You have to say that the drug companies asked for it. I mean really asked for it. Remember when Viagra first came on the market? The spokesman was Bob Dole, veteran, Senate leader and prostate cancer survivor who urged other men to talk to their doctors about erectile dysfunction. The slogan was: Courage. Fast forward through the millennium. The spokesman now is a hunky 40-something guy with a 2-day-old beard and a slogan that says: "Keep that spark alive." [continues 635 words]
You have to say that the drug companies asked for it. I mean really asked for it. Remember when Viagra first came on the market? The spokesman was Bob Dole, veteran, Senate leader and prostate-cancer survivor who urged other men to talk to their doctors about erectile dysfunction. The slogan was: Courage. Fast forward through the millennium. The spokesman now is a hunky 40-something guy with a two-day-old beard and a slogan that says: ``Keep that spark alive.'' [continues 714 words]
BOSTON -- After all these years, I have finally come up with the definition of a liberal wimp. It's someone who feels sorry for Rush Limbaugh. Here is a man who has kept 20 million dittoheads on a closed loop of right-wing rhetoric for three hours a day, five days a week, for 15 years. Here is a man for whom the word "bombastic" was invented. Imagine what he would say about some "feminazi" caught popping 30 illegal pills a day. Imagine how forgiving he would be to an "environmental wacko" scoring OxyContin while tree-hugging. Or any liberal who had to be outed by the National Enquirer before he took "full responsibility for my problem." [continues 700 words]
BOSTON -- After all these years, I have finally come up with the definition of a liberal wimp. It's someone who feels sorry for Rush Limbaugh. Here is a man who has kept 20 million dittoheads on a closed loop of right-wing rhetoric for three hours a day, five days a week, for 15 years. Here is a man for whom the word "bombastic" was invented. Imagine what he would say about some "feminazi" caught popping 30 illegal pills a day. Imagine how forgiving he would be to an "environmental wacko" scoring OxyContin while tree-hugging. Or any liberal who had to be outed by the National Enquirer before he took "full responsibility for my problem." [continues 646 words]
After all of these years, I finally have come up with the definition of a liberal wimp. It is someone who feels sorry for Rush Limbaugh. Here is a man who has kept 20 million dittoheads on a closed loop of right-wing rhetoric for three hours a day, five days a week, for 15 years. Here is a man for whom the word "bombastic" was invented. Imagine what he would say about some "feminazi" caught popping 30 illegal pills a day. Imagine how forgiving he would be to an "environmental wacko" scoring OxyContin while tree-hugging. [continues 680 words]
Rush Limbaugh After all these years, I finally have come up with the definition of a liberal wimp. It's someone who feels sorry for Rush Limbaugh. Here is a man who has kept 20 million dittoheads on a closed loop of right-wing rhetoric for three hours a day, five days a week, for 15 years - -- a man for whom the word bombastic was invented. Imagine what Limbaugh would say about some "feminazi" caught popping 30 illegal pills a day. Imagine how forgiving he would be to an "environmental wacko" scoring OxyContin while tree-hugging. Or any liberal who had to be outed by the National Enquirer before he took "full responsibility for my problem." [continues 695 words]
Believe It Or Not, Liberals Feel Sorry For Limbaugh After all these years, I have finally come up with the definition of a liberal wimp. It's someone who feels sorry for Rush Limbaugh. Here is a man who has kept 20 million dittoheads on a closed loop of right-wing rhetoric for three hours a day, five days a week, for 15 years. Here is a man for whom the word "bombastic" was invented. Imagine what he would say about some "feminazi" caught popping 30 illegal pills a day. Imagine how forgiving he would be to an "environmental wacko" scoring OxyContin while tree-hugging. Or any liberal who had to be outed by the National Enquirer before he took "full responsibility for my problem." [continues 692 words]
Exposing The Curse Of Liberal Wimpathy After all these years, I have finally come up with the definition of a liberal wimp. It's someone who feels sorry for Rush Limbaugh. Here is a man who has kept 20 million dittoheads on a closed loop of right-wing rhetoric for three hours a day, five days a week, for 15 years. Here is a man for whom the word "bombastic" was invented. Imagine what he would say about some "feminazi" caught popping 30 illegal pills a day. Imagine how forgiving he would be to an "environmental wacko" scoring OxyContin while tree-hugging. Or any liberal who had to be outed by the National Enquirer before he took "full responsibility for my problem." [continues 693 words]
BOSTON - Let me see if I have this straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of. . .terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at. . .the state of Oregon? What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. Who is Ashcroft's public enemy No. 1: Oncologist bin Laden? [continues 606 words]
Let me see if I have this straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of . . . terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at . . . the state of Oregon? What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. Who is Ashcroft's public enemy No. 1: Oncologist bin Laden? [continues 635 words]
Let me see if I have this straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of ... terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at ... the state of Oregon? What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. Who is Ashcroft's public enemy No. 1: Oncologist bin Laden? [continues 602 words]
BOSTON - Let me see if I have this straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of ... terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at ... the state of Oregon. What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. Who is Ashcroft's public enemy No. 1: Oncologist bin Laden? [continues 635 words]
Let me see if I have this straight: We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at the state of Oregon? What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers, and he's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. [continues 602 words]
Let Me See If I Have This Straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail, and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of ... terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at ... the state of Oregon? What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. Who is Ashcroft's public enemy No. 1? Oncologist bin Laden? [continues 636 words]
LET ME SEE if I have this straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail, and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of ... terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at ... the state of Oregon? What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. Who is Ashcroft's public enemy No. 1: Oncologist bin Laden? [continues 633 words]
BOSTON -- Let me see if I have this straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of...terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at...the state of Oregon? What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. Who is Ashcroft's public enemy No. 1: Oncologist bin Laden? [continues 651 words]
Let me see if I have this straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of ... terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at ... the state of Oregon? What's going on here? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. Who is Ashcroft's public enemy No. 1: Oncologist bin Laden? [continues 636 words]
BOSTON -- Let me see if I have this straight. We have terrorists on the loose, anthrax wafting through the mail and the Justice Department is in hot pursuit of . . . terminally ill patients? We have another plane crash to investigate, a network of foreign "sleepers" apparently eluding the FBI, and Attorney General John Ashcroft is taking aim at . . . the state of Oregon? The rest of us are worried about suicide bombers. He's worried about doctor-assisted suicide. It was bizarre enough last month when federal law enforcement officers began a crackdown on cannabis clubs in California that provide medical marijuana to AIDS and cancer patients. I chalked that up to reefer madness. [continues 550 words]
And Now From Our Northern Neighbors, The Allegedly Staid Canadians, A New Antidote To Our Reefer Madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 482 words]
And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 687 words]
BOSTON -- And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 577 words]
The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS (news - web sites) to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 687 words]
BOSTON - And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 688 words]
No long since brain-fried, pot-smoking hippie could concoct a less humane, rational and workable drug policy than our fearful leaders' nonsense, Ellen Goodman laments. BOSTON - And now, from our northern neighbors the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. [continues 722 words]
And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 699 words]
And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases... And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to multiple sclerosis can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. Where does that leave us? U.S. citizens, who routinely cross the border for cheap prescription drugs, won't be allowed access to the Manitoba motherload. But if Canadians can't export their medical marijuana, it's time for us to import their policy. The northern light on the subject comes in the wake of a Canadian Supreme Court ruling that any patient suffering from a terminal or painful illness should be allowed access to marijuana when a doctor says it may help. Our own Supreme Court in May ruled on narrow grounds that federal drug law allows no exception for medical marijuana. The Canadians have implicitly recognized that marijuana has uses as well as abuses. [continues 347 words]
AND NOW FROM our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 685 words]
BOSTON - And now from our northern neighbours, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 687 words]
And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government just has increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they either can grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 453 words]
Boston - And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 688 words]
AND NOW from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their backyards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 688 words]
BOSTON -- And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 688 words]
BOSTON -- And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow marijuana or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 689 words]
BOSTON -- And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their backyards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 689 words]
AND now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets. With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. [continues 475 words]
Within hours, the lawyers had broken out the champagne. It's come to that. A decision by this Supreme Court that a pregnant women is entitled to the same medical privacy as any other patient is enough to bring on the bubbly. I am willing to take victories where I get them. But a verdict that a hospital is not a police station? Is this what qualifies these days for high fives? Back in 1989, we were at the height of the "crack baby" furor. With little drug treatment for pregnant women, there was lots of punitive treatment. [continues 646 words]
BOSTON - Within hours, the lawyers had broken out the champagne. It's come to that. A decision by this Supreme Court that a pregnant women is entitled to the same medical privacy as any other patient is enough to bring on the bubbly. I am willing to take victories where I get them. But a verdict that a hospital is not a police station? Is this what qualifies these days for high-fives? Back in 1989, we were at the height of the "crack baby" furor. With little drug treatment for pregnant women, there was lots of punitive treatment. [continues 646 words]
BOSTON -- Within hours, the lawyers had broken out the champagne. It's come to that. A decision by this Supreme Court that a pregnant women is entitled to the same medical privacy as any other patient is enough to bring on the bubbly. I am willing to take victories where I get them. But a verdict that a hospital is not a police station? Is this what qualifies these days for high-fives? Back in 1989, we were at the height of the "crack baby'' furor. With little drug treatment for pregnant women, there was lots of punitive treatment. [continues 646 words]
Court Upholds Fourth Amendment Last week's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that a pregnant woman is entitled to the same medical privacy as any other patient is enough to break out the champagne. I am willing to take victories where I get them. But a verdict that a hospital is not a police station? Is this what qualifies these days for high-fives? Back in 1989, we were at the height of the "crack baby" furor. With little drug treatment for pregnant women, there was lots of punitive treatment. That year, the hospital of the Medical University of South Carolina offered to cut a deal with the police that virtually deputized doctors and nurses., The hospital tested the urine of patients who fit a certain police "profile" and turned over the results of those who tested positive. Over a few years, women with the same "profile" - all but one of them African-American, and all poor - came for maternity care and ended up in police custody. Eventually, the hospital added drug treatment as an alternative but some 30 women were jailed during pregnancy, or were shackled in the delivery room or arrested in recovery. In many ways, this was a story of bad law meets bad medicine. [continues 309 words]
Justices were right to stop a Charleston hospital from testing pregnant women for drugs, but there's little to celebrate. Within hours, the lawyers had broken out the champagne. It's come to that. A decision by this Supreme Court that a pregnant women is entitled to the same medical privacy as any other patient is enough to bring on the bubbly. I am willing to take victories where I get them. But a verdict that a hospital is not a police station? Is this what qualifies these days for high-fives? [continues 672 words]
BOSTON - Within hours, the lawyers had broken out the champagne. It's come to that. A decision by this Supreme Court that a pregnant woman is entitled to the same medical privacy as any other patient is enough to bring on the bubbly. I am willing to take victories where I get them. But a verdict that a hospital is not a police station? Is this what qualifies these days for high-fives? Back in 1989, we were at the height of the ''crack baby'' furor. With little drug treatment for pregnant women, there was lots of punitive treatment. [continues 611 words]
WITHIN HOURS, the lawyers had broken out the champagne. It's come to that. A decision by this Supreme Court that a pregnant women is entitled to the same medical privacy as any other patient is enough to bring on the bubbly. I am willing to take victories where I get them. But a verdict that a hospital is not a police station? Is this what qualifies these days for high fives? Back in 1989 we were at the height of the ''crack baby'' furor. With little drug treatment for pregnant women, there was lots of punitive treatment. [continues 650 words]
Within hours, the lawyers had broken out the champagne. It's come to that. A decision by this Supreme Court that a pregnant woman is entitled to the same medical privacy as any other patient is enough to bring on the bubbly. I am willing to take victories where I get them. But a verdict that a hospital is not a police station? Is this what qualifies these days for high-fives? Back in 1989, we were at the height of the "crack baby" furor. With little drug treatment for pregnant women, there was lots of punitive treatment. [continues 533 words]
It's not that I've been in denial. Denial is not my strong suit. For years I acknowledged my addiction with a blithe one-line toast: "Ah, coffee, the last drug of my generation." Technically, of course, it isn't the last legal drug. But alcohol has been limited to non-pregnant, non-driving people and smoking isn't banned but banished to doorways where a community of folks look like they're having much too much fun. Coffee, on the other hand, is culturally approved, universally accepted, socially enabled, and financially promoted. There's a fix on every corner. [continues 571 words]
COULD WE begin this millennium with a policy that offers kids something more than "zero tolerance"? Zero tolerance began as a popular promise of punishment for any student who brought the streets into the schools. There would no leniency for violence, drugs, weapons. One strike and you're out. Gradually, the name became all too accurate. Zero tolerance for misbehavior evolved into zero tolerance for kids themselves. We've developed an attitude. We're in a time of a general crackdown - a tough love without the love. Zero is now a symbol of bankruptcy. [continues 605 words]
BOSTON -- And you thought the war on drugs was about keeping cocaine out of the country and heroin out of the kids. Guess again. If the bill that flew out of the House last week becomes law, those intrepid folks at the Drug Enforcement Administration will be given encouragement to go after doctors as if they were dealers. The bill was titled, in the best Orwellian fashion, the Pain Relief Promotion Act. In fact, it was a buffed and shined up version of last year's loser, the Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act. [continues 664 words]
And you thought the war on drugs was about keeping cocaine out of the country and heroin out of kids. Guess again. If a bill that flew out of the House recently becomes law, the Drug Enforcement Administration will be encouraged to go after doctors as if they were dealers. The bill is titled -- in the best Orwellian fashion -- the Pain Relief Promotion Act. The bill to prevent the use of federally controlled substances by doctors assisting suicides is deliberately aimed at overthrowing a law approved in Oregon. Sponsors added a few strokes for the notion of pain management and convinced their colleagues that this was an easy way to oppose doctor-assisted suicide while showing some sympathy for dying patients, as in "I feel your pain." [continues 536 words]
