As I read through the list of myths in your Feb. 18 article, I couldn't help but notice the omission of the biggest marijuana myth of all: Marijuana prohibition is an effective strategy to keep drugs out of the hands of children. Dr. Barthwell's claims not withstanding, no credible drug law reform activist asserts marijuana is totally benign. Nor are we intent on "getting marijuana into the hands of more people," especially children. We do understand, however, that so long as there is no legal market where adults can obtain marijuana, criminal syndicates are more than willing to step in to fill the void. And unlike licensed, regulated vendors, drug dealers don't check ID, making marijuana more available to children than are alcohol or tobacco. [continues 115 words]
It is too bad that the speaker from the U.S. drug policy office did not introduce a "fact-based marijuana initiative" in her presentation to the students at Indian River Community College. If she had, of course, she would have had to admit that the "myths" she was decrying are in truth, the facts, and the myths and lies are contained in what she and the cop said. This administration seems to be operating on the same premise as the Nazis in 1930s Germany: The bigger the lie, and the more often it is told, the more it will be believed. If one views the information readily available on the Internet or reads the excellent book, "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts," by Lynn Zimmer and John P. Morgan, where the myths she spoke are dealt with in a fact-based manner and the truth of cannabis is revealed, one can know immediately that the government lies and so do the police. [continues 66 words]
Andrea Barthwell of the White House Drug Czar's office continues to spread misinformation about marijuana. Barthwell's biggest whopper: "The people that have this [medical marijuana] as an agenda are not concerned for the sick or dying." Barthwell knows full well that legal access to medical marijuana is supported by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Nurses Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of HIV Medicine and hundreds of other medical and public health organizations. To claim that these groups don't care about the sick and dying is a reprehensible lie. [continues 75 words]
Had they insisted cannabis has no medical properties under oath, the Office of National Drug Control's deputy director for demand reduction, Andrea Barthwell, and Sgt. Brad Fojtik of the Indian River County Sheriff's Office School Resource Team could be charged with perjury. At a minimum, such fraudulent testimony is correctly dismissed as ignorance. It is a fact that the THC and CBD in cannabis ameliorate symptoms of nausea, pain and stress far safer than almost every legal medication or intoxicant on the market, even if smoked. [continues 138 words]
Apparently, Andrea Barthwell doesn't realize that parolees get sent back to prison if they test positive for cannabis. As I'm sure would second or third time offenders for simple possession. There are plenty of people in prison for using cannabis. And plenty of lives and families torn apart due to criminal convictions for something that past presidents and many other politicians have admitted to doing. Nor does she realize that in 1986 the DEA heard a petition to have cannabis rescheduled, from Schedule I to Schedule II. The administrative law judge that heard the case was Judge Francis Young. In 1988, after an exhaustive two-year investigation into cannabis as medicine he concluded: "One must reasonably conclude that there IS accepted safety for use of marijuana under medical supervision. To conclude otherwise, on this record, would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious." [continues 187 words]
In your Feb. 18 article, "Official tackles marijuana myths," Sgt. Brad Fojtik claims there's "no medicinal value in (marijuana), period." I am one of several patients who use legal medical marijuana, grown and distributed by the United States government through the National Institute of Drug Abuse's Investigational New Drug program. I use my medicine to treat symptoms of pain, spasms, and nausea related to years of pharmaceutical and surgical maltreatment, repeated injuries, and a rare genetic condition called nail patella syndrome. [continues 139 words]
Andrea G. Barthwell, a deputy despot from the office of the drug czar, shows up to propagandize, and the Press Journal follows along, calling all dissenting information "myths." Cannabis was in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia until 1940, when it was stuffed down George Orwell's memory hole by one of Barthwell's predecessors. The office of the drug czar commissioned the Institute of Medicine to report on cannabis. In 1999 they reported that it does indeed have significant medical uses. As with alcohol, prohibition is not the way to regulate anything. Prohibition yields up control of the market to the criminal underworld. District attorneys consistently upgrade charges against users to the status of distributors, and the prisons are indeed full of casual users. [continues 53 words]
I am ashamed that we are paying Dr. Andrea Barthwell to lie to us. A doctor should honestly know the truth about such a simple subject. The plain truth is that cannabis has not killed one person in the 5,000 years of its use. It is less addictive that cigarettes, and it is less mind-altering than alcohol. Why should it be so surprising that the plant, cannabis sativa, could be so medically beneficial when so may pharmaceutical drugs are derived from plants? It is because we have been told for more than 70 years that marijuana, the flower of cannabis, is a dangerous drug that will ruin lives. [continues 79 words]
However, Use Among High-School Juniors And Seniors Was Below National And State Averages INDIAN RIVER COUNTY -- The class of students that tested high for drug use in fifth and seventh grades is continuing to test high as ninth- graders. A survey of students from fourth-through 12th-graders conducted last spring showed students at all levels were using drugs and drinking. About 7 percent of the 414 fourth-graders surveyed reporting using beer within the past year. One out of every five seniors said they smoked marijuana on a regular basis, Bob Peterson, international director of PRIDE Youth Programs, told a workshop attended by about 20 district counselors, educators and health officials. [continues 487 words]
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY -- "Marijuana is not medicine" and we need to keep it away from our children was the message delivered by a Washington anti-drug official at a lecture Tuesday. Andrea G. Barthwell, from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, is deputy director for Demand Reduction, a youth drug prevention program. She introduced a "fact-based marijuana initiative" to a group of more than 100 at the Indian River Community College's Mueller campus. Barthwell outlined the following five "marijuana myths:" [continues 287 words]
Surprised Experts May Not Like Them, But Tough Measures Are Paying Off Defying the experts' predictions, America's crime rate is down again. In fact, crime hasn't been this low since the keeping of national records on property and violent crimes began in 1973. The decline over the past decade was a stunning 50 percent. It seems abundantly clear that law enforcement has improved in both prevention and the capture of lawbreakers, and that sending record numbers of people to prison for lengthy sentences is working. After all, if you are behind bars, you are not on the street doing bad things. [continues 111 words]
Your July 31 editorial, "Wrong to vote," stated that Democrats would benefit from the restoration of voting rights to felons. But you have failed to grasp what disenfranchisement means to ex-offenders. The issue of rights restoration should be about people, not politics. You talk about murderers getting to vote, but fail to mention thousands of nonviolent offenders who committed felonies, fulfilled the court requirements, and now can't hold a state license to be a barber or do air-conditioning repair because of disenfranchisement. [continues 130 words]
Restoring Felons' Rights Portends Political Shift In Florida, Nation. Hold onto your voter-registration card: Felons have opened another front in Florida's electoral battleground. A group of criminal-rights activists convinced a circuit judge in Tallahassee last week that 125,000 Florida felons hadn't received appropriate state assistance and advice to restore their civil rights - including the right to vote. Now, the Department of Corrections expects that 30,000 felons will regain those rights this year, with many more to follow. And make no mistake: That's good news for the Democratic Party, which lost the Florida presidential election and the White House by a mere 537 votes in 2000. [continues 372 words]
New Court Program Offers Chance For Clean Record INDIAN RIVER COUNTY -- Christi Hart stood before the judge Tuesday in her blue-flowered graduation dress, her nervousness and excitement clear. Behind the 33-year-old single mother was a courtroom filled with lawyers, law-enforcement officers, government officials, mental-health counselors and a collection of family, friends and other well-wishers. The occasion was the first-ever Indian River County Drug Court graduation. And Hart was the first graduate. Hart, of Vero Beach, was arrested May 25, 2002, after buying cocaine from an undercover police officer in the 1000 block of 10th Court Southwest. When she got out of jail June 19, 2002, she was homeless and confused, she said. [continues 374 words]
In a recent Press Journal article, "New school could be in future," Greg Smith, assistant superintendent of operations, notes, "About $338,000 is being spent this year to get portables and equip them to be used as classrooms." Also included were comments from others on whether the need exists, or when it may exist in the future. Elsewhere in the same edition, we read, "Inmates straining cash- strapped governments." In that article, we learn, "In Florida, there were 75,210 prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities at the end of 2002," an increase of 3.9 percent in one year. [continues 118 words]
