Saturday, June 18, 2005

Last week's question:

State laws allowing medical use of marijuana don't protect users from being prosecuted under federal law for use of a banned substance, the Supreme Court has ruled. What action should the federal government take in light of this ruling?

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Prosecute more medical marijuana users...16%

Change federal law to allow medical marijuana use...82%

Do nothing...2%

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How many people die each year from aspirin and how many people die each year from pot? The illegality of marijuana cannot be morally or rationally justified. Our nation came to its senses after that abominable experiment called Prohibition. What is our excuse now?

John Cruz

Taylor

Authorities need to prosecute medical marijuana users just as long as marijuana is a banned substance. There shouldn't be any exceptions as to who may or may not use a banned drug. Either it is good for one and all, or not anyone.

Dee Macko

Misery Bay

Government is not going to limit drug use with tough laws. A free market will show that the drug cartel gets richer with more regulation. An open market will reduce use and cost. Of course, Congress will not stop or limit illegal drug use. Look at the liberated Afghanistan for proof; there's a 70 percent increase in illegal drug production and export.

Andrew T. Linko

Brownstown

Quit wasting time and money on pot busts. How many billions of dollars are going to be spent nailing cancer patients while the poor starve and the homeless freeze to death? This ruling proves what a sick and backward country we have become.

Ken Farhat

Sterling Heights

The federal government should keep the ban on the use of medical marijuana. The Dr. Timothy Learys of our country don't have the right to put pot into anyone's lungs, including their own. America already has enough drug problems.

Martin Yanosek

St. Clair Shores

It is such a shame to hear that medical marijuana is being banned. I've been hearing reports from the Food and Drug Administration that there have been drug companies whose medication poses a dangerous health risk of a heart attack, pregnancy complications and other health risks.

Why don't Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court do something about getting those banned too, or are they for big drug companies?

Samuel Allen

Detroit

This is just one more sad story in the never-ending dark comedy that is the war on drugs.

We're talking about the same government that treated anti-drug-war crusader Peter McWilliams, riddled with AIDS and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, as if he ran a drug cartel. The same government that prohibited him, during his sham of a trial, from taking the only drug that would help him keep his AIDs and cancer medications from being thrown back up due to nausea.

The same government that told him that Marinol would work just as effectively. Only it did not.

Ryan Meray

Sterling Heights

Michigan doesn't even enforce its own law which prohibits cigarettes and other tobacco products. Until we do, quit worrying about lesser drugs like marijuana.

Ned Franks

"Physician"-prescribed use of marijuana should be allowed. The solution to this problem for like-minded individuals is to demand that your congressperson and senator reschedule marijuana from a Class 1 drug to a Class 3 drug.

Steve A. Redder

Petoskey

We are not talking about "pot." We are talking about a law to authorize medicinal use of a product to eliminate pain. Let Congress do its job. But I hold no hope. It seems to be immersed in attacks on each other for the next few years. Congress has no time to deal with real issues for the people.

Beatrice Scalise

Plymouth Township

In Detroit, we are lucky. If we need marijuana or if we want it, we just go across the river to Canada and enjoy it.

Bill Jackson

We should not be selective in which laws we enforce. If you think a law is unfair, work to elect representatives who will change the law.

Or, if you're a liberal, convince some renegade judge to declare what the "new" (more enlightened) law is, and the rest of us can stand, stunned at the awesome power the Constitution has endowed on one man.

Don Schmittdiel

Clinton Township

I love it I send a canned letter, and he sends one back almost like he even reads the thing...

One day one day.... I will not be proscuted for what I belive in. till then it is nothing more than your modern day witch hunt.

I couldn't agree more with Nolan Finley's concise analysis of why marijuana prohibition is wasteful and counterproductive. There are many other good reasons to change the law. Respect for, and cooperation with, law enforcement would increase if ordinary citizens no longer have a reason to feel like criminals. The only thing that keeps organized crime in the weed-growing business is the artificially high prices caused by prohibition; once legal, the price would plummet and black marketeers would lose one of their most profitable items. Instead, prohibition ensures the criminals a monopoly and the kind of outrageous price inflation which Enron executives could only dream of.

Lower costs for a legal end-product, relieveing the States of the need to p*** away money trying to stop the unstoppable, putting a sword in the guts of organized crime and creating industries to service the demand, the States could begin accumulating revenues instead of bleeding them away, along with their tax base, as their populations leave looking for work. (Many, many cars I see on the road have license plates from clear across the country, but they work the same place I do, and live in the same general area. That says something, and mainly what it says is DESPERATION.) It's so friggin' simple...and many of the pols know it, but are afraid of the screech-monkey antis.

(As one old animal handler for a major Gub'mint agency I know put it: "Monkeys is common bastids; dey crap in theah han's an t'row it at ya." No diff from many of the antis spewing their lies.)

The only way to allay their fears is to show we've got more reasonable people than the antis have spastics.

Those who practice and benefit from hypocrisy are hypocrites. Plain and simple, and no need for much embellishments. This is one of the main prohibitionist vulnerabilities being exposed. Mr. Finlay has called both the policy AND it's defenders out as hypocrites. As we saw last week, the antis really, REALLY hate that, because that gets them where they live: they draw a paycheck from the lie.

History goes round and round, and the names and places may change but the same old song is sung again and again. Take a look at these cartoons; they come from the days of Prohibition 1.

http://www.drugpolicycentral.com/bot/pg/images/prohibition_era_cartoons/index.htm

Take a look at the cartoon character "Mr. Dry", the nationally adopted caricature of the rank prohibitionist of the day. See any similarities with today's hypocritical drug warriors? See all the innocents dead, and the parties the criminal elements have at the behest of the well-meaning (or viciously determined) but clueless supporters of Prohibition 1?

All that's changed are the drugs and the dates, folks. The madness is cyclic. But cycles come to an end, and this one may be ending as we watch, for Mr. Finlay has spoken what millions of his colleagues think privately but were afraid to say publicly.

I think you would find, that the same 20% have some vested interest in the prohibition of cannabis; Law enforcement, and their dependents,.., prison guards, judges and lawyers,..and all of their dependents..

For them to consider any change, is like trying to take a bone away from a hungry dog.

These same 20% would continue to lock people into cages, as long as their pay check is paid by this madness we call prohibition.

These same 20%, refuse to understand, that it is the prohibition, that is feeding the cycle of violence, and is allowing the most ignorant of thugs to achieve places of power and great wealth,..the cartels and modern day Al Capones, those with no honor, who will sell to any young child, who give it away, to hook innocent youths, and I am not referring to cannabis, it is the stronger stuff, meth, heroin..

Ending prohibition, will end the cycle, it will bankrupt the cartels, it will take away the local dealers job.

Hopefully to be replaced by a saner and regulated and taxed system to obtain drugs, which will also be treated as a medical problem rather than a criminal problem.

So it would seem politically safe to support medical cannabis (MC). Why don't they?

I think they read it like this - the 20% who oppose MC REALLY oppose it and would be willing to vote a politician out of office on this issue. Most of the 80% who support MC don't consider it important enough to treat it as a single issue vote, so won't vote them out for not supporting MC. Other issues, like taxes, etc. take precedent in deciding whom to vote for.

If the Feds misbehave and start shutting down medical cannabis centers, arresting patients, threatening doctors who recommend, this may change. The economic issues are always important, too.

So articles like this are important.

BTW - the author missed something: European countries with relaxed cannabis laws have much lower levels of hard drug use than the USA. In fact, you can make a nice chart showing the use of hard drugs rising the more restrictive the cannabis laws are.

I repeat that: *overwhelming support*. The number of positive editorials we have seen the past week on CNEWS is not from selecting only the good ones. The ratio of positive to negative we've seen here demonstrates the public is on our side, or many of these editors would have gone along with the prohib's blather, nodding sheeplike while swallowing it and then shat it out whole . We've seen that happen with distressing regularity.

They haven't this time because the public itself is tired of this craziness.

This is the time. These are the days. And Tuesday will be THE day. If you haven't then write your Congresscritters and Sin-a-tors and tell them to support Hinchey/Rohrabacher and Barney Frank's H.R. 2087. Call 'em! Fax 'em! Clog the switchboards and the hallways if you can. Let them hear..you...ROAR, people. Great Maker knows we have reason to be angry enough. But mind your manners.

Here are the links to the various organizations providing letter writing pages. Consider adding your own comments at the beginning so it won't be pitched like some astroturf letter.

DRCNet: http://stopthedrugwar.org/medicalmarijuana/index.html

MPP: http://tinyurl.com/dcyoz

Drug Policy Alliance: http://tinyurl.com/78hco

And sending a few sawbux won't hurt, either...

But guess what? The Rubicon has been crossed. For not only do we have here a journalist who *knows* the facts about relative safety of cannabis compared to alcohol, makes his conscious choice, and refuses to kow-tow to DrugWar orthodoxy but a p***ed off taxpayer is speaking here, at a time of increasing budget tightening for governments at all levels.

If he had mentioned the idiocy of arresting a kid for possession and ruining his or her chances of the school loan, or the horrors of prison, it would have been perfect. But he's bang-on-the-mark.