Pubdate: Wed, 12 Sep 2001
Source: San Francisco Bay Guardian (CA)
Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Bay Guardian
Contact:  http://www.sfbg.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/387
Author: Elizabeth Hille
Note: Elizabeth Hille is a writer based in Oakland.
Cited: Lindesmith Center http://www.drugpolicy.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?179 (Nadelmann, Ethan)

WHO SMOKES DOPE?

On The Front Lines In The War On Drugs.

I SMOKE POT. I could probably be ID'd as a pot smoker in a crowd, but
come to think of it, in almost all crowds someone has a joint. It was
ironic, then, that I recently found myself, a proponent of the
decriminalization of all drugs, in one of those rare jointless crowds
when I attended a lecture by the pied piper of the drug reform
movement, Ethan Nadelmann. He'd come to San Francisco to speak at the
S.F. Medical Society.

As I waited for Nadelmann to take the stage, I overheard a
conversation between two conservatively dressed, barrel-chested white
men in their late 50s. The one with the curly white beard said to the
other, "So my kid asked me, 'What's the difference between a pothead
and a pot smoker?' "

"And what did you tell her?" asked the one who looked a lot like
Santa.

"Well, I told her that a pothead's life is all about pot, whereas a
person who smokes marijuana does other things with his or her life.
They contribute to society. They are active. They're passionate and
compassionate thinkers."

Nadelmann: Legalization's Poster Boy

Even among people who get high or drop or roll or whatever, there's a need to
distinguish between what one is and what one isn't. Pothead, pot smoker, 
patient,
drug user, junky: it matters what word is used and with whom. Image and 
phrasing
count, just as they do in the world of advertising. Unfortunately, this need to
differentiate can lead to setbacks in getting progressive legislation passed.

It seemed that the people in this crowd had come to hear Nadelmann
because they don't think adults should be punished for what they put
in their bodies. I'm sure the new head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, Asa Hutchinson, doesn't hold this belief, since he has
promised to enforce the federal ban on selling medical marijuana. But
these people, most of whom were members of the affluent
intelligentsia, were ready to fight for their right to puff. Standing
in that room, it seemed to me that these mostly white, mostly
middle-class types were so pissed off about our current war on drugs
that they might be inspired to change our ineffective laws, as well as
stereotypical images of who uses drugs. For instance, respected public
figures such as George Soros, the billionaire bankrolling the
Lindesmith Center's Drug Policy Foundation, are proponents of drug-law
reform. Too bad Soros isn't on any public service billboards.

Nadelmann, too, should be on a billboard; he's practically a poster
boy for drug-policy reform. Nadelmann started the Lindesmith Center
with Soros. By the time he was 31, he'd already worked for the DEA and
been a Princeton professor. He doesn't look like a drug-policy
reformer, and indeed, one of the issues he and the Lindesmith Center
are working on is changing the public image of what drug users and
drug reformers look like. If that image changes, so might the
country's abstinence-only attitude. And this development could lead to
the end of the war on drugs.

In his speech Nadelmann stressed how the Puritan spirit is still
strong in the United States. He said, "In the minds of many Americans,
the approval of drug use, of any kind, means that we have to
acknowledge that people use drugs, and many Americans would rather
ignore this fact," he said. Following this logic, abstinence is the
only alternative. This, of course, is the motto of the expensive and
ineffective war on drugs.

In the United States drug offenses make up one-third of all federal
criminal cases, according to the Department of Justice. While
countries such as Canada and the U.K. seem to be moving toward the
decriminalization of marijuana, the United States is still busy
fighting the war, with Hutchinson calling the shots. Most of the
countries in the European Union have already made marijuana
consumption legal. And some of those E.U. countries have even gone as
far as decriminalizing small amounts of other drugs, such as heroin,
as well.

"Junkies are the new persecuted group," Nadelmann argued.
"Historically we, as a culture, have needed to put our fears onto
someone who is an 'other.' " He explained how our society has
persecuted religious minorities - women, people of color, and queers
to name a few. Though this prejudice hasn't completely ended,
Nadelmann said, we have delegitimatized attacks on those groups.
Junkies and drug users are a new kind of other. Putting someone down
by calling them a junky doesn't earn you a skeptical look, an
admonishment, or even a head shake, Nadelmann pointed out.

Perhaps, Nadelmann suggested, if we change the way we talk about drugs
and drug use, we can change people's minds. Nadelmann ended his
lecture by reiterating that "advocacy is not about self-statement;
advocacy is about communicating."

The Problem With Prop. 36

While the recently passed Proposition 36 (which would put drug users
in rehab rather than in jail) is a step in the right direction for
those advocating drug reform, a recent guideline passed in Oakland
takes reform a step backward. A few weeks ago the Oakland City Council
cut in half the amount of medical marijuana patients are allowed to
have. Before the reform, medical patients were allowed six pounds of
marijuana a year. When the rule goes into effect Nov. 15, patients
will be allowed only three pounds a year. This compromise might ease
the minds of some councilmembers and the cops, but for some patients,
like Angel McClary, this severe cut will mean halving their medicine.

McClary says the new law is a "death sentence." She is president of a
patient-outreach company called Angel Wings and has been an activist
for medical marijuana reform.

A middle-class mother, she needs to smoke pot or else her health
deteriorates rapidly. The first thing I noticed about McClary was how
skinny she is. She told me she weighs 95 pounds on a good day; on bad
days she has to ingest spoonfuls of nasty pot oil so she can eat. She
has a brain tumor, endometriosis, scoliosis, seizures, and a wasting
condition. Her marijuana prescription is considered a medical
necessity. This means that a doctor has decided there is no other
legal alternative that would meet her health needs. Before she started
smoking medical marijuana, McClary was in a wheelchair.

"What's worse?" she asked me. "If my kids cry because they see me
suffering, or if I eat a [pot cookie] in front of them?" For the
Oakland City Council the answer isn't so obvious. According to her
doctor, McClary needs to medicate every two hours, which means she
requires two ounces of pot a week, or six and a half pounds a year. "I
don't even get high off this stuff," McClary said. It's just medicine.
Under Oakland's new guidelines, patients can get more pot with a
doctor's permission, but then the doctor might face legal
repercussions. When the law goes into effect, McClary says, she's
going to have to choose between "my life and civil
disobedience."

McClary is worried about her own future, but she's also concerned
about how the guidelines will be enforced by Oakland's police
department. Hers is a valid concern, given the department's record of
unfair practices. And now, with Hutchinson ready to enforce the
federal ban, things could get far, far worse for medical marijuana
patients in Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area.

McClary's case is a prime example of what Nadelmann meant when he
exhorted his audience to offer a more realistic picture of who takes
drugs and why. Apparently, however, the image of emaciated people in
pain isn't enough to convince Oakland's City Council or, it seems, Asa
Hutchinson.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake