Matt Smith should do his homework before repeating clichés about drug treatment ("Getting the Treatment," June 13, on Proposition 36, which substitutes drug treatment for prison sentences). Research shows that coercion is by no means necessary for addiction treatment success. It doesn't improve outcomes, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In fact, the data show that incentives work better to get people clean than "tough love," and that empathy and respect beat the confrontational approach favored by providers hands down. Arizona's program has already saved taxpayers millions -- and convinced many formerly skeptical drug court officials. It isn't Prop. 36 that ignores the reality of addiction -- it's the ideologically blinded treatment lobby. Maia Szalavitz, New York [end]
Proposition 36 Is Based On A Noble Idea: Substituting Drug Treatment For Prison Sentences. But The Measure Needs Practical Help. I've seen Lydia -- a woman whose warm, graceful manner belies her difficult life -- three times since we were children: once at a funeral, again at a wedding, and a third time when her stepfather died. The first time was 15 years ago at a Colma graveside service for Lydia's brother Gary, my childhood best friend. His life had spiraled into drugs and alcohol before he died of AIDS. [continues 1665 words]
Backhanded compliments gladly accepted: I am also a longtime proponent of cannabis legalization ("Burning Questions," Matt Smith, Feb. 21, on abuses at medical marijuana clinics). I smoke pot maybe once a week, and I voted for Proposition 215. I'm happy it passed because my friends with "back problems" and "insomnia" can get good weed very easily and share it with me (a perfectly healthy individual). That said, I found myself thoroughly agreeing with you. My problems with the cannabis folks have always landed squarely on one principle -- they are focused only on pot. The facts are as cut-and-dried as a 2-foot bud crown: When you ban something that many people want (and some people need), they're just going to figure out another way to get it. Bang, organized crime. I don't blame the Cannabis Buyers Clubs: They're filling a need, nonviolently, participating in a federal disobedience. Good for them. The drug war is stupid and evil, and people should defy it. [continues 299 words]
A Black And White Issue: I'm impressed with your column (Matt Smith, "Burning Questions," Feb. 28, on abuses at medical marijuana clinics). Actually, you are getting very funny. Aside from all the serious issues, it's nice to laugh once in a while, and your style is rather hilarious. I share your concerns regarding prescription mills. You are absolutely correct that wherever there is a black market there will be folks out to make money by prostituting their profession. In those areas of the state where a secure "white" market for medical marijuana exists, we see a drop in prices and certainly a decline in the fear medical cannabis patients have. Prosecution of medical cannabis patients and caregivers only forces patients to the black market. Patients should not have to secure their medicine from people who carry guns and also deal heroin and crack. [continues 581 words]
Duuuuuuude, your article and viewpoint are so lame. In the sentence "Like other practitioners of the Politics of Base Urges -- gun nuts, death penalty advocates, etc.," you forgot the category to which you belong: journalists who try to sway others with absurdly misguided views. You are clearly trying to place pot smokers in the same category as violent, gun-wielding thugs (witness your Rambo illustration, bursting from a jungle of hemp, or the statement "armed-and-dangerous marijuana entrepreneurs"). Trying to scare readers into thinking that those who inhale the "acrid smoke" of ganja are destined to commit violent acts on society is stupid. [continues 157 words]
I'm trying to figure out whether "Smoke and Smearers" is serious journalism or just an attempt to get a rise out of the pathetic and hapless marijuana addicts who sit in their parents' basement, staring blankly at the Weekly, waiting for their next fix. Either way, this article is short on factual evidence and long on stereotyping and derogatory language. If this paper cost me anything, I would feel ripped off. If I wasn't so stoned, I would try to figure out how a victimless crime is analogous to the racist denial of civil liberties. Oh, well, I guess I'll go score some dope from my murderous marijuana entrepreneur. Name Withheld Pacifica [end]
We Took Journalism, But We Didn't Inhale: Matt Smith's Feb. 14 message to medical pot users ("Smoke and Smearers") was as far removed from the spirit of St. Valentine as could be. It must have been severe indigestion indeed that prompted the nasty spew he directed at what he calls "the doobied classes," against whom he (unnecessarily) admits to having a prejudice. Smith has two apparent goals: One is to defend the honor, integrity, and employment of embattled Marin DA Paula Kamena, who is facing a recall election in May. He presents Kamena as a prosecutorial St. Joan, simply intent on protecting Marin citizens against the evils of medical pot, which Smith assures us is "a bale of hokum meant to give drug profiteers broader reign." [continues 1042 words]
This evening I had the unpleasant task of wading through your invective and slander about medical marijuana and those who support its regulated use. I remind you that Proposition 215 passed overwhelmingly. I do not believe that the majority of California voters are either "potheads," "dope peddlers," nor exclusive members of the "doobie sect" whatever that is. ...The AMMA Medical Advisory Board is comprised of professionals. We do not support drug abuse of any kind. Nor do we feel that medical cannabis is a "miracle drug" useful for anyone with any condition. We support a patients Right under the California Constitution to utilize medical cannabis upon a Physicians recommendation. We further call upon all concerned to adopt reasonable guidelines for medical cannabis cultivation, distribution, possession, and use ... In Faith and Service, State Recall Coordinator AMMA Medical Advisory Board, AMMA [end]
How "Prescription Mill" Doctors And Indiscriminate Pot Clubs Threaten The Well-Being Of Legitimate Medical Marijuana Patients Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think I may have orchestrated mankind's first perfect burn. Anyone who attended high school during the 1970s remembers what a "burn" is: the craft of producing an insult so, ahem, deft that it leaves opponents speechless. "I know you are -- but what am I?" is a classic genre standard, as is, "Sphincter said what?" [continues 2141 words]
Smoke And Smearers Potheads Distort The Record - And Endanger The Justice System - As They Try To Recall The Marin DA Of all of the underreported stories of 2001 -- the simian Evernet(1), secret BART tunnels(2), Hetch Hetchy reactor problems(3) -- the most egregious by far is the fact that marijuana smokers are lame losers.(4) Before the Medical Marijuana Initiative, aka Proposition 215, passed in 1996, it was possible to note a person curled into a paranoid, catatonic ball, to turn to one's companion, and to say, "Look at the pothead; now there's a lame-o for you," and go on about one's business. [continues 1955 words]
With Traffic Steven Soderbergh Takes On The Unwinnable War The War on Drugs has become this generation's Vietnam, the unwinnable conflict that will, in the end, destroy the innocent and reward the guilty. That, in a coke vial, is the premise of Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, a film that gives flesh and face to bloodless government statistics and statements seldom reported in the media. Traffic is, in a sense, this year's Three Kings: a cinematic protest, a clenched fist of celluloid that holds in contempt a government that does its best by bringing out our worst. [continues 1218 words]
In A Radical Approach, San Francisco Is Making Addiction A Health Issue Rather Than A Law Enforcement Imperative. So Far, Though, Treatment On Demand Has Been A Costly Pipe Dream. He asks me for $10, though he hasn't told me his name. We're in the emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital. It's early one Friday evening, and the room is already packed with a motley array of bandaged heads and seeping sores. This guy's shuffling from person to person, asking, "You got a 10? I really need it," as if each were an old friend he had borrowed from before. [continues 5119 words]
