeking help to control its use), although its toxicologic importance is unclear. The number of users who have sought treatment or counseling to help them stop may be exaggerated because persons who test positive in the workplace are often ordered to seek treatment, then followed with compulsory testing..." Michael Hess Editor, BBSNews http://bbsnews.net
"Dave Hill" daveh...@mwt.net
First of all--- you were the one who told me to read that report. You provided the web link for it. Second of all, if CASA is in favor of drug rehab.... and yes, they obviously are.... that's a good thing. Why would you put a negative spin on it? There's an awful lot of people out there who are supremely grateful for the Betty Ford center. I don't think Mrs. Ford gets many letters saying "doggone you, lady. I was a happy druggie until you interfered." And thirdly, why is it that anybody who isn't in favor of marijuana use is supporting a "complex"?? There's the prison-complex, and now there's the drug-rehab complex....as if drug-rehab is a bad thing. I mean, sure I suppose that drug rehabilitation is an industry of sorts (although I sure don't think of it that way). But seeing as how there are a lot of people with a drug problem, it's a good industry to have around.
You guys are the ones who say that drug use should not be a law enforcement issue, but rather a public health issue. And I think in many cases that is true--- and that's why patients are encouraged / pushed / forced / not given a choice to go into rehab (a medical setting) rather than prison (a law enforcement setting). It's a lot cheaper too.
I think that a lot of people here feel uncomfortable with the idea of rehab for the sole reason that "rehab" implies a problem that people need to be rehabilitated FROM--- and since you all are so insistent that drug use is not a problem in the first place, the very presence of rehab centers and rehab programs makes you itch. Since drug use---in your world, at least---is not a problem, the easiest way to explain the concept of rehabilitation is: "oh well, it's a waste because people are forced into it. Nobody would willingly WANT to give up drugs, because after all, it's such a harmless activity." Well, here's a flash: people are sometimes forced into rehab because there's this thing called "addiction" where they can't stop, and sometimes they don't even WANT to stop using. In some cases, even if it's a life-or-death issue, they still don't want to stop. And that's where rehab comes in. It's not a bad thing. Neither is being sober.
In regard to marijuana rehab, the Merck article you cited seems correct to me. (You keep linking me up to web sites I agree with). There isn't anything in there I have a problem with--- and there isn't anything in there that contradicts my belief that rehab is a good thing. Yes, some people end up in rehab because they flunk a drug test. Well, so what?! Obviously they shouldn't have been smoking in the first place. At least they're not going to jail. They aren't even being arrested. Once again, isn't that what you want?? Not using tax money to prosecute small-time marijuana users?
Also, "rehab" can mean many things--- marijuana is not that addictive physically, so perhaps pot-rehab is more talk/counseling/therapy-oriented.
I don't know. But if someone who uses marijuana ends up in treatment, I figure that's good, regardless of how they got there. And no, Michael, the original poster was not correct, because he implied that "rehab" is a bad thing, or an unnecessary thing. I say it's a good thing. The Merck people (a medical organization, not a political or social-analysis group) don't put any kind of a + / - spin on it, they simply mention it as being....there, and some folks are sort of forced into it. I never denied that.
Actually I do have a very small negative "take" on the Merck report you cited--- it's very minor, hardly worth mentioning. But when they said: > Pulmonary carcinoma has not been reported in persons who smoke only marijuana <, I remember reading somewhere that the overwhelming majority of marijuana smokers do also smoke cigarettes, so it's extremely difficult to obtain a big enough group of marijuana-only smokers to get valid statistics of this nature. But that's a nitpicky thing, I know.
Dave
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sz ...@my-deja.com (Szasz)
How amusing, we finally get down to basics with Dave Hill, with him quoting the words of an obviously demented quack. Rehab centers always look forward to profits whenever government sends more "customers" their way, it doesn't suprise me that there are hacks like this CASA quack all over major US Universities. The US Government can buy the best quacks.
"Dave Hill" daveh...@mwt.net
Dude, if a person is so deeply involved in a drug-oriented lifestyle that he is facing jail time--- and keep in mind that simple possession of small amounts of marijuana almost never results in that; it would have to be some kind of additional crime(s), or repeated offenses (read: repeatedly being caught, which is the user's own fault if he is), or probation violation, or harder drug use involved--- in which case his life is ALREADY unraveling badly. A person in that kind of a situation is going to lose his job, his house, and his car a lot quicker because of his drug use, and quite likely already has---than he will by going into rehab to stop the drug use. A last-ditch effort to become sober may be the only thing to save him and get all the good things BACK in his life, not take them away. I mean, do you honestly not understand that?
I can't believe the anti-rehab diatribe I'm hearing here. It's no longer enough for some of you guys that we are talking about making people's lives better, and getting their act together, and doing it WITHOUT putting them in jail (and in the case of job-related drug testing, without even arresting anybody). It's starting to sound like you just really want them to keep on using drugs, plain & simple. Why not just come out and say "sobriety sucks"?? I go back to my earlier post: you are so convinced that drug use actually is harmless, that you honestly can't comprehend that a person might really need to stop using---yes, sometimes even whether he wants to or not---and that he might need some help doing so. The fact that (good) rehabilitation helps such people to become sober is apparently completely incomprehensible to some of you. And that's scary.
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MikeMan n...@spam.org
Where the hell are you pulling these ***umptions from!? How does using a harder drug automatically mean that they lose their house/car/life? Many of my friends use hard drugs and are living more comfortably than I am (I dont use hard drugs). Just because someone uses hard drugs, why do you go to the media-driven conclusion that they are living in the streets with no prospects? Have some ****ing sense.
As with the issue of additional crime(s) or probation violation, what the hell does this have to do with drug use? Some crimes might be linked with drug use, but how oes this relate to rehab? People must serve time for the crimes they commit, and we are discussing drug posession and drug use crimes here, not robbery, not ***ault, not any other crimes.
Perhaps if it could be PROVEN that the additional crime(s) committed (including the crime of probation violation) were a result of drug use, the person in question would still have to serve his time for these crimes.
Now what about repeated offences? If someone likes a drug, that person will continue to use it. Respect for the law regarding drug issues is very low among users. Does this mean they are evil people and should be put away or put in rehab? Rehab simply tells someone 'this is how your life should be, and this is how your life should not be.' Who decides what life people should lead? Rehab? You? Gimme a break. It should be the user to weigh up the pros and cons of anything they do, and they should make a decision. People choose to use drugs, and choose to keep using them. If they don't want to do them anymore, they either quit, or if they find it hard to quit, they go to rehab.
Explain how, if someone is living comfortably, has a job, a wife, kids, a car and a house, suddenly being forced into rehab and having to sell the lot just to keep food on the table for his family a good thing?
It sounds to me like you dont want anyone using drugs. You think everyone should have the same experiences as you and you cant handle the fact that some people may wish to do with their lives as they choose. Of course you could be one of those conservative christians that thinks that all evils from the world should be prohibited, evils being defined by yourself, or by a god that others may not believe in. To some people who use harder drugs, they might indeed be saying 'sobriety sucks' and have you ever considered that they are entitled to that opinion? If someone wants to continue using drugs, whether its a detriment to his health, his social life, or his life even, why can't you accept that?
Why do you have to step in and kick him in the arse and tell him he is doing something that you dont agree with? Once someone realises that the drug is causing their life to go down the shitter, then they can choose rehab. Before this though, they dont think that their life is shit, and hence don't need to be changed.
-MikeMan
"Michael Hess" bbsn...@carolina.rr.com
CASA is not the end all be all of research about currently illicit drugs Dave.
You need to learn the difference between drug use and abuse Dave. Or do you think someone is an alcoholic if they have a nightly gl*** of wine or two with dinner?
Drug users don't need to be forced into treatment or jailed for non-compliance Dave. Drug abusers commonly seek help but there are only, at best, 25% of the treatment slots available for the demand. 75% of those who seek help are turned away. This is because the slot is taken up by a marijuana consumer who has gotten some kind of court ordered "treatment." Not all drugs are the same Dave. Instead of forcing treatment and jail and fines on people who do not need it, people who would not even be noticed were it not for their "dirty" urine, we need to get treatment that works where it's really needed. Start with the people who are being turned away.
Stop creating a problem where it does not exist.
You need to learn the difference between drug use and abuse Dave.
Ok Dave, you are hopelessly addicted to nicotine. You have claimed that your mother is dying from tobacco related disease and yet you still are addicted.
Clearly this is drug abuse Dave. I hereby sentence you to 6 months in prison but I'll suspend the sentence provided you stop smoking right now. When you leave this court you will be subject to urine tests each week to make sure your bodily fluids are clean enough to p*** State standards for political correctness. If you fail you go to jail.
< Next week, Dave is brought before the judge having of course failed his drug test. He figured sneaking a cigarette or two would be alright.> Dave, this court told you what the penalty would be for your backsliding.
You even cried about your mother here when you were begging for mercy about your filthy, society choking, nicotine smoking habit, it's obvious you need to spend some time in prison with Bubba.
Bailiff, take him away!
See above Dave. It's what DEA Aministrative Law Judge termed as "abitrary and capricious." The original poster is quite correct. This is most obvious in that it takes "drug" testing in the first place to ferret out the naughty marijuana consumer. The folks at Merck quite correctly point out that the upturn in treatment admissions likely has little to do with marijuana use itself. The problem is namby pamby do gooders such as yourself who want to see others imprisoned for their politically incorrect vices.
You'll probably quit cigarettes before it becomes a jailable offense. Then you'll be worse than you are now. "Reformed" nicotine addicts are quite insufferable.
Obviously then, cigarettes must be outlawed to protect the marijuana co-using cohort. I'll be sure and bring that up at the next national drug policy reform meeting and I'll make sure everyone knows it was your idea. To help people help themselves through the threat of a steel cage and Bubba...
<Dave with Bubba in the prison rehab meeting> Bubba: What are you in for?
Dave: Smoking Marlboro lights.
Bubba: Got one?
Dave: Shhhh, I'm tryin' to hear the counselor.
Counselor: Mmmm Mmm she was a fine lookin' redbone, nice and tight, ehh?
Dave: Mr. Counselor? Shouldn't we be talking about rehabilitation?
<laughter all around...> Counselor: You'll be learnin' everything you need from Bubba later on tonight.
<Later, 45 minutes after lights out, we fade from the scene where Bubba and Dave are laying there in the dark, enjoying a Marlboro light.> Join us next week where Dave learns the joys of forced treatment for StarBucks addiction where James Leroy "the tree" Jones will reprise his role as Dave's cell buddy Bubba.
== So Dave, ya want a little more research to go with CASA and the World Health Organizations findings, the Merck manual and all the other research you've been pointed to? You are upholding a policy which is arbitrary and applied towards those least able to help themselves, the poor and those of color.
It's clearly arbitrary since all health research that I am aware of rates tobacco and alcohol far above all other illegal drugs combined in terms of health risk and harm. The following report also made headlines, even the New York Times, and since then has been hardly noticed by those outside of drug policy reform: http://www.ndsn.org/AUGUST94/NICOTINE.html I've brought this research up countless times here in t.p.d. since it came out. It shows that the war you are waging is completely on its head. If forced-rehab, jails and urine testing is the way to solve drug problems why do we only use force against the smallest segment of drug users? Is it because of harm? No, clearly we have brought evidence, freshly released from WHO that shows tobacco and alcohol are the leading killers in the world today. Is it because of addiction? No, as so clearly established in the Henningfield-Benowitz Ratings above. Commonly used drugs rate in the following way from the _worst_ addiction to the least, nicotine, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine and marijuana. This after due consideration of, withdrawal, reinforcement, tolerance, dependance and intoxication.
So Dave, this is the fundamental problem. You advocate jailing and fining people for a supposed addiction to marijuana which rates _under_ caffeine.
You advocate steel cages for people when you ignore that your addiction to nicotine is far greater. You even lament in this message about how the only way marijuana consumers seem to get lung cancer is with concurrent cigarette use. Clearly it is you who has the greater health problem, it is you who will be a drag on health care in general with your addiction induced nicotine habit and I think that you should spend about six months in jail to teach you a ...
"Michael Hess" bbsn...@carolina.rr.com
[...] What's scary is that 75% of people actually seeking help can't get it because people like you want to use court ordered treatment on those that don't need it.
Learn the difference between use and abuse Dave. Except for tobacco smokers, only a small percentage of any given drug using cohort actually becomes addicted or "abuses." Tobacco addiction is drug abuse Dave. As the Henningfield-Benowitz ratings point out there are various levels of "addiction." Your drug is at the top of the list.
What is incomprehensible is folks like you wanting to go after marijuana consumers with the threat of a cage while happily turning away cocaine and heroin _abusers_ who are at the door crying for help.
It does not make sense. The only way you, a court, or a business can smoke out a marijuana consumer in the first place is through forcing them to pee in a cup like some science experiment gone horribly awry.
And the people who are clamouring for help are turned away week after week to do what? Do you suppose they went and got a job on their own and stopped using and likely stealing? Hell no, they are out there on the street because you and yours need them to rail about when formulating even stricter marijuana policy.
Brian makes a valid point. You seem to think rehab is like a dentists appointment. Uhhh no. Re-hab these days is many times court ordered. Along with that is the likely loss of employment, possible state sanctioned theft of the car if the original offense was traffic related, in the midst of this any relationship will be destroyed, and the children, they cry a lot. All these things are imposed by Prohibition II, they are certainly not helped by it.
Your own addiction to cigarettes is a case in point. You can quite easily go purchase your cancer sticks down at the local store. Simply make them illegal and a large percentage of smokers will go around behind the store and buy tobacco cigarettes from the black market.
Of course should some enterprising maid in the next hotel you stay at smell tobacco smoke, she will call 911 and they will show up, about twenty cops, they love drug busts... Then you can go before the judge and get court-ordered rehab, fail the pee testing when you backslide, and then you too can violate your probation and be sent to a steel cage.
To protect you from yourself.
Michael Hess Editor, BBSNews http://bbsnews.net
"Dave Hill" daveh...@mwt.net
To Michael Hess: Dude--- you must be on crack!!
a) I have *NEVER NEVER NEVER* smoked. Where did you get the idea that I did? Or was this some sort of bizarre attempt at pseudo-humor to make a point that I'm not getting?
b) I am not a drag on the health care system. I've seen a doctor exactly three times in the last ten years---flu, eye infection, and once for a minor arthritis condition.
c) I have never said that it was a peachy idea to have cigarettes/alcohol being legal in the first place. Nor have I ever said they were good things to have around. I don't promote either one of those substances. I've never denied that alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana.
d) I just don't draw from any of this a conclusion that marijuana should be legal. In fact, I believe strongly that one reason alcohol is so harmful is because of the fact it IS legal, and legalizing marijuana would lead to some of the same problems (most notably the fact that kids would have easier access to it through their parents). Also, I believe that marijuana use would increase if it were legal.
e) I certainly don't advocate jailing people for marijuana use. I don't really even advocate fining them. I do advocate not using marijuana in the first place. I'm a lot happier if somebody quits smoking pot, or if they never did, than I am if they have to pay a fine for smoking it. I think they're happier too.
f) I didn't say that the only way marijuana users get lung cancer is through their concurrent cigarette habit. I said that it was my understanding that most marijuana smokers also smoke cigarettes, making it difficult to study "marijuana-ONLY" patients because there are so few of them. Also, smoking-induced lung cancer takes decades to manifest itself, and relatively few marijuana smokers have been smoking for that long, compared to cigarette smokers. (That's partly because widespread pot smoking didn't happen until fairly recently---the 1960s?---and it's partly because an awful lot of people who smoke pot when they're young eventually ease up, or quit entirely, as they get older. That's a good thing, by the way, and the fact that pot is illegal is one big reason why it's true.) All of this would make it even more difficult to study lung cancer rates among this group.
But that's not to say that pot DOESN'T promote lung cancer--- it is smoking, after all, so it most likely does.
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sz ...@my-deja.com (Szasz)
We anti-prohibitionists call that bit of reasoning the "thank you theory". In other words, Dave is justifying violent coercion of drug addicts because some of them later express gratitude for it. Its like justifying violence based on the so-called "Stockholm Syndrome." Its demented.
More word-games. This isn't about whether anyone here is "in favor of marijuan use." No one here is supporting laws which force people to consume marijuana, are they? No.
The fact is, prison-hospitals and prisons benefit when government sends prisoners their way. Thats the "complex" that people are referring to.
No, forced "treatment" (e.g., ***ault and battery, imho) is a bad thing. I think drug rehab can be a very useful thing for some people, given that they consent to it.
Who cares what your opinion is? The fact is its a multibillion dollar-a-year industry, which does a lot of lobbying to support its position.
The issue isn't whether drug rehab centers can help people. They can. They issue is whether, in a free society, people should be forced at the butt of a gun to be "treated" against their will. No matter how much you would like to make this debate into "pro-pot people" vs.
"anti-sobriety people," you can't. No matter how much you want to make this argument into "pro rehab people" vs. "anti rehab people," you can't. The issue is whether society should use force to make people stop using culturally-unapproved chemicals.
Not me. Put your broad-brush down, sonny.
While I think medical techniques can be useful in helping some people quit dope, I think whether to buy, sell, use, or quit dope is a personal health issue, not a public health issue, because once you label it a "public health issue," then the issue of individual liberties goes out the window.
You're wrong, again. The issue is about the use of force in the case of what is ultimately a private health choice.
You must not be reading people's posts very closely. The issue isn't whether drug use is a problem, the issue is whether force should be brought to bear to regulate people's private brain chemistry.
No, it doesn't.
Again, you're broad-brushing, oversimplifying, and outright making stuff up. Plenty of people consider drug use a personal problem. If people didn't, then 12-step programs for alcoholics and narcotics addicts wouldn't have become as popular as they are now.
Dave Hill seems to prefer straw-men tactics above just about everything else.
Well, here's a flash for YOU: when someone doesn't want to be treated, in a free society, we don't treat them. Their bodies are their own. If someone wants to get help with their addiction, there is plenty of self-help groups out there, therapists, doctors, and et cetera. However, when power-mad noseybodies force "help" upon a person, its rape, ***ault, battery, what have you. Its the worst kind of tyranny, the kind masquerading as "help." The problem is that when you make the argument that people can be forced into conforming to society's ideas as to what healthy behavior is (which is what you're doing, Dave), where does it stop?
Yes, because it comes to the conclusion that forcing people to accept treatment they don't want. That probably rubs your tender-hearted-tyrant side just the right way.
I have no problem with private employers drug testing their employees, and making the employees job contingent on completing drug rehab if they are found to be "dirty." The employee has the right to submit to the employers demands, or walk away and find a job somewhere else. Different issue than the government arresting people and then "diverting" them into "treatment".
Got news for you - virtually every conventional "therapy" for drug addiction is based on sitting around in groups and talking about it.
If you used the above words more often, Dave, I think people would likely have more respect for you around here.
Dave is the ultimate cheerleader of the Therapeutic State. He doesn't care if an otherwise law-abiding, productive parent gets threatened with jailtime and the loss of his or her children, the loss of their job, and otherwise getting their life ruined, as long as they can be forced to stop smoking weed.
Dave Hill is a moral sewer.
If a person is willingly going to rehab, I ***ume its a good thing for that person. If a person is being forced into "treatment," I consider it the most obnoxious semantic sleight-of-hand: just because the imprisonment is occuring in a hospital-like setting doesn't change the fact that its prison, and the doctors and nurses and shrinks are all jailers.
Of course you would. You have a persistent, characterological hard-on for the Nanny State.
The Merck people are the arm of a pharmaceutical company, which has enormous financial interests in seeing the current status quo regarding drug laws perpetuated.
And totally irrelevant to the immorality of the philosophy you espouse.
"Mook23" no_...@nowhere.com
Just had to jump back into this because Dave is so far off base it's astounding.
Wrong-o there Dave. Not only do a lot of marijuanna users NOT smoke cigarettes, some are what you could term weekend users. A lot of the mj smokers I know have only used it a few times in the last year. Smoking MJ dosen't mean that you're necessarily going to become a daily user (about 1% of users are daily MJ smokers- widely quoted fact although I have no cite for it at the present time). I would go so far as to say that the majority of MJ smokers DO NOT smoke tobacco and are, to some extent, anti-tobacco.
Also, What the **** are you talking about Dave? Cannabis has been smoked nearly everywhre in the world for hundreds of years Dave. Now, personally, I don't smoke as much as I used to, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the drug being illegal. Drug use is a part of my life. It's a part of my life that I could do without if there was some reason I had to, but I have no intention of quiting MJ- legal or otherwise.
) All of this would However, Dave, there are a host of airborne pollutants that do a lot of damage to the lungs. In Canada (quoting a statistic from the CBC) 1000 people per year die from air borne polution and yet there is not one confirmed death from MJ use alone. Cancer is caused by certain chemicals (in tobacco, most of these chemicals form during the curing process- or they are added to the cigarette for "flavour") and not just by smoke alone. We take hundreds of chemicals into our lungs each day (oxygen being one of them) and there is no link between the chemicals in MJ and cancer. It's simply not there Dave.
"Michael Hess" bbsn...@carolina.rr.com
My humblest apologies, I mixed you up with Brian Bennett who said on October 20th, 2002 "...By the way, I hate that I smoke. I am a total junkie when it comes to those damned things. I was just visiting my mother who is dying from emphysema. She still smokes even knowing what is ahead of her after watching her mother die the same way. I've been smoking for over twenty years and if I don't get the balls to put those things away, I'm next." Yeah yeah. I knew it must have been a fluke that a prohibitionist who admitted being addicted to nicotine showed up. Nevermind Dave, I'll stipulate you're in good health. And truth be told, tobacco smokers turn out to not be a drain. In fact them dying off early may very well mean a net gain for the health care system. Morbid I know but them's the facts.
I don't see any drug policy reformers around here promoting any drug either.
I do see some people trying to get you to get your facts in order. No one has to promote a drug to be in favor of said drug actually getting some regulation as opposed to your way, some popular drugs getting _no_ regulation at all.
And it makes no sense at all that you agree that alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana yet you favor continued prohibition with all the bad things that entails. Jimmy Carter said that the punishment for possession of a drug, speaking about marijuana, should not be more harsh than consequences of its use.
Which flies in the face of any known logic. You're claiming the more harmful drug should be regulated and the less harmful drug shall be prohibited which translates into any Tom, Dick or Harry errr, Harriet growing marijuana to sell on the black market. There are parts of Kentucky that would not survive without it. Marijuana as a domestic cash crop in the US consistently rates near or ahead of, at least one year, corn.
You are claiming that all of these people should be labeled criminals while Anheiser-Busch has Clydesdales who bow to the World Trade Center? Someone who smokes a joint is aiding terrorists or more lately "cartels" who gun down families because of Johnny's joint smoking...
Is it your belief that the most harmful drugs should all be prohibited?
Teens have far better access to far better marijuana than you can apparently imagine. You should have caught that HBO special about ecstasy where Scott Meyers goes to raves with his kids. They all had access to great weed plus other stuff. All courtesy of your Prohibition II. I'd have to go look at the BBSNews article about it but as I recall I noted then as I will now that the _only time_ an adult was needed was to make a beer run... The rest of the time the un-regulated drugs such as the chronic, E's, any of the other stuff, it was the kids who had the connection. Exactly as it was during the sixties and seventies when I was coming up Dave. Adults were clueless. The teens that want access to currently illicit drugs have 24/7 connections for them. Your way makes this possible. Our way, drug policy reformers, is to get some regulation in there that makes sense and actually works.
Scott Meyers was caught like a doe in the headlights when he was making that beer run. Carrying it one step further, watching the video and what he looked like, if I was the clerk at the store I don't think I would be wrong if I refused to serve him because I felt he was impaired. Some wild eyed guy coming in to buy a bunch of different kinds of beer and wine coolers could be scrutinized at the point of sale and stopped. Which may result in preventing a 2:00 am accident with a dead teenager or five.
None of these kinds of common sense sanctions are available under Prohibition II.
Is that all that's stopping you Dave? After all you claim that an arrest is no big deal. No one really spends any time or loses anything according to you. Will you become a big weed-head when marijuana is legal Dave?
You could have fooled me.
Feel free. The Surgeon General has been doing so about tobacco smoking for many years and the most addictive and lethal drug habit, smoking, has steadily trended down. No prohibition needed or wanted.
Just plain factual information that can be trusted and that is presented in plain language.
<Dammit, CNN is claiming Jeb Bush wins in Florida.> You have no right to decide other peoples happiness. Would you like me to have the right to decide yours? There's a De Tocqueville quote on Page One of BBSNews right now that makes it clear, we Americans lose our freedom when the federal government regulates our every move rather than states or local municipalities. Welcome to the machine, the fed regulates what you flush, how much your shower puts out, seat belt use, nearly every household product in your medicine cabinet or under your kitchen cabinet. Or worse yet, in your garage where the EPA will probably have issues. I used to live in Florida I'm tellin' ya.
Why do you think it is your business to decide another citizens pursuit of happiness when their activity has absolutely no effect on you whatsoever?
I said you "lamented" that and you do so again. You don't really know how many marijuana using only people there are. This is because this cohort never shows up in any "cluster" type deaths or outbreaks because there simply is no evidence that any marijuana only using people are in danger of any major harm at all.
This is why the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, twice has opined that laws against marijuana should be based upon some other reason than any real or perceived harm.
No. Please study up on something called pack years and Harvard. And then look up some of the actual research about marijuana. Start with the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report. I swear I told you that I did a story on how the FDA removed the only two references to deaths from marijuana in 100 years of history from the Physician's Desk Reference. But you seem to be overwhelmed by messages packed with reference to actual fact and then you go off on a tangent and don't address what's already been treated.
In business, managers have to have trusted sources of data to do some projections from. One of these are predictions by the insurance industry. If the insurance industry doesn't know I fear we've lost one too many real bean counters.
Anyway, Kaiser-Permanente found that marijuana use has no effect on mortality. This finding, and others, have led to medical marijuana users getting re-imbursed for losses incurred under Proposition 215 in California.
Let's take THC again. The most demonized active ingredient in marijuana. DEA downscheduled it Dave. They did so because of its extreme safety.
Yep. A natural artifact of most users of the plant known in America as marijuana.
We already know that.
Most people use it for a while and move on naturally.
Nope. You can offer no possible evidence that this is true. The Dutch have a far lower lifetime prevalence of marijuana use than the US. And their highschool scores are consistantly top of the world.
No, it most likely does not. Unless you are in possession of research that contradicts the facts. There is no research that definately shows occasional marijuana users have any increased chance of lung cancer at all. There is research as shown above that shows otherwise. Marijuana has been in continuous use since 37 hundred something years before Christ. Surely some detrimental effect would have ...
brian bennett shp...@mindspring.com
damn michael you're losing credibility here big time. i have *never* been a cigarette smoker, my mother is alive and well (also not a smoker) and doesn't have emphysema, nor did she watch her mother die "the same way" -- grandma actually died from heart disease in her 70's.
the only thing i've smoked (and i've been doing it for over 30 years) is pot. i am in no way interested in stopping, nor am i worried about dying as a direct result of smoking pot. and i have no *addictions* except perhaps, to video games.
you are referring to a post which i *replied* to, in which i informed the original poster (the one who is worried about dying if he doesn't get the balls to stop smoking) that i lost my favorite uncle to his cigarette habit.
please do a better job with your ***ertions.
b
--
"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"Michael Hess" bbsn...@carolina.rr.com
[...] No Brian. I would only lose credibility if I refused to make room for the facts. I was trying to apologize to Dave for mixing him up with what I thought was you. I looked up the exchange on Google and found a message that appeared to me, to be from you, and apparently I mis-attributed it yet again: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b63b43e.0210201945.3c6d8c8e%40po... oogle.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain It was from Commonsense. My apologies. I was in a hurry and I broke my own rule of two sources and a double check. If you view the above you might be able to see how easy it was for me to make the mistake.
It's a rhetorical device gone awry but this whole episode does not take away from the facts of the matter.
The US has double vision when it comes to some drugs.
How about a check on that ONDCP Request for Correction form I wrote? I promised I would write it, I did and some folks have checked it out. I need some input on if I'm missing anything.
http://bbsnews.net/ondcp-complaint.phtml Michael Hess Editor, BBSNews http://bbsnews.net
brian bennett shp...@mindspring.com
not really too big an issue ... but i'm a *stoner* not a smoker! i prefer to be vilified for my actual vices. :^) i did indeed check it out and i think you have all the info required. i'm not sure how many people will want to be sending their physical address to the ondcp however.
will they take forms sent by organizations rather than from individuals? might be a good idea to team up with some of the other reform orgs. that might also alleviate a lot of duplication. the lower the number of requests they have to respond to, the harder it is to claim they are "overwhelmed" by the volume.
b
--
"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."
-- Thomas Jefferson
px ...@cadence.com (Pete nospam Zakel)
Yes, yes, and yes. However, forced rehab is more expensive than voluntary rehab because the people going to forced rehab are still being arrested, charged, maybe tried, etc., and people are being forced into rehab who don't really want or need it.
I agree that people with drug problems (whether the drug is cocaine, marijuana, heroin, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine or cough syrup) should have the option of going to rehab if they need it.
I think forced rehab is useful for people who are involved in crimes OTHER than drug possession or sales IFF their drug problem is contributing to their propensity to commit other crimes. But rehab in that case needs to deal with the root reasons for the drug problem, not just be a mantra of "just say no".
NOTE: "IFF" means "if and only if" -- it's not a typo.
-Pete Zakel (p...@seeheader.nospam) After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he p***ed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created." "This is true," He replied.
"He will need laws," said the Demon slyly.
"What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." It was so granted.
px ...@cadence.com (Pete nospam Zakel)
Yes, but they are still being "encouraged / pushed / forced" from the law enforcement setting.
A true public health approach would be legalizing drugs and making rehab available for those who want/need it and the occasionally people who commit other crimes as a result of their drug problems (such as men who beat their wives/girlfriends when they are drunk).
We don't arrest everyone in a bar and force them to go to AA meetings because they had an alcoholic beverage in their hands when the police walk in, do we?
That would be the equivalent of what we are doing with currently illegal drugs: they are ***umed to have a drug problem that needs rehab for doing the same thing with illegal drugs that people do every night with legal drugs.
Do you ***ume that everyone who has a beer at a football game or an after-work martini needs rehab?
Then why ***ume that everyone caught with a quarter ounce of marijuana needs rehab?
-Pete Zakel (p...@seeheader.nospam) "Tell the truth and run." -Yugoslavian proverb
px ...@cadence.com (Pete nospam Zakel)
Alcohol is a harder drug than most illegal drugs.
So your claim is that everyone who uses alcohol needs rehab?
-Pete Zakel (p...@seeheader.nospam) "There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable." -H. L. Mencken, 1930
Corwin RickBr...@rcn.com
When I was growing up it wasn't until Junior High School did I realize that not everyone's father smoked pot. My day would come home from work and light up a joint as matter of factly as a neighbor would poor a scotch. It didn't do me or my four siblings any harm, our family was never wanting, and in all respects things were quite normal. So while I'm not totally in the legalization camp, I do know from experience that a lot of what's being said from the anti-drug camp is just plain wrong. From ignorance or dishonesty, I can't say.
Rick Bryan, JD, LL.M.
New York, NY On 8 Nov 2002 17:03:49 -0700, px...@cadence.com (Pete nospam Zakel) wrote:
sz ...@my-deja.com (Szasz)
Rick-
What makes you still "not totally in the legalization camp"? I am curious, because it sounds like your experiences growing up were quite normal and prosaic, despite your Dad being an evening toker (some might call him a "pothead"). Is there still a part of you that suspects your Dad and your family might have been better off with your Papa in the slammer?
Szasz
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