Pubdate: Tue, 27 Dec 2011
Source: Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA)
Copyright: 2011 The Virginian-Pilot
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/zJNzcThR
Website: http://hamptonroads.com/pilotonline
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/483

TIME TO CHANGE DRUG STRATEGY

Federal authorities' efforts in recent months to crack down on 
state-regulated marijuana dispensaries in California have increased 
tensions over which level of government should take the lead in 
defining the legal boundaries for drug use and possession.

Marijuana, under the federal Controlled Substances Act, is classified 
as a Schedule I drug, the same as LSD and ecstasy. The designation 
means none is recognized as having any medicinal value.

But that view runs counter to the positions of numerous doctors and 
scientists who've found the plant does, indeed, offer some medicinal 
benefits to individuals dealing with certain health conditions. More 
than a dozen states, and the District of Columbia, have been 
convinced and approved their own laws that either decriminalize 
marijuana or allow for its medicinal use.

Such moves are based as much on science as the reality that this 
nation's war on drug use has failed. An Associated Press report last 
year found the federal government had poured $1 trillion into 
boosting drug-control efforts since 1970. The result: The number of 
drug users in the U.S. has nearly doubled, the number of drug 
overdoses has climbed steadily, millions of nonviolent drug offenders 
have been imprisoned, and countless lives have been ruined.

President Barack Obama signaled previously that his administration 
wasn't interested in dismantling the state-regulated networks of 
legitimate marijuana dispensaries in states that have loosened their 
own drug laws. But his administration's actions have been 
demonstrably different, given authorities' recent efforts to enforce 
the supremacy of federal drug laws.

A proposal sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul, a Texan seeking the Republican 
presidential nomination, and Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from 
Massachusetts, would roll back some of the federal restrictions that 
have propelled the recent crack-down in California. It would, in 
other words, leave states to decide whether to recognize the 
medicinal value of marijuana and exchange the strategy of 
criminalization for one of treatment and education.

The bill has been stuck for the past four months in a subcommittee, 
where it's been all but ignored.

Perhaps it shouldn't pass in its current form. Perhaps some changes 
are needed. But given the results of the current strategy - and the 
fact that more Americans than ever (50 percent, according to a recent 
Gallup poll) actually favor legalization of marijuana - the bill 
deserves discussion.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom