Pubdate: Fri, 08 Feb 2002
Source: Asheville Citizen-Times (NC)
Copyright: 2002 Asheville Citizen-Times
Contact:  http://www.citizen-times.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/863
Author: Leslie Boyd
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

FORMER SURGEON GENERAL CALLS FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IN U.S.

CULLOWHEE - When Dr. Joycelyn Elders was forced to resign as surgeon 
general in 1992, most of the 300 students attending her talk Thursday at 
Western Carolina University were in grammar school. So, when one student 
asked what happened, it was the adults in the room who smiled knowingly. "I 
was fired," Elders said. "My focus was on adolescents . and I was concerned 
about adolescents who were becoming parents before they were becoming adults."

She explained why she believes adolescents should have access to condoms, 
calling it "harm reduction" because condoms can prevent pregnancy and 
sexually-transmitted diseases.

"I was called the condom queen for that, and I didn't mind being called the 
condom queen, as long as everyone would use one."

But, she told the students, the final blow came when she made remarks about 
masturbation being safer for adolescents than sex, and she drew a hearty 
laugh when she repeated the lines that got her into trouble a decade ago.

But Elders had more to say than a simple reiteration of the beliefs that 
cost her a job. She urged students to work to ensure universal access to 
health care in the United States.

"We are the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't provide 
universal access to health care for all its people," she said.

But access to health care goes beyond health insurance, she said. Often, 
low-income people don't have transportation to the doctor, and rural areas 
face a dire shortage of physicians.

"Most importantly, though, we've got to educate our people to be healthy," 
she said. "We have to teach children about good nutrition and the 
importance of exercise. You can teach them there are places on their bodies 
that nobody is allowed to touch and that they should tell somebody if 
anybody does."

Children who are molested are more likely to engage in risky behaviors such 
as drug and alcohol use, to suffer depression or commit suicide, she said.

When a student asked whether chewing tobacco is safer than cigarettes, 
Elders told him all tobacco is dangerous.

"Nicotine is an addiction, and it's a pediatric addiction," she said. "If 
you haven't become addicted by age 19, you probably won't. Every day, 3,000 
young people start using tobacco, and 1,000 of them will die (from it)."

Elders also affirmed her support for stem-cell research, a woman's right to 
choose to end her pregnancy and the decriminalization of marijuana.

"We could regulate marijuana the same way we do alcohol," she said. "All 
we're doing now is making criminals out of young people. We spend $18 
billion a year on the war on drugs, and we've been fighting it for 30 
years. In a war, somebody's supposed to win sometime."

Elders also blasted the "lawyers, accountants and politicians who we have 
allowed to take over our health-care system."

Before she ended her talk, Elders charged the students to become active in 
the effort to make the health-care system better.

"You have to show the people in power that we have a crisis," she said. 
"And we do have a crisis. We have billions and billions of dollars for war. 
We never run out. We need to redirect that money."
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MAP posted-by: Beth