TALLAHASSEE - Florida's ruling Republicans are uniting behind legislation that would allow the use of certain, weaker strains of marijuana by epilepsy patients, an action they say is sparked by heart-moving stories but which others suspect is driven more by election-year politics. Republican support for the so-called "Charlotte's Web" legislation has emerged in the weeks following the Florida Supreme Court's approval of a November ballot proposal that would legalize a more sweeping use of marijuana for medical purposes in the state. [continues 1076 words]
2 Democrats: Legalize Medical Marijuana Before Nov. Ballot. TALLAHASSEE - Two Democratic lawmakers Monday urged the Republican-led Legislature to legalize medical marijuana, pre-empting a November ballot proposal that many say is likely to help Gov. Rick Scott's Democratic challenger. But Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, and Rep. Joe Saunders, D-Orlando, said politics should not be part of the discussion when patients' suffering could be eased more quickly by prescription pot. The lawmakers were flanked at the Capitol by two-dozen supporters, including several patients who rely on marijuana - now obtained illegally - to ease chronic pain. [continues 790 words]
PARRISH -- Sitting at the kitchen table in her wheelchair, arms useless at her sides, Cathy Jordan begins another day with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease. She turns expectantly to her husband, Robert, who fires up a pungent joint and holds it to her lips. Smoke curls through her blond hair as she inhales, holds and exhales. Jordan is well into her third decade with a disease that often kills within five years. She credits marijuana with slowing progression of the condition that destroys nerve cells, ultimately leading to total paralysis and death. [continues 1959 words]
Dr. Eric Voth's letter, "Goal isn't medical help," (Aug. 18) is truly what is terrible about medical marijuana. The anti-cannabis fanatic's colors wave dull and dark in Voth's screed. Dr. Voth in declaring his chairmanship of the Institute on Global Drug Policy also declares his association with the worst of the prohibitionist movement in the 21st century, including folks like Mel and Betty Sembler, who were instrumental in the failed and torturous Straight Inc. organization, a group that has tortured American children in the jihad against drugs and those who use them. [continues 138 words]
For Decades, Richard Bradbury Nursed His Hostility for Former Ambassador Mel Sembler - WHO Finally Struck Back When It Got Too Personal. Now Their Grudge Match Has Spilled into a Public Courtroom ST PETERSBURG - It's hardly an even fight. In one corner, Mel Sembler: shopping center developer, former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, former ambassador to Italy and Australia. Friend of President Bush and his father. In the other corner, Richard Bradbury: molested by a fireman at age 11, unemployed, target of lawsuits for failure to make rent and credit card payments. Just turned 41, lives with his parents. [continues 2415 words]
Slang Misuse, Failure to Check Assertions Hurts Its Coverage David Montero of the Rocky Mountain News has been stuffing his coverage of Amendment 44 (relegalizing marijuana) with attempts to use drug slang. Sometimes Montero uses slang to promote negative stereotypes, such as "the wording of the ballot measure is so simple, even the most ardent stoner could understand it." Other times, Montero's articles sound like Jerry Falwell trying to talk jive. Last Saturday, Montero wrote: "Pot smokers will tell you the most intense part of the joint is right at the end - the roach clip, in drug parlance. The news conference was getting to the roach clip." [continues 757 words]
Gary Cartwright sounds like a snake-oil salesman when he touts pot as medicine ["Weed All About It," July 2005]. The marijuana lobby, who funded these initiatives in Texas, stated that it would use "medical marijuana" as a "red herring" to get marijuana legalized for recreational use. Marijuana in its smoked or crude form is not a safe or effective treatment for any condition. Public policy related to drugs should be based on science, not on misinformation provided by marijuana lobbyists. Texas lawmakers were wise to reject this pro-pot propaganda. Stephanie Haynes Save Our Society From Drugs Alpine [end]
On drug policy, the voting public has proven ready to lead spaniel-like politicians by the nose, voting for one liberalization measure after another. But government, state and local officials have begun a crusade to scuttle reform initiatives around the nation. Three wealthy drug reform proponents have backed a string of successful state ballot initiatives across the nation. Focusing initially on medical marijuana measures out west, billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis and multi-millionaire John Sperling have won 12 of 13 ballot measures since 1996. Their handiwork also includes Proposition 36, which mandates treatment rather than prison for low-level drug offenders and was passed overwhelmingly in California in 2000. Other activists have similarly outflanked the officials who lag behind public opinion, and the reform movement as a whole has won 17 of 19 ballot measures -- much to the chagrin of drug warriors. [continues 3917 words]
Drug initiative backers with the contumacy to flank a laggard government by appealing directly to the people are met yet again with a covert, multi-state gathering of government officials planning partisan electioneering on the public dime. And, given the presentation by the Bush Administration's drug policy second-in-command - a job senior enough to require Senate confirmation - the White House-backed effort will apparently include government propaganda to sway the vote of those who pay for it. [continues 6661 words]
Advertising Age columnist Richard Linnett's article (6/10/02) on my recently published work demands a response. He wrote of my months-long study published by the Washington think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies. It discusses the covert campaign - pursued by public employees while on the clock - embarked on by the administration of Gov. Bob Taft (R-OH) to defeat a treatment rather than incarceration initiative likely to appear on the ballot in Ohio this November. It's modeled on a similar ballot measure, Proposition 36, that passed overwhelmingly in California in 2000. Among other topics, the report discusses the supposedly apolitical Partnership for a Drug-Free America's cooperation with the Taft administration effort. Its URL: www.ips-dc.org/projects/drugpolicy/ohio.htm [continues 1947 words]
It's amazing how those who cry out for flexible thinking are prone to panic at the sight of it. I speak of criticism from drug proponents, over participation of VPD officers in a recent drug conference. Vancouver's IDEAS symposium was held to compare alternate versions of harm reduction for drug addicts from Switzerland and Sweden, where restrictive models operate in contrast to permissive ones. Anti-VPD accusations were positively venomous: It was said to be wrong for police officers to sit on the board of a group opposed to Vancouver's "Four Pillar" approach to drug troubles. Yet the VPD officers involved were off duty, acting as private citizens, and opposition was not the aim of the conference. [continues 418 words]
Once you understand just who that Vancouver cop was supposed to be chauffeuring to the IDEAS drug conference in a "nice unmarked police car," you'll be able to figure out the size of the problem we have on our hands. The cop is Const. Chris Graham. He is a member of the Odd Squad, a small group of Vancouver cops who made a name for themselves shooting an NFB film about junkies on the Downtown Eastside. The two senior members of the Odd Squad are constables Al Arsenault and Toby Hinton. [continues 541 words]
A controversial assault on the nation's war on illegal drugs started in 1996, when a well-organized and well-funded coalition of drug law reformers and grass-roots activists put legalization of "medical marijuana" on the ballots in California and Arizona. Propelled by evidence that marijuana sometimes alleviates the symptoms or side effects suffered by some seriously ill people who do not respond to conventional medicine, the first two legalization measures proved enormously popular, winning 65 percent of the vote in Arizona and 56 percent in California. [continues 1484 words]
Optimistic but short-spoken, Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley returns today from a Washington interview with President Bush's staff for possible appointment as U.S. drug czar. "I'm being considered," Romley said by telephone Thursday. "I spoke about my thoughts on drug policy and what should be done from a national perspective." Asked for details, Romley said, "That's between myself and the White House right now." A major prosecutor of methamphetamine lab operators, Romley also has been a pioneer in diverting first-time non-violent drug users from criminal trial, if they undergo court-supervised treatment. [continues 325 words]
LONG BEACH -- State officials, doctors, judges and law enforcement officers kicked off a two-day summit Tuesday to gather forces against a new ballot measure that would send drug offenders to rehabilitation instead of prison. Opponents of Proposition 36, gathered at the Long Beach Westin, said they are concerned that the initiative wouldn't do what its designers say. They called it a "Trojan horse" that would take away drug testing and the threat of accountability for people attending drug courts. [continues 380 words]
They are the forgotten Americans, the unpersons at our national banquet, the hidden underside of this self-congratulatory era. And yet Colin Powell, in what probably was the most daring speech at this overly directed convention, devoted almost as much attention to this invisible group as he lavished on George W. Bush. Powell's taboo topic Monday night was what he described as ''a growing population of over 2 million Americans behind bars. Two million convicts, not consumers. Two million Americans who, while paying for their crimes, are not paying taxes, are not there for their children and are not raising families. Most of them are men, and the majority of those men are minorities.'' [continues 820 words]
Note: Shadow Convention websites: http://www.drugpolicy.org/ http://www.shadowconventions.com/ New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson figures he may have ended his political future when he advocated the legalization of marijuana last year. That didn't stop him Tuesday from again advocating legalization, this time to an enthusiastic crowd at the iconoclastic and occasionally funky Shadow Convention meeting here as a counterpoint to the Republican National Convention. Johnson, who gave up alcohol 13 years ago, says drugs, and the money spent on prisons and the socalled war on drugs, constitute "the biggest issue in this country." And it's a lot of wasted money, he said. [continues 387 words]
Editor -- Both the "Just Say Know: New Directions in Drug Education" conference and the Lindesmith booklet, "Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs, and Drug Education" were blatantly mischaracterized by Sue Rusche and Betty Sembler in the op-ed piece, " 'Safe Use' Drug Philosophy Is a Step Backward" (Open Forum, November 8). We will happily send out "Safety First" free of charge to anyone who is interested. They may call (415) 921-4987 or e-mail tlc-west@ix.netcom.com. Ellen Komp, The Lindesmith Center San Francisco [continues 5 words]
As if parents didn't have enough to worry about. Now comes something called ``reality-based'' drug education, and it's being pushed by the people who want us to legalize drugs. These programs call for educators to teach children that they can have ``healthy relationships'' with marijuana, PCP, cocaine, crack and heroin, and that they can use these drugs ``safely.'' This approach to drug education is one thing that drove adolescent drug use up in the 1970s to the highest levels in history, from less than 1 percent in 1962 to 34 percent of adolescents, 65 percent of high school seniors and 70 percent of young adults by 1979. [continues 533 words]
To the editor: I was glad to see the St. Petersburg Times editorial, A promising drug plan (Sept. 7), praising Florida drug czar James McDonough's efforts to reduce drug abuse in our state. McDonough has, in his short tenure, explored many innovative strategies for curtailing drug use, including a biological herbicide to eradicate marijuana crops. Times associate editor Martin Dyckman and columnist Bill Maxwell don't like this idea, though. Both have written columns in recent weeks denouncing the practice of using the natural enemies of plants (insects, fungi and bacteria) to control unwanted growth. This technology is not new to Florida. The strangler vine has been successfully controlled in Florida citrus groves for years with a plant fungus which, unlike chemical herbicides, destroys the vine while having no effect on the citrus trees, other plants or animals. [continues 143 words]
