cannabisnews.com: Drug Czar Targets Abuse Myths 





Drug Czar Targets Abuse Myths 
Posted by FoM on March 16, 2000 at 07:22:21 PT
By Linda Borg, Journal Staff Writer
Source: Providence Journal 
Using a blunt approach, Barry R. McCaffrey tells college and high school students that the ``drug war'' metaphor is inaccurate, and prevention is the solution. The question was just the sort of no-nonsense query you would expect from a thoughtful college student: How can marijuana be illegal when alcohol isn't? 
Barry R. McCaffrey, the White House drug czar and former four-star Army general, answered with a directness that was refreshing. ``I don't share that view, but it is a legitimate topic for debate,'' he told 200 Providence College students yesterday. ``If you are some 40-year-old guy smoking pot in a hut in Oregon and writing a book, I don't care what you do.'' That got their attention. Then McCaffrey shifted seamlessly into his antidrug spiel: that marijuana is dangerous and carcinogenic. That too many children get into enormous trouble because of their dependence on marijuana. But McCaffrey didn't stop there. Alcohol, he said, is the most abused drug in the United States. ``Booze,'' he said with a voice that sounded like Jimmy Stewart, ``is the biggest cause of crime.'' McCaffrey brought his antidrug crusade to Southern New England yesterday, where he spoke at the Fifth Annual Substance Abuse Roundtable in Taunton, Mass., followed by visits to Providence College and Barrington High School. For more than 30 years before his appointment in 1996 as director of the White House's National Drug Control Policy, McCaffrey had a career in the U.S. Army. He served four combat tours -- two in Vietnam -- and was commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces Southern Command before President Clinton called. When he retired, McCaffrey was the most highly decorated and the youngest four-star general in the Army. So McCaffrey speaks from experience when he says that the ``war on drugs'' is an inaccurate metaphor. Dealing with the problem of drugs is more akin to fighting cancer, he once said, because both call for patience, compassion and the will to carry on, despite setbacks. ``If we are fighting a war, we're winning,'' said McCaffrey, a Taunton native, who asserted that drug use and drug-related deaths have declined by 50 percent since 1979. Still, 14 million people use illegal drugs a year, and 5 million of them are chronically addicted. At Providence College yesterday, McCaffrey spent a lot of time dispelling common myths about who abuses drugs: ``Americans,'' he said, ``like to believe they are black, brown, poor, crazy. I say, `Hold up the mirror.' '' People who use drugs do so because of what it does to their brains, McCaffrey said. It has nothing to do with race or economic status. He said the only difference between a middle-class drug addict and a poor one is that the middle-income person can probably afford treatment. However, in both cases, their downward trajectory is certain unless they receive effective treatment. McCaffrey also predicted that methamphetamine, commonly known as speed, will become the drug of choice in the next decade. ``It is the worst thing that can happen to America,'' he said. ``These are drugs made by idiots in a hotel room. That's the future of drug use in our society.'' The solution is prevention, McCaffrey said, but you must start early and repeat your message to each new generation of elementary school children. By the time most teenagers are high school seniors, half have sampled an illegal drug. The key to successful intervention is to educate children at the community level, through programs like the Boys and Girls Clubs and the YMCA. Published: March 16, 2000Copyright © 2000 The Providence Journal CompanyProduced by: http://projo.com/Related Articles On Barry McCaffrey:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/McCaffrey.shtmlhttp://www.google.com/search?q=cannabisnews+McCaffrey
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Comment #13 posted by Doobie on May 10, 2001 at 14:53:41 PT
weed
legalize it bitch
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Comment #12 posted by Doobie on May 10, 2001 at 14:51:53 PT
marijuana
Weed is natural and if it's good enough for George Washington then it's good enough for all of America.
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Comment #11 posted by luke on March 21, 2001 at 09:56:51 PT:
Anslinger
Could you send me some proof on this subect. Baehrluke hotmail
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Comment #10 posted by J Christen-Mitchell on March 16, 2000 at 17:01:30 PT:
Dope War Bosses
Ten years ago drug related deaths were about 7,000. Three months ago McCaffrioe was throwing around the figure of 52,000 drd's. Yet he can say that deaths have been reduced 50%.... If it's not a war how come they are still taking so damn many prisoners......I still like the notion that it was his predecesor Harry Anslinger's goons that iced JFK, in retaliation for firing their boss and after the promise was made to legalize marijuana when it gave him such relief from his back pain in the White House.
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Comment #9 posted by kaptinemo on March 16, 2000 at 16:41:32 PT:
Only too true
Tim's very cogent analysis of the growth of the office of the Drug Czar is indeed ominous; I've only known one Federal government organiztion to ever have ceased opeartions after it's usefulnes was gone, and that was the BiCentennial Commitee of 25 years ago. Government just keeps getting bigger and more entrenched. And abusive.However, the MMJ isssue is having some success; 20% of the country has already passed laws regarding it's use. Only the Federal government stands in its' way, and they are being outflanked, first from the Far West, then the NorthEast, and almost in their backyard (DC). Other States are considering referendums or legislalive intitiatives. Almost like alcohol prohibition before it, it has become a matter of the States being forced to change a bad Federal law. The only problem is, the Federal government has itself become an addict to the power it has usurped from the States , and weaning it from this particular 'drug' is going to be a long and troublesome process. But I firmly believe that we will indeed see a day of being able to use MJ without threat of harassment, prison, extortion and death. We just have to keep giving truth for every one of their lies. Sooner or later, the average American will either be affected by the insane laws designed to combat harmless weeds, or will have a loved one or friend caught up in the legal madness of forfeiture. When inocent people have had guns waved in their faces by out-of-control cops, enough people - as more and more are - then we will see a lot of rapid change. We just have to hang in there until it reaches critical mass.
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Comment #8 posted by Tim Stone on March 16, 2000 at 15:22:49 PT
The Evolution of office of Drug Czar
Has anyone noticed the ominous evolution of the office of "drug czar" from its humble beginnings under Nixon? Back then, the office was a mere domestic adviser on narcotic affairs, or some such. If memory serves, the first such was a man named Jaffe (not sure about the name). It sounds crazy to say at this point, but back then, the gov't was so incompetent in prosecuting the drug war that the designated special advisor to the Prez was - gasp - a medical doctor, and not only that, but a specialist in substance abuse. And so it continued, through the Ford and Carter Admins, with the drug policy advisor being a specialist health care practitioner. Come the Reagan years, that all changed. Rather than being some sort of purported illness, use of disapproved drugs were deliberately cast as a moral failing, the stuff of cops, not doctors. Carlton Turner, one of Reagan's drug proto-czars, was at least a scientist, a chemist and a specialist on chemical constituents of cannabis. He was eased out of office after declaiming that pot caused AIDS, this extrapolated from dubious petrie dish studies, now roundly disputed, that claimed cannabis smoking depressed the immune system. And then we come to Bush. He appointed political flunkies to the office: Bob Martinez, former governor of Florida, and the infamous, odious Bill Bennett, who while tobacco-addicted made it his deliberate business when in office to carve in stone the notion that all users of disapproved drugs are morally depraved and fit only for jail or the gallows, but never for treatment or compassion. Comes then Clinton, who appointed Lee Brown, career cop and police chief, as drug czar. For what started out under Nixon as a fairly lowly, part-time position as domestic drug advisor had now metastatized into a cabinet-level position. And after the cop came the General. Quite an eye-opening evolution, eh whot? From doctors to scientist to political flunkies to cops to soldiers. The metastasy of the office of Prez advisor is illustrative of the drug war evolution in the last few decades. Who's in political favor and who's out. Once again, the cops, the moralists and the soldiers kicked ass on the medical profession. By the way, now that the Drug Czar is a cabinet-level office, can anyone recall a time in the last century of American history where a cabinet level office has been abolished because it's no longer needed? For you younger readers, that may give some further perspective on how well-entrenched the war on users of disapproved psychoactive substances has become, and how difficult it will be to arrest the inertia of this juggernaut, in the lifetime of anyone here present. 
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Comment #7 posted by Sledhead on March 16, 2000 at 14:37:42 PT
Oregon, Here I Come.....
``If you aresome 40-year-old guy smoking pot in a hut in Oregon and writing a book, I don't care what you do.''So, do we all move to Oregon or does this apply everywhere.
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Comment #6 posted by STAN DUP on March 16, 2000 at 13:16:50 PT
TO KAPTINEMO
 TOUCHE!!!    "Give-em-HELL" Kaptin
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Comment #5 posted by Lizy Taylor on March 16, 2000 at 10:48:15 PT:
DoubleSpeak
On week one, McCaffrey said, "We must follow the research wherever it leads us."One week later, McCaffrey said, "Screw the research."Like all Washington Mandarins, McCaffrey cares most about his next Congressional appropriation. Money is power, and this guy is addicted to power. He will say whatever it takes to get his next congressional fix.
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on March 16, 2000 at 09:46:02 PT:
Good question
Given that the last *real* Czar was murdered along with his family, I think I'd be a bit careful about assuming a title which has so much bad luck carried along with it. It would be tantamount to naming some poor kid 'Adolph'. Just not a very good move. 
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Comment #3 posted by dddd on March 16, 2000 at 09:17:12 PT
CZAR
What about the "CZAR" metaphor?
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Comment #2 posted by observer on March 16, 2000 at 09:14:36 PT
Goebbels' Student, Drug Czar Barry McCaffery
> Oh, such mastery of the hoodwink and the dissembling deflection! Joseph Goebbels, the head of Nazi propagnda, must be smiling in Hell to see such a studious protege of his methods at work.``As Goebbels orchestrated the rise of the Nazi party in Berlin, part of the problem for the democrats there was that much of what he said was true. The Jewish community not only dominated the legal and medical professions in Berlin, they also dominated the crime scene. In my biography I've quoted Interpol figures of the percentage of Jews among those arrested for drug dealing and narcotics. Moreover, three-quarters of the pickpockets in Berlin were Jewish. It was quite easy for Goebbels to draw attention to such facts, and to embellish them in a propaganda campaign. This came to him as second nature. In every new scandal in Berlin, it seemed, Jews were at the base of it -- ripping off the banks, ripping off the taxpayers, and ripping off the government. And again and again, they seemed to be getting off scot-free. '' (David Irving)http://www.codoh.com/irving/irvrevgoebb.html``The plutocrats may permit their hired newspapers to discuss plans for social reform, but the expert sees behind all the talk the pitiless face of Jewish world capitalism that is seeking to seduce and drug the nations of Europe. '' (Joseph Goebbels)http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb40.htmFor more on McCaffery's documented lies, see: http://www.csdp.org/ads/pinocchio.htm http://www.csdp.org/ads/dutch.htm http://www.csdp.org/ads/media.htm http://www.csdp.org/ads/troubled.htm http://www.csdp.org/ads/resign.htm
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on March 16, 2000 at 07:50:53 PT:
A Master Propagandist at work
Don't ever sell Barry short. He's good at what he does.The question was just the sort of no-nonsense query you would expect from a thoughtful college student: How can marijuana be illegal when alcohol isn't? Barry R. McCaffrey, the White House drug czar and former four-star Army general, answered with a directness that was refreshing. ``I don't share that view, but it is a legitimate topic for debate,'' he told 200 Providence College students yesterday. ``If you are some 40-year-old guy smoking pot in a hut in Oregon and writing a book, I don't care what you do.'' Deflection. He never *answered the question*. He *never gave* his reasons why adults should not be allowed to use cannabis. He merely stated his supposed *personal* belief (or did he?) as if that were relevent. He then says it is a legitimate topic for debate but his next act negates the possibility for debate because he went immediately into his spiel. In military parlance, thst's called a feint:distract your enemy, and then drive your sword under the shield you tricked him into raising. Very clever (he *was* a general, after all).Then he goes on to confuse the issue: 'That got their attention. Then McCaffrey shifted seamlessly into his antidrug spiel: that marijuana is dangerous and carcinogenic. That too many children get into enormous trouble because of their dependence on marijuana.' But McCaffrey didn't stop there. Alcohol, he said, is the most abused drug in the United States. ``Booze,'' he said with a voice that sounded like Jimmy Stewart, ``is the biggest cause of crime.'' A few months ago, he said that marijuana was. Which is it, Barry?More confusion:``If we are fighting a war, we're winning,'' said McCaffrey, a Taunton native, who asserted that drug use and drug-related deaths have declined by 50 percent since 1979. Drug use supposedly skyrocketted up from 1992 onwards, and we are 'winning'? And even more:'People who use drugs do so because of what it does to their brains, McCaffrey said. It has nothing to do with race or economic status. (Oh, really, Barry?) He said the only difference between a middle-class drug addict and a poor one is that the middle-income person can probably afford treatment. (Sure, he can, Sure, Barry; have you checked how much it costs to go to such places, lately?) However, in both cases, their downward trajectory is certain unless they receive effective treatment. 'But 'effective treatment' is and has always been on the back burner of his budget, compared to 'sexy' items like helicopter gunships and defoliant spraying.Oh, such mastery of the hoodwink and the dissembling deflection! Joseph Goebbels, the head of Nazi propagnda, must be smiling in Hell to see such a studious protege of his methods at work.All done with our tax dollars.
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