Former drug czar's message ignores
reality
March 30, 2001 02:00:00
It seems that Traffic has them squirming.
The former director of the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy, Barry McCaffrey, and his former assistant,
Robert Housman, have been moved to fire a missive regarding the
entertainment industry's recent drug scripts ("Hollywood's drug
scripts don't reflect reality," March 19).
The recently published opinion states, right out of the box,
that our national "strategy" against drugs is working. That
head-in-the-sand position should alert any reader that the rest of
their assertions can be safely ignored, but for those who read on, I
would like to point out their errors - or rather, deceptions.
• THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, has
been shown to cause cancerous tumors. To the contrary, the few
studies by the federal government regarding marijuana and cancer
tumors have seen funding abruptly cut off. Why? Because the evidence
showed that marijuana may actually shrink tumors, and what kind of
message would that send to our nation's children?
• New research suggests that marijuana users may
be at a higher risk for cancer than cigarette smokers.
Steve Kubby, a Libertarian candidate for governor of California
(who recently won a landmark medical-marijuana cultivation case),
has a rare form of adrenal cancer that normally kills within five
years. To stay alive, he has been a heavy daily smoker of marijuana
for over 15 years. His lungs were recently examined: No damage was
found.
• Studies show that young people who smoke pot
tend to be more prone to committing violent and property
crimes. There are no such studies, and I challenge the former
general to cough them up. I'm betting that there is something around
out there, but the only thing it shows is that a cavalier attitude
about one law (against property violence) probably extends to others
(against drug use).
• We are not locking people up for simple
possession of marijuana - only 33 federal defendants were
sentenced. Counting state arrests, there were over 750,000
marijuana arrests in 1999, an increase presided over by our
non-inhaling former president. Much state enforcement of drug laws
is driven by federal incentive dollars. Regardless of how few people
McCaffrey claims to have harassed, it is hardly comforting for
otherwise law-abiding adults to know that arbitrary enforcement of
the law is the order of the day.
But let me tell you of two of those "33" federal defendants
who were convicted. Todd McCormick, who has suffered from bone
cancer since he was a child, was thrown into federal prison for
growing medical marijuana in a state (California) that had legalized
medical use. When he requested Marinol (a legally prescribed
synthetic version of marijuana), he was drug-tested and thrown into
solitary confinement. His health is failing. Peter McWilliams, a
co-defendant with full-blown AIDS and cancer, was awaiting
sentencing at home when he choked to death on his own vomit while
trying to keep his medication down. He was being drug-tested, and
was not permitted to use his anti-nausea medication.
• Legalizing drugs would make drug use an
accepted behavior. Law exists in order to protect property and
person, not to educate us about "accepted behavior." It is ironic
that the right-wing purveyors of limited government can justify this
blatant social-engineering premise. And that the believers in Family
Values seem to think that keeping beers and drugs out of the hands
of our children is just a bit too much trouble for the good parents
of America.
And finally, the good general is very concerned about the
accurate content of the entertainment industry. This is why the
ONDCP was caught and chastised for overseeing scripts for popular
television shows, to make sure they contained a
government-sanctioned "message" about drugs.
Yes, it seems that Traffic has them squirming.
Michael J. Petro lives in Phoenix. He is a software
programmer and member of the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws (NORML).
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