cannabisnews.com: For Ashcroft, Ideology Overrides Suffering 





For Ashcroft, Ideology Overrides Suffering 
Posted by FoM on November 18, 2001 at 08:27:26 PT
By John Balzar
Source: San Francisco Chronicle 
I remember looking into a crib at a woman in her 80s, her translucent skin blistered with bedsores, her limbs knotted up like pieces of string, her eyes looking only inward. We tried to talk between the convulsive, unbearable bouts of pain that bone cancer inflicts. She is gone now. But cancer isn't. Some other grandmother lies trembling in a bed right now, repeating the agony. 
I think about the friends and colleagues I've known who have lost weight, lost their spirit, grown bent and weak, unable to eat and hold down medicine, every cough an ordeal, their eyes fading and finally blinking shut because one or the other opportunistic disease moved in to assault their bodies left defenseless by AIDS. I'll ask the follow-up question with as much bite as is in me: Why would Attorney General John Ashcroft choose now, this moment, to add to the misery of our sick and dying countrymen? Why now, at the start of this war on terrorism? The answer, the blinding self-righteousness of Ashcroft's old-time religion, is incomprehensible to me. I thought every G-man in America was working double time to try and make America safe and deliver justice. What could be more compelling? What could divert Ashcroft's attentions and make him redeploy agents and investigators from these horrifying threats to our children and ourselves? It's the rebellion we started here in the West. When we in California decided that a marijuana brownie wasn't too much to offer chemotherapy patients so they could hold down their medicines without vomiting, just as long as a licensed physician approved. When voters in Oregon decided that, for truly horrible terminal illnesses, people ought to have the right to ask their doctors for the drugs to escape their final suffering. Ashcroft dispatched 30 federal agents last month to raid and shut down the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, where 960 sick people are registered to seek relief with approval of their doctors and, I hasten to add, with the cooperation of the county sheriff's department. Then Ashcroft announced that he was sending investigators to crack down on Oregon physicians who assist dying patients when they cannot endure any more suffering -- an option used so far by only 70 desperate people in four years. Do we really have the law-enforcement horsepower to spare for this cold- hearted crusade? Have they run out of leads? Don't they listen to their own threats of attacks to come? Have they not seen the list of 10,000 places where America is still vulnerable? Let's be clear: The narrow and merciful laws that Ashcroft has attacked were approved by voter plebiscites. Let's be emphatic: There is no possible harm to others with these laws. These are matters settled by doctors and patients in private homes and hospices. Let's be angry: On the strength of its own rickety and still-disputed mandate, this administration defies millions of Americans whose mandate is unmistakable. Let's be just: Listen to the federal judge who on Nov. 8 temporarily suspended Ashcroft's inhumane directive in Oregon. If a narrow and crusading ideology were not his paramount consideration, an attorney general of the United States would have his mind focused on serious business right now, not on what happens in the candlelight behind drawn curtains on the tear-stained sickbeds of good people. John Balzar is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Complete Title: Dying Well: For Ashcroft, Ideology Overrides Suffering Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: John BalzarPublished: Sunday, November 18, 2001Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page D - 3 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles & Web Sites:Los Angeles County Research Centerhttp://www.lacbc.org/Medical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmWill of Oregon Voters Meaningless To Ashcroft http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11362.shtmlJohn Ashcroft Declares War On Non-Terrorists http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11361.shtmlPot Club Crackdown - Mother Joneshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11360.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by E_Johnson on November 18, 2001 at 12:09:59 PT
Mullah Ashcroft
He's like Mullah Omar -- if he had the authority to ban music, he might consider it. Well, aside from psalms and show tunes.
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Comment #3 posted by p4me on November 18, 2001 at 09:14:17 PT:
Well said
Just as you would want to build a machine with as few parts as possible, you want a message with as few words as possible. Excellent work for the voice of reason. Is Ashcroft Idealism an oxymoron?
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Comment #2 posted by Silent_Observer on November 18, 2001 at 09:06:44 PT
Osama Bin
Ashcroft?
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Comment #1 posted by Silent_Observer on November 18, 2001 at 09:06:03 PT
John Ashcroft
is no different from Osama Bin Laden.
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