Pubdate: Fri, 11 Dec 2009
Source: Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
Copyright: 2009 The Morning Call Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/DReo9M8z
Website: http://www.mcall.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/275
Author: Paul Carpenter
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1082/a04.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

REACTIONS REVEAL DOUBLE STANDARD

According to the president of the board of the Child  Advocacy Center
of Lehigh County, it is wrong "to  revile a government employee who
is struggling  successfully with his addiction and in fact should be
cited as a shining example of what someone with an  addiction should
do."

J. Layne Turner, wrote Barbara Stoffa, "is well  thought of where he
works" at a top job in the  county's Drug and Alcohol agency. (Stoffa
is the  retired head of another agency and is the wife of  Northampton
County Executive John Stoffa.)

"Just what is the point of attacking someone ... who  is successfully
mastering his addiction?" Stoffa  asked." If you saw someone who
recently had a cast  removed from a broken leg, would you kick that
leg just  to see if it is indeed healed?"

That referred to Sunday's column, in which I ridiculed  a drug and
alcohol survey distributed by Turner. I also  noted Turner's previous
problems with the law, stemming  from what he blamed on drinking
heavily and using  drugs, although he got his rap sheet wiped clean by
  getting accepted into the court system's accelerated  rehabilitative
disposition program.

"Putting [Turner] in charge of a drug and alcohol  program would be
like hiring an arsonist as your fire  chief," I wrote.

"What personal and shaming behaviors of yours should  be printed in
your paper?" Stoffa demanded, "or are  you inadvertently revealing
them as you write."

I responded by asking her "what sort of Freudian slip  on my part"
let the cat out of the bag about my  shameful past. But mainly, I
wanted to ask a  hypothetical question.

"If this had been a case of a man previously charged  with sexual
assaults on children," I e-mailed, "and  he managed to get ARD by
blubbering about how sorry he  was, would you be in favor of giving
him a  government job where he has authority over children?"

"No," Stoffa acknowledged, but she denied "there is  any
comparability in the two scenarios."

I greatly respect Stoffa, but I think my comparison is  pithy. It's
preposterous to argue that the best people  to help drug and alcohol
abusers are other drug and  alcohol abusers, reformed or otherwise.
That's like  saying the best people to fix your plumbing are those
with a history of being unable to fix their own leaks.

I do not think double standards are appropriate  anywhere, and I think
people with alcohol and other  drug problems cause as much harm as sex
maniacs.

At the same time, I strongly feel that once people have  been cleared
of wrongdoing, or have paid their debts to  society, they should be
allowed to get on with their  lives, perhaps even in government jobs.

I'd have no problem if the county hired Turner to paint  lines on a
road, or to fix county plumbing. But there  must be somebody out there
who, based on past  performance, is better qualified to tell others
what's  what regarding drugs and alcohol.

It has been quite a week for reactions to what I've  said about drugs,
including last Friday's column urging  the decriminalization of
marijuana for medical  purposes.

A deluge of responses included several noting that the  American
Medical Association opposes the therapeutic  use of marijuana
(although the AMA retreated a bit from  its medieval stance last month).

The AMA represents a trillion-dollar-a-year enterprise  and if, say, 1
percent of patients are allowed to  switch to something they can grow
in their own yards,  it could put a $10 billion hole in medical
industry  profits. So anybody gullible enough to believe anything  the
AMA says about pot probably would buy the Brooklyn  Bridge.

My favorite response came from a man who grew up in  Catasauqua but
now lives in California, one of 13  states that allow possession and
use of small amounts  of marijuana for valid medical purposes. He
asked that  I withhold his name because he fears his employer in  the
Bay Area may not be as enlightened as the voters  who enacted
California's Prop 215 law in 1996.

"I suffer from an autoimmune form of arthritis  that causes my immune
system to attack my joints for no  particular reason," the Catty
native wrote. "This  condition is extremely debilitating and
painful." He  has been allowed to treat his symptoms with marijuana
instead of with opiates and other prescription drugs  that have
horrible risks and side effects.

"I have long been concerned for family members and  friends still
living in the Lehigh Valley who do not  have this choice," he said.
"These people represent a  segment of our population that are ...
persecuted by  the draconian drug laws that you highlighted so
eloquently in your article."

We eloquent types think that drunks and other drug  abusers are not
the best people to be in positions of  authority over others when it
comes those same  problems, but I'd be happy to exempt those who used
marijuana to relieve the horrors of illnesses. If that  represents a
double standard on my part, so be it. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D