As a former president of Drug Watch International and co-editor of the Marijuana Research Review, I find dismaying the media's disregard for the results of more than 20,000 published scientific studies on marijuana, none of which show it to be safe and effective - or necessary - for anything. A few of the more than 485 compounds found in marijuana have already been developed and can be prescribed by physicians. The drug culture's continued lament about the depiction of marijuana in the old 1930's film "Reefer Madness" is ridiculous. I know of no one who has ever seen the film but it is important to note that marijuana, particularly today's very potent street varieties, is associated with causing or exacerbating psychosis, particularly schizophrenia. See www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/streetdrugs.html for a listing of more than 30 studies linking marijuana to this phenomenon. Marijuana use is now a leading cause of drug-related emergency room episodes, especially those involving psychosis. [continues 58 words]
The Columbian's Jan. 10 editorial "Perplexed About Pot" is long overdue. More than 20,000 scientific studies about marijuana/cannabis exist and none give it a clean bill of health. I've often sent copies of PubMed's monthly list of published studies on marijuana to The Columbian, hoping someone would bother to take a look at them, and I've also sent the long list of studies linking marijuana to psychosis and schizophrenia. All to no avail. At least 99 percent of advocates for pot legalization are, I suspect, users - and rarely is it for any perceived or misconceived "medical" reason. Unfortunately, a number of these pot users are also extremely wealthy and have been buying media space and supporting hempfests and drug culture conferences for years. [continues 80 words]
Many of those involved in drug-prevention efforts are individuals, like me, who have had the lives of loved ones destroyed by drug use. Most of these tragedies began with marijuana as the first illegal substance used. In the newspaper coverage of issues pertaining to drug use, the cost figures always reflect only law enforcement and incarceration, they never reflect the cost of treatment, of families on welfare because of money diverted to drug use, or the loss of employment due to drug use. And the cost figures do not reflect the lost productivity due to drug-using employees or the cost to our schools due to drug use. [continues 91 words]
State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, says "in these trying times, $440 million of new revenue [from legalization of marijuana] should definitely be of interest to the Legislature." Please look at the enormous cost drug use inflicts on society above and beyond the cost of incarceration. Legalization of marijuana is the tip of the iceberg. This harebrained idea has its genesis with a drug culture that believes drug use is "a personal right" and all street drugs should be legalized. The argument that marijuana is no different than alcohol or tobacco is absurd. No one will deny that tobacco use contributes to nearly half a million deaths each year in the U.S. Smoking, however, does not cause psychosis, does not contribute to drug-related emergency room episodes, does not lead to drugged behavior, and does not interfere with ability to make decisions. [continues 71 words]
According to the April 30 news brief, "Officials seek parity for crack, powder cocaine," the Obama administration wants to "close the gap in prison sentences given to those convicted of dealing crack versus powdered cocaine," because "mandatory-minimum-sentencing guidelines are so inherently unfair." Lest we forget, crack is a cheap, crude, highly potent and extremely addictive form of cocaine that in the early 1980s was sold primarily by black drug dealers to poor black neighborhoods. In 1986, African-American Congressman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., stating that crack was destroying the black community, helped craft guidelines that increased penalties for individuals convicted of crack-related crimes. The added protection of the law, demanded by the black community, has worked extremely well. Now those unfamiliar with the origins of this law protest that it's racist and unfair because so many of those prosecuted have been black. But will repealing the law hurt or help? Sandra S. Bennett La Center [end]
Kirk Muse (in his April 28 letter, "License illegal drugs,") wants us to believe that all of today's drug problems stem from a 1914 law making certain psychoactive and addictive drugs illegal. So? What's the point? As society changes, so do laws. Mind-altering and addictive drugs are a huge problem, not because they are illegal but because many are dangerous and users create enormous social problems. The United States has only about 5 percent of the world's population but our citizens consume more than 60 percent of the world's supply of illicit drugs. Most of the people in our prisons today committed crimes while under the influence of drugs, and most of these crimes were crimes of violence. [continues 98 words]
Using addictive prescription drugs illegally is the same as using illicit drugs. Unless someone is bent on suicide, most deaths from either illicit or prescription substances are "accidental." Those who use drugs to get high do so for amusement, not with death or addiction in mind. However, once under the influence of these mind-altering substances, they often do things they probably would never have done otherwise. In Heath Ledger's case, he likely lost track of what drugs, and how much of each, he had used. [continues 124 words]
The movement to legalize drugs employs sly marketing strategies to desensitize society to the enormous harm caused by the self-indulgent and illegal use of psychoactive and addictive substances. Proponents claim that imposing legal consequences on users, dealers and traffickers brings greater harm to society than would the allowance of wholesale use. Hundreds of thousands of victims and families and friends of victims know this is utterly false. The devastation and heartbreak related to lost and/or degraded lives, child abuse, child neglect, child pornography, unemployment, workplace accidents, lost productivity, poverty, embezzlement, academic underachievement and failure, increased medical costs, social welfare costs and crime, cost society hundreds of billions every year - and that is before adding in the cost of treatment and expenses associated with law enforcement and incarceration. [continues 70 words]
Most of the pro-legalization letters I read in The Columbian are letters that have been scatter-shot around the country to smaller newspapers by the likes of Robert Sharpe and other members of the drug culture who are not even citizens of Washington state. An opinion is one thing, but their letters are full of misinformation. Sharpe's last rant on June 21, "Admit drug war is failing," claimed that The Netherlands had successfully reduced overall drug use by regulating marijuana sales. However, based on a plethora of news stories coming out of that country, this is simply not true. The situation has become so decadent that the government is now taking strong measures to reverse the laissez-faire policy, beginning by shutting down the country's infamous marijuana coffee shops, as reported June 24, "Changing social values put Netherlands on collision course with its liberal past." [continues 78 words]
Regarding Kirk Muse's Jan. 14 letter, "Drug war is an occupation," the U.S. has been fighting the $6 trillion war on poverty since 1960 and there is no end in sight. Progress has been obstructed, and related social problems such as crime and disease worsened by those whose drug use has left them unable to function responsibly. Preventionists, who are primarily family members and friends of those whose lives have been lost or ruined by the foolhardy, illegal use of psychoactive and addictive substances, want to see tighter enforcement of drug laws. They know that legalization will make these socially destructive substances more accessible to children and other vulnerable individuals. [continues 108 words]
Freedom of speech was fought for and safeguarded by hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. And that freedom is enjoyed even by those who encourage our children to use psychoactive and addictive substances and who would have us abandon efforts to stop the use and spread of these debilitating substances. The U.S. loses more than 50,000 lives to illicit drugs each year and 16,000-plus are children. Society remains ignorant of the death toll and is lulled into thinking that marijuana is innocuous because the media ignore these numbers. [continues 111 words]
Few in society today know much about Prohibition other than tirades like the Dec. 6 letter, "Prohibition didn't work," of Kirk Muse about what a failure it was. Yes, there were speak-easies. Yes, there were turf battles by rival gangs and liquor barons. But for American society, it was an incredible social and health success. Some of the national benefits, as compiled by E. Deets Pickett, associate editor of American Prohibition Yearbook, were as follows: * Wife beating and lack of family support decreased 82 percent. [continues 135 words]
Gene Kuechmann recommended in his Sept. 11 letter, "Expose the results of war," that "Every time an American is killed and every time an American is maimed for life in Iraq, it should receive front-page treatment, above the fold." At least these soldiers are giving their lives for an honorable quest and their families and loved ones can take comfort in that memory. On another battlefield, we lose more than 50,000 Americans every year to illicit drugs. And, 16,000 of those are young people, students our children. When are we going to start keeping tally of the loss of those lives on the front page, above the fold? [continues 65 words]
Long before today's extremely potent strains of cannabis were developed, there were individuals who suffered severe psychotic episodes when smoking marijuana (feral cannabis hemp). In fact, this phenomenon was the basis of "Reefer Madness," the 70-year-old zombie movie about individuals who became crazed from smoking marijuana. Today, pro-legalization partisans complain that "Reefer Madness" and the thousands of scientific studies that document marijuana's many insidious and dangerous side effects, are "just scare tactics" and insist that marijuana be given the same status as alcohol and tobacco. [continues 518 words]
Marijuana is so much more potent today than it was in the 1960s and 70s when most individuals were smoking ditchweed (feral cannabis hemp) that it is now a leading cause of drug-related emergency room episodes as well as a major factor in psychiatric emergency treatment. Pro-drug partisan websites, masquerading as "clinics" for pot smokers who prefer being zonked out to treating any real underlying ailment, boast that most of their pot is at least 10percent THC, and claim some of their stuff is even in excess of 20 percent THC. Never mind that on a parallel with say, Tylenol, it is comparable to taking 15 to 20 tablets instead of one. But then again, for the vast majority of pot users, the object is to get high, not get cured, so the more potent the better, as is the case with all other street drugs. [continues 247 words]
Kathleen Parker is wrong. The only reason people use illicit drugs is to get high. Lester Grinspoon, Harvard's resident pro-pot psychiatrist, has been claiming since the early 1980s that cocaine if used in moderation is not harmful, i.e., not an abuse. He has repeated this ridiculous notion numerous times over the years in medical journals, but unfortunately this malarkey is still often quoted and accepted by college students as license to do cocaine. The truth is that there is a plethora of medical scientific documentation that even a small amount of cocaine can bring about fatal cardiac arrest up to three days after use. [continues 69 words]
In his July 31 letter, "Scare tactics ineffective," Robert Sharpe, a spokesman for the pro-legalization Lindesmith Center/Drug Policy Alliance, continues to repeat propaganda about DARE that was fabricated by pro-drug writer Stephen Glass for Rolling Stone and The New Republic magazines. DARE sued Glass and both magazines. As part of the settlement, Glass was heavily fined and required to write a public apology. Unfortunately, though many newspapers had quoted Glass' anti-DARE articles, few bothered to carry the apology. [continues 143 words]
It is alarming to read Elizabeth Hovde's May 30 column, "Legalize pot without legitimizing it." Although ex-New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson managed to convince Hovde with his pro-legalization rhetoric and contrived statistics, he failed to persuade the New Mexico state Legislature to follow his lead. Johnson's rhetoric includes the claim made by legalizing proponents that our prisons are overflowing with people incarcerated for "simple" marijuana offenses. The figure they like to use includes possession of marijuana even when it was only one of many more serious charges against an individual. The actual number of those incarcerated for simple possession after plea-bargaining down from trafficking is less than 2 percent. [continues 122 words]
The Nov. 11 Clark County section carried a trio of articles inextricably tied together. First we have Greg Herrington's Political Notebook, "Clark County Republican activists get 'guns and Bible label." It was about how upset the Democrats in Washington state are that the state's Republicans had bused volunteers in from other communities to try to influence votes in Snomish County. This was particularly interesting because a couple of years ago the Democrats were almost unanimous in supporting an initiative to medicalize marijuana, an initiative that was cooked up by California legalizers, toted around the state by California signature gatherers and paid for by billionaire George Soros and his cohorts, none of whom were citizens of Washington state. That's a far more egregious foul than citizens of one state county politicking in another. [continues 501 words]
Regarding her Aug. 9 column, "Canadians sanely euphoric about medicinal marijuana," Ellen Goodman seems to be suffering from a "contact high" or perhaps something even more profound. Marijuana is not a medicine. It is a plant that has many compounds, some of which have proven to have medical properties. But like the urine of pregnant mares, frog slime, snake venom, fox glove, and thousands of other things found in nature, it is not the raw material that is safe and effective to use. It is the isolated compound that is either extracted or synthesized and tested for safety and effectiveness, that can be carefully titrated for the right dose for an individual's medical condition. [continues 85 words]
