Pubdate: Tue, 03 Sep 2013
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2013 PG Publishing Co., Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: Ed Gogek
Note: Ed Gogek, M.D., is an addiction psychiatrist who lives in 
Prescott, Ariz., and blogs at thecaseagainstmarijuana.com.

STOP THE MARIJUANA LOBBY

Pot Harms Kids, and I Won't Support Legalizers of Either Party

A lobby funded by billionaires who are libertarian on social issues 
subsidizes an extreme tea party movement and takes control of a 
political party. But this time it's not the Koch brothers dictating 
the Republican agenda. I'm talking about pro-marijuana billionaires 
Peter Lewis and George Soros, and a leftwing tea party that smokes its tea.

Marijuana money is corrupting the Democratic Party just like oil 
money has corrupted the Republicans. How powerful is the marijuana lobby?

In 2010, Oregon voters defeated a ballot measure to allow marijuana 
dispensaries. This year, their state legislature voted to allow dispensaries.

In 2012, five liberal California cities also voted down dispensaries. 
The California Supreme Court ruled that cities can ban dispensaries. 
This summer, the California legislature considered legislation that 
would have allowed dispensaries everywhere.

It takes a lot of political pull to get politicians to override the 
very people who elected them. But Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. 
Bush and Barack Obama allowed marijuana dispensaries to operate in 
violation of federal law, and the dispensaries have generated a lot 
of money that influences a lot of politicians. Now President Obama 
and Attorney General Eric Holder have caved to the marijuana lobby 
and agreed not to enforce federal law in Colorado or Washington. Both 
tea parties have won.

The marijuana lobby built its successful campaign on five falsehoods 
that liberal and libertarian politicians repeat regularly.

They say drug laws fill our prisons with innocent people. According 
to the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, 85 percent of prison 
inmates have drug or alcohol problems. But only 6 percent are behind 
bars for drug possession, and only 0.3 percent for marijuana 
possession. Meanwhile, nearly half are locked up for crimes they 
committed because they were drunk or high. Fifteen percent committed 
crimes to get money for drugs. Substance abuse fills our prisons, not 
drug laws.

They say medical marijuana laws are for the genuinely ill. In most 
states that publish reports, 90 percent of the marijuana patients 
claim pain. Research shows genuine pain patients are mostly female 
while adult cannabis abusers are at least two-thirds male. Only two 
states report marijuana cardholders' gender. In Arizona, they're 75 
percent male. In Colorado, it's 68 percent. The only good explanation 
is that almost all of the marijuana patients are really substance 
abusers faking their illnesses to get high.

They say legalizing drugs won't increase use. History says just the 
opposite. Opium use in China skyrocketed in the 1800s when the 
British forced its legalization. Florida recently banned synthetic 
drugs, and ER visits related to spice and bath salts plummeted. 
According to Daniel Okrent, author of "Last Call," alcohol use 
dropped 30 percent during Prohibition.

They say pot is harmless, but no drug interferes with learning like 
marijuana. The million teens who now smoke pot daily will do worse in 
school, finish less homework and are twice as likely to drop out. As 
adults, they'll earn less and are more likely to be unemployed or on welfare.

They tell us legalization is the only alternative to the war on 
drugs. Not so. Drug courts use strict drug laws, not as punishment, 
but as tools to coerce addicts into recovery. Research shows drug 
courts reduce recidivism by 25 percent. But the marijuana lobby hates 
drug courts. The Drug Policy Alliance insists they don't work. The 
Marijuana Policy Project lobbies only for "noncoercive" policies.

Twenty years ago, as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Vice 
President Joe Biden wrote the law that brought drug courts to 
America. He is now part of an administration that is allowing the 
destruction of what is arguably his signature achievement. A mensch 
would resign in protest, or at least speak out.

I've voted almost straight Democratic since marking an "x" next to 
George McGovern's name 40 years ago. But as an addiction 
psychiatrist, I know the devastation of substance abuse. It causes 
most of America's crime, child abuse and domestic violence and plays 
a role in every social problem from AIDS to welfare dependency.

Marijuana destroys academic hopes and is second only to alcohol in 
causing death and destruction behind the wheel. No sensible parent 
wants his or her child using this drug - including President Obama.

Republicans, who are anti-environment and want to shred the social 
safety net, are anathema to me. But I will not vote for a pro-drug 
candidate. Neither tea party has my support. So like millions of 
alienated Republican moderates, this partisan Democrat might soon be 
forced to say: I didn't leave my party; my party left me.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom