In considering research only after launching a federal attack on medical marijuana patients and their doctors, drug czar Barry McCaffrey has embraced the macho maxim "shoot first, ask questions later."

Gen. McCaffrey isn't the first drug warrior to target doctors. The first major drug prohibition law, the Harrison Act, originally allowed doctors to dispense maintenance narcotics doses to addicts. Around 1920, a re-interpretation of the law forbade this common practice, leading to 35,000 arrests and 6000 jailings of doctors. When police oversee health care, unseemly things happen.

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