cannabisnews.com: Bush Names Drug Policy Director










  Bush Names Drug Policy Director

Posted by FoM on May 10, 2001 at 08:14:39 PT
Drug legalization would be a social catastrophe... 
Source: New York Times 

Trying to bring renewed vigor to the war on drugs, President Bush on Thursday named conservative John P. Walters as his drug policy director and pledged to pay "unprecedented attention" to helping drug-addicted Americans get treatment. Bush announced his selection of Walters to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy in a Rose Garden ceremony. He also announced a series of Cabinet reviews to determine the effectiveness of current federal anti-drug efforts, and categorically rejected the idea of legalizing drugs. 
"The only human and compassionate response to drug use is a moral refusal to accept it," Bush said. "Drug legalization would be a social catastrophe. ... It would completely undermine the message that drug use is wrong." Walters, known for his tough approach on drugs, said he hopes to "shield our communities from the terrible human toll taken by drug use," starting by focusing on the problem of addiction. "Our country has made great progress in the past in reducing drug use, and we will do it again," Walters said. Bush directed John DiIulio Jr., who spearheads the White House effort to open federal programs to religious community groups, to review existing federal partnerships with local organizations that do anti-drug work. He asked Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to do a state-by-state evaluation of current treatment needs, and Attorney General John Ashcroft to look into making prisons drug-free, including expanded drug testing of those on parole or probation. "The president believes to do the job right it has to be multifaceted, it has to focus on both supply and demand," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Fleischer also noted that all executive branch staff, including Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, had taken drug tests during their first week in office. He did not provide details on anyone's test results. Walters was the office's deputy director for supply reduction when it was headed by William Bennett during the administration of former President Bush. Walters has stressed the importance of criminal penalties for drug users and opposed the use of marijuana for medical purposes. He also has favored the drug certification program, in which nations are judged by their anti-drug efforts. The program has been a sore point in U.S.-Mexican relations. Walters is president of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a national donors group. He also is a co-author with Bennett and DiIulio of the book "Body Count: Moral Poverty and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs." DiIulio is now the head of the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives. Two White House officials said Bush plans to make the drug policy director's position a Cabinet-level post, as it had been while Barry McCaffrey headed the office under former President Clinton. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have urged Bush to keep it in the Cabinet. The office has been without a permanent director since McCaffrey resigned in January. The drug policy office oversees more than $19 billion in anti-drug programs, working with dozens of agencies. Fleischer said Wednesday that there are 5 million "hard-core" drug abusers in the United States. "The president is committed to fighting the war on drugs," Fleischer said. Asked what would constitute a victory, he said: "A reduction in the number of Americans who abuse drugs, and an increase in the number of Americans who are successfully treated so they no longer use drugs." Source: New York Times (NY)Published: May 10, 2001Copyright: 2001 The New York Times CompanyContact: letters nytimes.comWebsite: http://www.nytimes.com/Forum: http://forums.nytimes.com/comment/Related Articles & Web Site:Philanthropy Roundtablehttp://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/Bush To Name Walters as Drug Czarhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9654.shtmlPresident Names Congressman To Drug Agency http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9653.shtmlThe Walters Nominationhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9640.shtml

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Comment #4 posted by davanita on May 10, 2001 at 19:14:27 PT:
my drug policy
I live in Atlanta, I have my entire life...Neal Boortz lives here too.(syndacated Am talk show boortz.com) I tend to agree with his vision. The answer to "the war on drugs" is simple...more drugs. Denis Leary thinks so too.
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on May 10, 2001 at 11:29:58 PT

Sounds like just what the Doctor ordered
Anti-Emetic? I get mixed up with those terms but it sounds good so I'll agree!
Medical Marijuana Information Links
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Comment #2 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on May 10, 2001 at 11:24:36 PT:

Needing a Strong Anti-Emetic
I agree with the Kaptain that it is going to get bloody. This may be a winning issue for the Presidential candidate who has the cojones to run against the Drug War. 
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on May 10, 2001 at 10:07:47 PT:

"Human and compassionate"?
Let's see now:It's "human and compassionate" to lock someone up for cannabis possession. Someone who's never had a prior conviction is incarcerated with with murderers and rapists prone to sodomy.It's "human and compassionate" to kill little children during drug raids and shootdowns of unarmed, non-evasive aircraft over environmentally hostile territory.It's "human and compassionate" to deny the desperately and terminally ill access to a plant that can relieve their suffering better than a host of high priced pharmaceuticals.It's "human and compassionate"...in a pig's eye.There is are a few reasons why I feel any degree of optimism about the reform movement in America. Part of it has to do with the effects of the oppositions' leadership.For a long time, we've had vanilla custard DrugCzars; not much flavor, not much color, totally dismissable.Under them, the War on (Some) Drugs could be likened to a cookpot on the stove; the water in it has been simmering for a long time, but never reaching a boiling point. On their watch, we've had some notable screwups, but none of the sort that enrages the populace enough to set fire to the pols' backsides and demand change.I fear Walters will be just such a DrugCzar. He's about to 'turn up the gas' on the DrugWar stove. He will create situations so outrageous, so bald-facedly terrible, show so little of that much-vaunted 'compassion' of his, that even Joe Sixpack will rouse from his beer-besotted reveries and raise a stink. But I am afraid it will require something massively bloody, and undeniably horrible, before that happens. Something bigger than Waco was. Something more 'newsworthy' than the Bowers Incident. Something that affects hundreds of people all at once. And is carried live so that it can't be edited out by craven Barry-ola-accepting media outlets.I don't want to see something like this, but I feel it in my bones that it's coming.Something's got to give.  
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