Pubdate: Tue, 05 Nov 2002
Source: Capital Times, The  (WI)
Copyright: 2002 The Capital Times
Contact:  http://www.captimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73
Author: Gary Storck
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?194 (Hutchinson, Asa)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Tommy+Thompson (Thompson, Tommy)

WAR ON DRUGS IS BASED ON POLITICS, NOT SCIENCE

The World Health Organization must have not consulted with U.S. anti-drug 
officials like drug czar John Walters, Drug Enforcement Administration 
chief Asa Hutchinson, and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary 
Tommy Thompson before releasing it's annual World Health Report, which 
ranks major threats to health worldwide. Otherwise, how could they explain 
that legal drugs tobacco and alcohol respectively rank fourth and fifth, 
yet no illegal drugs appear on the top 10?

One would think with the anti-drug hysteria this trio of bureaucrats was 
trying to whip up as the November elections approached and with a number of 
drug policy reform initiatives on the ballot, including legalizing 
possession of up to 3 ounces of pot in Nevada, that illegal drugs would 
rate high on the WHO list.

But not only is marijuana not on the list, but neither is heroin or cocaine 
or even methamphetamine.

Of course, the WHO is right. Tobacco and alcohol kill millions worldwide 
each year. That these drugs are explicitly excluded from the Controlled 
Substances Act passed by Congress in 1970, while marijuana is classed as a 
Schedule I drug with no medical use shows that the war on drugs is based on 
politics, not science.

The war on drugs is all about control and nothing to deal with public 
health. Things will not get better until society starts treating substance 
use and abuse as a public health matter rather than one of criminal justice.

Gary Storck, Madison
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jackl