Pubdate: Fri, 20 Apr 2012
Source: Florida Times-Union (FL)
Copyright: 2012 The Florida Times-Union
Contact:  http://www.jacksonville.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/155
Author: Marcos Restrepo

DEMOCRATS DEBATE DRUG LEGALIZATION

Kyle Vogt, a former military police and Special Responce Team member,
said Wednesday evening at the Miramar Democratic Club that the 40-year
war on drugs has not slowed down and has no end in sight.

Vogt - a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, known as
LEAP - said he supports the legalization of marijuana, adding that
LEAP has two goals: to remove drugs from Schedule 1, a list used by
the U.S. government for controlled substances, and to "restore respect
for law enforcement."

Vogt tells The Florida Independent that while Schedule 1 inlcudes
canniboids or marijuana, the U.S. government has a 2003 patent that
states: "The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as
neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage
following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the
treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease,
Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia."

Karen Goldstein of the Florida chapter of the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said Wednesday evening that a family
member who suffered epileptic seizures found relief through the use of
marijuana after moving to California, and has been seizure-free for 12
years.

Tom Angell, media director for LEAP, tells the Independent that it's
interesting how the Obama administration "continues to say they want
to have a balanced strategy and treat drugs as a health issue," but at
the same time, in the Drug Strategy released this week, "the
proportion of resources dedicated to punishment as opposed to
treatment and prevention has really not changed at all in a
significant way."

Angell adds that as a candidate, and early on in his administration,
Obama put out several positive indicators about not interfering with
medical marijuana, but "there have been more raids of state legal
medical cannabis facilities under this president than under President
Bush."

He adds that just the mention of the word legalization at the Summit
of the Americas by Obama is a move forward, but the fact that the
president equated "legalization with no restrictions either indicates
a complete ignorance of what people are proposing or show a willful
misrepresentation of the debate."

Maria Lucia Pereira Karam, a retired Brazilian criminal court judge
and a member of LEAP, writes to the Independent that although the
Summit "did not inaugurate immediate change to the drug polices of the
Americas, the initiative of Latin American heads of State (especially
the presidents of Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica) did serve to
make drug policy a central issue of the summit and called world
attention to the dire need for a dramatic change in the direction in
drug policy. Remarkably, Latin American leaders at least had the
president of the United States saying the word 'legalization',
although in his re-election year he did not endorse it."

Pereira Karam adds that for the first time, "heads of State clearly
pointed out the failure of drug prohibition and the harm caused by the
'war on drugs,'" and also "talked about the need to change the
globally imposed prohibition drug policy" and "the need to legalize
the production, the supply and the consumption of all drugs, as the
only way to put an end to the violence caused by the bloody 'war on
drugs.'"

She adds that "the artificially and authoritarian consensus imposed by
the United Nations was broken." "I think that we can expect that these
calls for an end to prohibition will soon become more numerous and
louder," she writes.

Pereira Karam writes that decriminalization "relates only to drug
consumption, meaning that drug possession for personal use is not a
crime," adding that "indeed, drug possession for personal use
(consumption) should not be a crime. In a democracy, the State can
only rightfully intervene upon individual freedom in order to prevent
conduct that could lead to actual harm or risk to others."

She adds that as a matter of drug policy, "'decriminalization' is a
deficient policy because it maintains the illegality of the drug
market, thus leaving untouched the most harmful consequences of drug
prohibition and the 'war on drugs' which are: violence; corruption"
and the lack of health control and regulation of dangerous substances.

"Legalization, on the other hand, means the end of prohibition, an end
to the black market for drugs, and the beginning of a system of
regulation of all drugs," she writes. "To 'legalize drugs' means to
regulate and control them. Legalizing the production, supply and
consumption of all drugs is necessary in order to eliminate repressive
measures that violate fundamental rights, and thus to preserve
democracy."
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MAP posted-by: Matt