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ASA HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

DEA Chief Losses Another PR Battle

After being greeted by 200 protestors in San Francisco just a month earlier, Drug Enforcement Agency ( DEA ) Chief Asa Hutchinson went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Rockville, Md., just outside Washington, D.C.  on March 18, "looking for friendly audiences." Unbeknownst to Hutchinson, that was not to be his fate. 

Hutchinson's appearance was supposed to be about Cindy R.  Mogil's book Swallowing a Bitter Pill: How Prescription and Over-the-Counter Drug Addictions Are Ruining Lives--My Story, but the audience was seeded with medical marijuana advocates from the Marijuana Policy Project ( MPP ). 

When the question-and-answer period began, Larry Silberman told Hutchinson that he had used marijuana for eight months while undergoing aggressive chemotherapy.  Silberman then asked the DEA chief if he should be arrested.  Hutchinson responded: "The tradition for approving new medicines comes from the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] and it comes from science and medicine ...  [which] has not reached a consensus that any medical benefits that come from smoking marijuana override the harm that comes from it.  We have to continue listening to them." MPP Communications Director Bruce Mirken broke in, admonishing Hutchinson for not answering the question. 

At that point, the Barnes and Noble community relations manager jumped in and asked the audience to keep their questions to the topic of prescription-drug abuse.  They didn't. 

Twenty-year-old Fernando Mosquera stood up next and detailed his decade-long battle with Crohn's Disease, an autoimmune gastrointestinal condition.  Mosquera's doctors give him prednisone, a powerful steroid intended only for short-term use.  Mosquera told Hutchinson he relies on marijuana as the only effective treatment for pain and nausea.  He, too, asked if he should be arrested for smoking marijuana to treat his illness.  When Hutchinson replied by citing DEA-authorized studies on the issue, Mosquera interrupted: "I have a serious illness! Why won't you address my question?"

The community relations manager then grabbed a microphone and tried to talk over Mosquera asking him to leave, at which point a red-faced Hutchinson walked out and left the building by way of a waiting car just outside.  After Hutchinson left, Mosquera said, "I have been battling this illness for 10 years.  I was disappointed that Mr.  Hutchinson did not answer my question.  I'm very frustrated because marijuana is the only medicine that gives me a normal life ...  but my hands are tied by the DEA.  They won't let me have the medicine that works best for me."

Mirken was not exactly sympathetic to Hutchinson's plight at the meeting.  "He showed himself to be a pathetic coward.  ...  All we asked is for Mr.  Hutchinson to have a little bit of honesty and a little bit of candor.  Apparently that's too much for him."