cannabisnews.com: Bust the Boom for Drug War Hypocrisy 





Bust the Boom for Drug War Hypocrisy 
Posted by FoM on October 19, 2001 at 13:44:49 PT
By Maia Szalavitz, AlterNet
Source: AlterNet
When boomers did it, promiscuity was "free love," breaking the law was "questioning authority" and getting high was "mind expansion." But if their children dare experiment, it's off to boot camp or worse. As a person born in the 1960's, I find the boomers' enthusiasm for the drug war unnerving: at least their parents didn't know better. Why did "let it be" become "let 'em rot" and freedom just another name for something kids shouldn't have? How did getting zonked yield to zero tolerance? 
Even more bafflingly, why does it seem that many boomers privately know harsh drug policies are wrong (and that youthful marijuana smoking is less dangerous to most kids' future than being expelled from school or jailed as punishment for doing so is), but refuse to speak publicly? One reason may be media bias. The 80's and early 90's saw thousands of stories which presented only the law enforcement perspective. In fact, at a national meeting of top newspaper editors in 1990, most agreed that objectivity should be set aside to fight drugs. As Dan Baum reported in his book, "Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure," (Little, Brown 1996) Katherine Graham was in a minority when she argued for skeptical coverage. Most editors agreed instead with an editor who said, "It's our duty to get involved. I suggest it's time to quit polishing our halo of detachment." That halo was long gone by the time ABC decided to devote the network to a "March Against Drugs" in 1997 Most of the news division complied quietly (Nightline's Ted Koppel was a notable exception). And though there was outrage when Dan Forbes revealed in Salon in January 2001 that networks and newspapers had been paid for favorable drug war coverage and TV storylines as part of the government's anti-drug media campaign, this provision had actually been announced in Congress two years earlier but played only in the back pages. Few recognized that taking government money to air anti-drug propaganda was news since so many already did it for free. A study published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly suggests the danger of such pervasive bias. It found that biased coverage doesn't influence people's own opinions about issues -- but it does influence their perceptions about what other people think. This could account for the fear many people seem to have of expressing dissenting views: everyone thinks that everyone else supports the status quo. It may also explain why, in private, many big name media people will tell me they oppose the drug war and admit their own harmless drug use -- but refuse to go on the record. Boomers are actually conformists, not rebels, says feminist Susan Brownmiller, author of "In Our Time" (Dial, 1999). She believes that much of the backlash comes from those who never favored radical freedom in the first place. "They went along," she says, because it was fashionable. "But they were never comfortable with it." Mark Kleiman, professor of policy studies at UCLA, suggests that boomers see drugs the way they see sunbathing. "No one says its hypocritical for a tanning champion of the 60's to use sunscreen now-- we know better." he says. Of course, our "knowing better" about marijuana is the result of a massive propaganda campaign -- and the silence of those who know it's false -- rather than new research. Despite an exhaustive search for harm, marijuana has not proved to be particularly dangerous. Driving stoned is safer than driving drunk, according to several studies. Marijuana addiction is rare -- despite pot being the most commonly used illicit drug with 59% of all current users taking no other illicit drug, there isn't a single treatment facility in the U.S. devoted just to cannabis. The majority of people in drug programs for pot were mandated by courts, not evaluated as addicts. Alcohol is causally linked to violence (including rape); pot is not. Marijuana isn't a "gateway" to harder drugs according to the National Academy of Sciences. Even the best shot -- lung cancer-- hasn't materialized in increased mortality statistics amongst potsmokers, according to a large study by the Kaiser foundation. Kleiman thinks self-loathing tinges the insistence on toughness. "I don't know if there's ever been such a self-hating generation." he says, "Someone has to be punished for their bad behavior-- it might as well be their kids." Newsweek's Jonathan Alter is more sympathetic. He opposes drug war excesses-- but believes they stem from a feeling amongst boomers that some users became a "lost generation." "Most people did drugs in moderation and were fine and outgrew it," he admits "But a core group, maybe 20%, the real stoners and freaks just didn't live up to their potential." As a result, people don't want to talk about benign drug experiences -- for fear of encouraging the next generation, he says. But this view conveniently overlooks the fact that a similar percentage of the boomers' parents' generation was lost to alcohol or tranquilizers -- as well as the fact that the drug laws haven't reduced addiction or drug-death rates. "We're torn, ambivalent, hypocritical, self-flagellating. " Alter says "Sometimes we lie, sometimes we tell a little bit of the truth. We're a big soppy mess when it comes to dealing with drugs." New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm once said: "Hypocrisy is the grease that keeps society functioning in an agreeable way by allowing for human fallibility and reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable human needs for pleasure and order." With regards to drugs in America, the pendulum seems suspended on the order side. There's no recognition of the value of pleasure, of the fact that drug use is a human universal or that risk is part of life. Few dare argue that some might make a valid choice to seek drug highs rather than other thrills-- even though marijuana use (with no reported overdose deaths), for example, is less dangerous than skiing (which kills about three dozen people a year). Boomers may have been right not to trust anyone over 30. Source: AlterNetAuthor: Maia Szalavitz, AlterNetPublished: October 18, 2001Copyright: 2001 Independent Media InstituteContact: info alternet.org Web Site: http://www.alternet.org/Related Articles - Maia Szalavitz In the City, Pot Helps Addicts Kick Crack http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10614.shtmlDARE To Follow The Data http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7158.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #26 posted by el_toonces on October 22, 2001 at 09:46:28 PT:
It's both conservatives AND liberals, Mr. Stone!
Mr. Stone intimates in his post concerning the "rage to punish" that conservatives are somehow disproportionately affected with such a proclivity, but he is sadly wrong, oh so wrong (as I would love it if liberals had a good record here). Although liberals like Bill Clinton profess sympathy with our cause, their record belies their sympathetic statements. For example, the DEMOCRATS had more to do in instituting the insane sentencing laws we now must live under than the Repubs did. It's almost as if the liberals excesses in promoting the drug war are used to offset the “sympathetic” statements they make about our cause. Folks need to remember that actions speak louder than words!I have referred before to the episode of This American Life that tells this story very well, and without ANY AXES to grind, IMHO. Check it out: http://www.thislife.org/ra/143.ram This American Life website: www.thislife.orgEl
http://www.thislife.org/ra/143.ram 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #25 posted by leefmyner on October 20, 2001 at 15:45:49 PT:
The "Problem"
This formatting stuff is fun
But back to the topic, but I have to comment on what Tim Stone was saying about our rage to punish.
One theory is that by calling drug abuse a moral problem worthy of punishment, the people who are doing the punishing can avoid their own responsibility. Parents, who may not have provided the best environment for their children can blame drug using, and therefore morally depraved child for acting out, causing violence, or causing other harm to people. It's not a result of a situation which the parents could have controlled by being more affectionate or passionate, it's simply a rotten child, their reasoning goes. Really, it's a cop out on the part of those who should be responsible. 
  An analogous situation exists with the government and it's colossal failure to treatreal addicts, or prevent them. If the government agreed that a person's economic and social history had anything to do with their problematic drug use, and if drug use really could be reduced by improving people's economic standards through social programs, then the government would have to admit that many of its actions and inaction has resulted in the problems in the first place. If that happened, then all those filthy rich bastards might have to give up a piece of their massive pie, and preventing that from happening is what the drug war is all about. 
   If you call it a moral problem, an individual problem, then the government is not responsible. Republican leaders gain more votes because "it's not my fault" But since there is a problem, they can make themselves look like some knight in shining armor, rescuing Americans from the evil grip of the Drug Menace. They are truly skillful in their deciet, because the "problem" they are saving us from is of their own creation.Question: How many professional antis do you think realize      this?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #24 posted by freedom fighter on October 20, 2001 at 15:06:15 PT
Why?
What is it about Americans that we always have such a national rage to punish?Tim Stone, I don't think Amerikans can or want to even answer these questions. I do'nt profess to know the answers myself but I will try to at least discuss about this. I think most americans do not have this kind of rage and are ignorant to begin with and that there are those who just simply learn to hate probably from bad childhood experiences and those who are just simply evil and warlike because they used this "national rage" to make $$$$. Ever watch "Judge Judy" show? We like to punish others to make money. In Europe, the europeans do watch Judge Judy and they think it is a comedy show.
Sometime to be sure that the desire of national rage to punish can be productive such as the Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson became president because of this national rage to punish John Adams because of laws that John got passed and caused alot of problems with the people at that time.
In most cases, our desire of national rage to punish are counterproductive and destructive. Probably will at the end destory us for we are rich, ignorant fools. ff
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #23 posted by dddd on October 20, 2001 at 14:15:23 PT
Thanx CorvalisEric
..I was walkin'
all over the place...but I forgot to bring the gum..........dddd
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #22 posted by CorvallisEric on October 20, 2001 at 14:02:19 PT
formatting
ok, let's try >i/ib/b this should be in italic and this should be in bold and this should start a new line since I used >br
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #21 posted by FoM on October 20, 2001 at 09:38:59 PT
dddd
Just make sure that the things are going in this direction. Put the br between them. Maybe this will help. Have fun. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #20 posted by dddd on October 20, 2001 at 09:17:20 PT
that's OK
I'll figure>brbrbrmaybe.....d>brbr
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #19 posted by dddd on October 20, 2001 at 09:11:53 PT
oh well
it>brbrbrbr
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #18 posted by dddd on October 20, 2001 at 09:09:27 PT
Astounding
Thank>brbrbrbr
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #17 posted by FoM on October 20, 2001 at 08:54:45 PT
Mr. dddd the inquiring mind
Hi dddd,
I can tell you how I did Eve of Destruction.I put >br at the end of where I want it to break. I'll do one and show you.You can bury your dead,>brbrbrbrIf I put them the right way it would look like this.You can bury your dead, 
But don't leave a trace, 
Hate your next-door-neighbor, 
But don't forget to say grace, 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #16 posted by dddd on October 20, 2001 at 08:43:42 PT
you're right FoM
....age inquiries are taboo,,,but inquiring minds are curious...I decided I dont want to know anyway...It would diminish the mystique......And it may be a good thing for the news to slow down a bit so everyone can collect themselves,if necessary...Why dont you tell me the secret of how you can format posts.......it's no fair,,you get to post 'Eve of Destruction',,,in a nicely formatted way,,,,and me and MrGreengenes dont have a clue...........you dont have to reveal the secret if it's too complicated,,,,,,I may have been the one who annoyed you into updating the format thing to begin with......with my punctuationally abusive mischeif.lol....dddd
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #15 posted by FoM on October 20, 2001 at 08:22:10 PT
Just Me
Hi Everyone, Well it's the weekend again and I can't find any news for now. I like to mention when I can't find any news so you all know I'm looking but not having any luck. PS: Asking a woman her age is a no no! You all crack me up! Shame, shame shame! LOL! Just kidding!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #14 posted by dddd on October 20, 2001 at 08:07:26 PT
Greenfox...Lehder
...looks like EJ is too shy,or secretive to reveal the birthday tally.........that's OK....EJ is cool....She dont mess around with superfluous sidetracks...dddd
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #13 posted by Tim Stone on October 19, 2001 at 20:28:14 PT
Since no one else has mentioned it...
     "Mark Kleiman, professor of policy studies at UCLA, suggests that boomers see drugs the
      way they see sunbathing. "No one says its hypocritical for a tanning champion of the 60's
      to use sunscreen now-- we know better." he says. "My scanning of the comments doesn't seem to mention the obvious on this. Please excuse if somebody already mentioned this and I overlooked it: The above sorry sack of crap metaphor is stolen lock, stock and barrel from an old Garry Trudeau "Doonesbury" comic strip riff back when Zonker was a national tanning champion. How long ago was that rigg...ten or more years ago? Kleiman stole the metaphor without a footnote. Tsk. Tsk.      "Kleiman thinks self-loathing tinges the insistence on toughness. "I don't know if there's
      ever been such a self-hating generation." he says, "Someone has to be punished for their
      bad behavior-- it might as well be their kids."     "Beware anyone in whom there is a rage to punish"  - - NietzscheKleiman, who reclines his weary head each night on a professional pillow well-feathered by drug-war funding, seems to be pointing the Rage to Punish finger at boomer parents, in whose crude age bracket I belong. This Rage to Punish, a distinct aspect of the American national character, couldn't possibly have anything to do with conservatives, whom Kleiman must flatter and butter to get more funding, conservatives who are strong enough to have defined the national character for two decades now, and who have been ruthlessly prosecuting this pig's breakfast of a rage to punish drug war for many decades now, and are always the foremost in favor of more severe penalties, more severe bombings, more severe rage to punish. What is it about Americans that we always have such a national rage to punish?Why?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #12 posted by lookinside on October 19, 2001 at 20:15:21 PT:
oops..
sorry
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #11 posted by lookinside on October 19, 2001 at 20:14:24 PT:
dddd...
freewheelin' franklin said it...good advice in the 70s...lived by it...ripoff press is still reprinting those great biographies of the FFFB's...
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #10 posted by E_Johnson on October 19, 2001 at 19:26:21 PT
Pot is a serious challenge to modern society
We all know here that a really big obstacle to medical marijuana is that the patent is owned by God and hence free to all in God's system of distribution called Nature.In the modern paradigm, marijuana has no value because it is intellectual property that can't be owned by anyone. It doesn't really belong to the modern economic system, neither in the capitalist or the socialist tradition.It is not made better by reduction into a modern pill through modern manufacturing processes. It's mind or essence can't be separated from its body. It's a united whole not easily reducible to programmable parts.These seem like silly secondary issues but maybe they're more fundamental than we think. Modern society literally can't own or digest marijuana because marijuana has no rendering into a modern product or idea whatsoever. Marijuana and hemp taken together are an exposure of certain key weaknesses in the whole modern paradigm.And people on marijuana have been and are every day still deeply suspected of not belonging to orderly modern society. Stoners and freaks. Crazy shepherds of rebellion. Lack of motivation. Fuzzy thinking. Not with the program. Or as the Soviets would say, a clear demonstrated lack of Communist Party spirit. Baudelaire, Ludlow. Romantic rejecters of modern ordnung.Marijuana is a scary thing to people who have come to rely solely on the orderly universal sterile steel and concrete manufactured laminated mass distributed modern materialist paradigm for their notions of everything that is good and right in life.I think that's one reason why the DEA approaches marijuana and hemp in the same way that the Soviet Union approached the people who played guitars and read poetry in Mayakovsky Square. Those people never posed a threat to the Soviet government but they did pose a threat to the concept of modern materialist society -- both capitalist and socialist. So they had to be roughed up and bullied and subjected to oppressive measures when they wouldn't get with the program. The marijuana legalization movement is probably some essential fundamental component of the passing from the modern era into whatever is coming next. The collapse of the Soviet Union was just the first step. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #9 posted by lookinside on October 19, 2001 at 19:18:32 PT:
dddd...
freewheelin' franklin said it...good advice in the 70s...lived by it...ripoff press is still reprinting those great biographies of the FFFB's...
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #8 posted by dddd on October 19, 2001 at 17:37:00 PT
Too low Lehder
I'd say mid 40s.............Excellent commentary..I specially liked the pipe story....dddd
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #7 posted by Lehder on October 19, 2001 at 16:13:25 PT
I've wondered too
I'd say about 30 +/- 3.By the way, EJ, I'm going to look for the books you recommended by Bukovsky and Mandelstam next time I get to a library. (The last time there were hijackers overhead, it's a long ways and I've been skittish.) Since you have a strong interest in the history of the Soviet Union you would probably enjoy the entirety of Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism. The final chapters are her general conclusions about totalitarianism, but much of the book is Russian history. The author was a professor and a feminist and liberated woman ahead of her time (WW II era). Alas, we're human and life is full of mystery and contradiction: she married a Nazi.PAZ
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #6 posted by Lehder on October 19, 2001 at 15:56:32 PT
collapse of the drug war
A study published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly suggests the danger of such pervasive bias. It found that biased coverage doesn't influence people's own
opinions about issues -- but it does influence their perceptions about what other people think. This could account for the fear many people seem to have of expressing dissenting views: everyone thinks that everyone else supports the status quo. On a few occasions I have taken our message to "hostile" web sites for not-so-covert action behind enemy lines. Very, very seldom did even the most taunting and challenging of my comments elicit the extreme antagonistic and hateful replies we so often see in print and other media. I was looking for a fight and was disappointed. Typical responses were very brief and agreeable: "Well said" or "Drugs should be legal." One of the lengthier responses that I recall was, "It's a stretch to say xxx but after so much yyy [a totally different topic being discussed simultaneously] you've got to admit it was a relief." The crazy personal indictments of me as a degenerate and criminal addict that I had expected were the rarest exceptions.Another example: I bought a Navajo-made pipe one day in a straight gift store, not a "head shop" as a going away gift for an old friend. The very straight-looking lady in her seventies said to me at the conclusion of the sale and quite out of the blue, "Now you tell your friend that she can smoke anything she likes in that pipe." At the time I attributed the sales clerk's remark to the fact that she had come to this country from Europe and was therefore far more open minded than typical Americans. But these experiences together with others and this article have me convinced today that our cause has far more sympathizers and proponents than I had previously imagined. Like the article suggests, people are far from convinced by drug war propaganda. They are simply afraid to voice their own true opinions. Their fears should abate if we can just keep talking, writing, prodding. And I'm convinced more than ever that, like I have said many times, if our message ever manages to be broadcast on television, the drug war will collapse as quickly and totally as the Soviet Union. 
I'm sure too that the high-echelon drug warriors and propagandists of the federal government know this as well as we do. We're winning, they know it, and no dirty trick is too low for them to maintain the Lie.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by dddd on October 19, 2001 at 15:40:41 PT
yes...I remember that saying
Remember that saying " Pot will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through time of no pot."I do believe that was Phineas Freak,,of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers....It might have been Freewheelin' Frank..dddd
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by greenfox on October 19, 2001 at 15:30:56 PT
E johnson... ? 
Curious how olde are you? :) You dont have to answer of course. Just curious.-gf
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on October 19, 2001 at 15:05:48 PT
Now it's a good time to quote Ginsberg
Holy -- the vast lamb of the middle class.Holy -- the crazy shepherds of rebellion.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by E_Johnson on October 19, 2001 at 15:02:09 PT
here's the interesting part of the story
"Most people did drugs in moderation and were fine and outgrew it," he admits "But a core group, maybe 20%, the real stoners and freaks just didn't live up to their potential."So who measures our potential and evaluates us to see whether we live up to it?There is a story here about the tendency for mind control in modern society. We think of the Soviet Union as having been infected with Marxism, but what was Marx but a modern economic theory that treated people as being primarily and essentially economic atoms whose "true poetntial" could be measured materially using the modern principles of scientific socialism.So anyone whose fuzzy unmodernized non-atomic human mind couldn't grasp the clear sharp modern mandate of economic atomism of scientific socialism was targeted for social eradication as a hostile element of society.And the signs to the Soviets of fuzzy unclear unmodern unscientific thinking was any interest in art or literature or music that had was not clear and sharp on the side of modern scientific socialist economic atomism.Now American capitalism also has a component of demanding that people cast aside their fuzzy unmodern uncolonized selves in favor of the clear sharp thinking of scientific capitalistic economic atomism.Remember that saying
Pot will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through time of no pot.This kind of sentiment is tantamount to treason in a modern scientific capitalist society because it is a renunciation of materialistic thinking that is essential to modern sharp clear unfuzzy capitalisic economic atomism.So that's why we have the bizarre situation of modern conservative marijuana prohibitionists. The real story of the 20% of the people who failed to live up to their potential could be that their potential was to do just what they did. Maybe becoming stoners and freaks WAS their potential and maybe they FULFILLED it.But that's a theory that must be rejected by any modern society that is built upon the idea that we evaluate human potential solely through their fulfillment of the materialistic goals.And hey -- a lot of that 20% is made of Vietnam vets. Vietnam sure produced a lot of stoned and freaky reactions to modern civilization, as we call it.So what does that say?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by observer on October 19, 2001 at 14:36:46 PT
media bias . . . massive propaganda campaign
One reason may be media bias. The 80's and early 90's saw thousands of stories which presented only the law enforcement perspective. . . . Of course, our "knowing better" about marijuana is the result of a massive propaganda campaign -- and the silence of those who know it's false -- rather than new research.Yeah! You know, I just couldn't agree more!see: http://drugwarpropaganda.selfhost.com/ 
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment