cannabisnews.com: Behind Closed Doors










  Behind Closed Doors

Posted by CN Staff on October 16, 2003 at 11:13:10 PT
By Camille Dodero 
Source: Boston Phoenix 

The wisest words spoken at the Summit of New England Governors anti-drug meeting, held at Faneuil Hall last week, came from a famously incoherent local leader: the honorable mayor of Boston, Thomas M. Menino."There’s a big difference between talking about drug abuse in a conference room and talking about it on the streets with real people with real problems," noted the keeper of Boston’s keys during an introductory speech before five New England governors and President Bush’s drug czar, John Walters, at a half-day affair sponsored by the Office of the National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).
Perhaps the rhetoric should’ve ended there, less than 15 minutes into the proceedings, when everyone could still admit relative ignorance of the subject, shake hands, and make 12 o’clock tee times. Before an absurdly horrified Governor Mitt Romney would yelp about the "maawwnnsters" who loiter around local playgrounds handing out smiley-faced bags of high-potency heroin. Before Walters could slyly slip in what amounted to a hurrah for high-school drug testing seconds before a toilet break, a crafty tactic to avoid subsequent questioning on the issue. Before panel presentations about medical marijuana would devolve into reactionary ruminations about parenting better suited for a school-committee meeting.It could have been worse. The ONDCP could have shut out dissenters entirely; instead, they were corralled in the back. In lieu of a medical-marijuana panel, it could’ve gathered everyone together to screen Reefer Madness and called it a day. It could’ve flown incarcerated ganja guru Tommy Chong in from California, trotted him around in cuffs as Exhibit A that pot doesn’t pay, and then flogged him before the court.Instead, ONDCP director Walters handpicked experts like Boston Police Department (BPD) commissioner (and soon-to-be-expat) Paul Evans, US Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Karen Tandy, and Dr. Bertha Madras of Harvard Medical School to deliver spiels before five state superintendents, circumnavigating public debate or open-floor Q&A sessions.To the ONDCP’s credit, the meeting was never advertised as an actual dialogue. A press release clearly stated that this was to be an "Anti-Drug Summit" for New England governors "to hear testimony" about substance-abuse problems facing the Northeast region. And so the governors heard vague stories of drug dealers dropping heroin into herbal tea and proffering the potion to children. They listened to a turgid harangue about how every tennis elbow shouldn’t justify a toke, nor every skinned knee a hit from the three-foot bong. They heard a pointless, misguided, and soporific infomercial about Bush’s Access to Recovery substance-abuse-treatment program that could’ve put a nail-biting, teeth-grinding crackhead to sleep."It was a dog-and-pony show," said Tom Angell, co-president of the University of Rhode Island’s Students for Sensible Drug Policy, who sat through the four-hour event. "The ONDCP stacks the panel and puts on a show for these governors."And in many respects, it was a show. Handpicked experts offered statistics and relayed anecdotal evidence. They testified with their backs to the room, addressing their remarks to Walters and the governors seated on the stage, thus relegating the audience of law-enforcement officials, medical directors, and reporters to spectator roles. Here’s how the day went.All the decisions surrounding the governors’ summit seemed random. Nothing like it had ever been held. Why was the drug czar coming to town? Was this part of the ONDCP’s 25-Cities Initiative, a "local approach to a national problem" engineered to target urban centers like Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta? And how was the agenda — panels on "Heroin Use in New England," the Access to Recovery program, and "Marijuana As Medicine" — determined? How were the panelists chosen?A week before the summit, the Washington DC–based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) issued a press release stating that it had been asking the ONDCP these same questions. "Despite the drug czar’s history of hysterical opposition to medical marijuana, we contacted his office in good faith, asking if we could suggest panelists for a balanced discussion," the release quoted Neal Levine, director of state policies for the MPP, as saying. "On September 22, we were told by ONDCP staffer Brian Ferguson that ‘the panels are pretty much set.’ We’ve made four follow-up calls to try to find out who is speaking, and none of those calls have been returned."Indeed, a dismissive attitude permeated the ONDCP’s treatment of drug-law reformers who showed up for the conference. Program officials didn’t appear to believe that anything could be learned from them — the ONDCP’s deputy director of demand reduction, Dr. Andrea Barthwell, made this clear later on during the medical-marijuana panel — so it ignored them. Case in point: the pro-medical-marijuana faction was ghettoized in the back of the room throughout the governors’ summit, pink badges identifying them as "the opposition," while the sheriffs, doctors, and substance-abuse officials were sent to the front wearing yellow badges.When dealing with drug-law reformers, the ONDCP oscillated between this sort of condescending ignorance and abject fear. For example, last Wednesday morning, 45 minutes before the summit’s commencement, police cars, mounted officers, and BPD Special Operations motorcycles were deployed along the cobblestone outside Faneuil Hall. Metal barricades aligned along the building’s perimeter reinforced the notion that the reformers posed a menace. This was obvious overkill, given that there were only about 10 protesters assembled, some holding signs while others disseminated National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) leaflets. Even the congenial woman at the summit’s media table smilingly compared the law-enforcement presence to "Fort Knox."of course, like any cause, drug-law reform attracts its share of extremist freaks. And there was at least one here, a wild-eyed, orange-haired man named Lawrence [name redacted], who argued aggressively with someone whose badge identified him as Dr. Norman Wetteran from New York. Marijuana isn’t bad, ranted [name redacted] — he’d gotten through school smoking it. Marijuana is fine. And "we don’t have a heroin epidemic" — OxyContin is a much worse problem. Wetteran countered with undecipherable verse from the Old Testament, then politely tried to walk away. [name redacted] called after him: "See, your types always run away from an argument."Soon after, an American flag wobbled into the hall — an older woman decked out in a shiny red-white-and-blue-sequined cap, a star-spangled jacket, a denim skirt, white tennis shoes, and a red handbag. The woman’s name, according to her business card, was J. Magic Black-Ferguson, and she’d come to represent "Grammas for Ganja," a nonprofit whose name pretty much says it all. "You’re all dressed up today," seethed [name redacted]. "Yes, I am," Black-Ferguson retorted. "You like it?" "You hurt your cause so badly." "No, no, it doesn’t," Black-Ferguson clucked, sitting down in the pro-pot ghetto. Apparently offended, she looked away from [name redacted], striking up a conversation with the woman next to her, who wore a red button shaped like a stop sign that screamed STOP ARRESTING PATIENTS.The drug czar wants you to think that all drug-law reformers are like this. They’re not. Articulate, well-scrubbed, pro-medical-marijuana advocates like Tom Angell, Rick Doblin, and Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts director Fatema Gunja were also on hand at the summit. But these ONDCP-sponsored events like to conjure up a weird alternate reality where sensible, thoughtful drug-law reformers don’t exist, where narcotics aren’t a staple of American pop culture, where movies like Half Baked and How High never get made, where politicians admitting that they’ve experimented with drugs and turned out just fine are abnormal. Before the governors’ summit began, Johnny Cash’s rendition of the Tom Petty tune "I Won’t Back Down" could be heard over the sound system. Of course, Petty is a self-avowed pothead whose 1995 hit "You Don’t Know How It Feels" features the chorus "Let’s roll another joint." As for Cash, half of his recent obituaries mentioned his past drug dependence. It was unclear whether anyone realized the significance of the music; in any case, the song abruptly stopped halfway through.Obviously, you don’t have to wear your narcotic allegiances on your sleeve to have indulged in some grass in your lifetime. Trying to guess how many of the suited schmoozers in the yellow-nametagged crowd had puff-puff-passed in their day was like trying to figure out how many wedding guests have bedded someone in the room other than their dates. Thirty percent? Maybe 40 or 50? The woman wearing a fuchsia suit with an enormous anti-pot pin affixed to her lapel? Nope. The hip-looking, gray-suited director of alternative medicine? More than likely.Governor Mitt Romney alluded to this during his introductory remarks. "Marijuana for the people in this room — from your memory perhaps of the ’60s and ’70s — is not the marijuana of today." (Translation: we all know many of you smoked a joint or two listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in your best friend’s basement, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about today.) "This is not the drug that your parents, or you yourself, were familiar with around your peers. This is instead a very dangerous and addictive drug, and kids are being hooked on it."Listening to Romney discuss drugs is downright comical, like watching a nun give a talk on harlotry. "The marijuana in the ’60s and ’70s was one percent THC" — he paused to sputter an improvised definition of tetrahydrocannabinol that anyone armed with an encyclopedia would dispute — "the addictive and hallucinogenic, ah, ah, feature, of, eh, that drug." (Hallucinogenic? Try "psychoactive," which doesn’t mean the same thing at all.) Again Romney hesitated, this time to locate his place in his notes, since numbers make it easiest for a man who doesn’t quaff coffee to natter about wacky tobacky. "[THC] is now nine or 10 percent and can be purchased as high as 20 to 30 percent. It is far more addictive, far more compelling, far more compulsive." (Later, attendee Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and a widely known psychedelic-drug researcher with a PhD from the Kennedy School of Government, disputed Romney’s allegation: "Those claims that the hippies mostly smoked pot with one or two percent THC are false," he said. "There’s always been hash. There’s always been high-potency pot.")Hearing Governor Romney trip over the definition of THC reinforced Menino’s earlier line about the importance of actual experience. With the exception of the heroin-epidemic panelists — the DEA’s Tandy, Commissioner Evans, and registered nurse Janice Kauffman, president of the American Association Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD); — most of the summit’s rhetoricians suffered from a kind of six-degrees-of-separation removal from the issues. In Romney’s introduction, he tried to suggest that the stereotypes don’t apply to heroin users ("We identify heroin associated with junkies, people on skid row, people shooting up in corners"), but his tone sounded uncertain, as though he’d plucked his examples from the movies. Then he tried to imagine the decision children face in a world where heroin fixes cost four bucks: "A Häagen-Dazs ice-cream cone or a hit of heroin?"Next up at the podium: ONDCP director John Walters, who thanked the five New England governors for coming (New Hampshire governor Craig Benson had to attend a previously scheduled Governor’s Executive Council meeting). Walters drew attention to the setting in Faneuil Hall, the symbolic "cradle of liberty," and noted that there was no better place for the summit than "a place widely associated with public debate and discussion." No mention that this particular debate would be closed.The most evenhanded discussion of the day focused on New England’s heroin epidemic. According to the DEA’s Tandy, "You might as well be sitting at the border of Colombia in this Northeast region." She told the audience that the heroin in the Northeast originates from Ecuador, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, that dealers have created a heroin market here by offering free samples to hook customers, and that they’re branding their wares "with such beautiful logos as frogs, Martians, and the Playboy bunny."Next, Janice Kauffman, the registered nurse from AATOD, spoke, emphasizing the need to get addicts into treatment facilities. She underscored that drug problems don’t discriminate: "It occurs in all geographic locations, all ages, all economic groups, all racial and ethnic groups." She released a flood of compelling statistics: in Massachusetts, more than 50 percent of patients admitted for substance-abuse treatment suffered primarily from heroin dependency; in Connecticut and Rhode Island, over 35 percent. Drug-related emergency-room visits for heroin in Massachusetts have risen 60 percent each year since 1998. Evans spoke next, mentioning the efforts of drug investigators and social workers in South Boston; soon after, Romney relayed how "shocked" he was to hear about the "maawwnnnsters" who prey on our children.Then, with all this still fresh in the audience’s heads, and just before a 10-minute break, Walters dropped a stink bomb: a pitch for school-based drug testing as a deterrent to adolescent drug abuse. He called it "a silver bullet," and tried to make it sound innocuous by comparing it to tuberculosis testing. He offered no statistics or evidence, simply saying that students "feel protected when they’re tested." He didn’t even attempt to spin a Chicken Soup for the Soul–style yarn about a teenager whose life was saved by mandatory drug testing. He just let it drop, and then the audience filed out to use the bathrooms."There was no discussion of civil rights or thought that this might be an intrusion into private lives," Rick Doblin said later. "In some ways, I found it Orwellian."The access to Recovery panel was as exciting as drywall. Dr. Tom Kirk, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, spoke about the program’s system of state-issued vouchers to pay for substance-abuse treatment, using phrases that mean nothing without specifics: "spiritual resources," "case management," "peer support," "resources and empowerment."He was followed by someone even more narcotic: Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Bertha Madras, whose soothing voice evoked a recorded guide on a Disney World ride. She talked about how drugs don’t discriminate, complained that the media have been an obstacle to drug education, and emphasized drug education as a deterrent to drug abuse.Meanwhile, Connecticut governor John Rowland scribbled on a piece of paper. Vermont governor James Douglas tilted his head back as though sleeping in a car. Maine governor John Baldacci — who seemed like he’d ordinarily be a gas over a pitcher of beer and a pizza — rested his head in his hand. Romney feigned interest, his lips in a half-smile, and stared at the speaker. Rhode Island governor Donald Carcieri simply looked bored.A Boston Globe reporter found David Denby’s Mystic River review in the New Yorker and dug in.Even John Walters rubbed his chin lazily.Eventually, Madras stopped talking. But not before she plugged her CD-ROM, available at the back of the room free of charge.By then, the Globe reporter had moved on to a profile of Hillary Clinton.The real action took place at the medical-marijuana panel. It was the most blustery, the most authoritarian, and the most ignorant. It should have been interesting, given that Maine has already passed legislation allowing qualifying patients access to small amounts of marijuana. But this wasn’t really discussed. Instead, the panel regressed into something akin to a suburban-school-committee meeting.ONDCP martinet Dr. Andrea Barthwell kicked off the panel by declaring medical marijuana a "Trojan-horse issue." She denounced it as "the worst scam the drug legalizers have perpetrated" and warned of the "great danger posed by frauds in white coats." She said this very sternly. She wondered aloud, "Is this the best that 21st-century medicine has to offer?" The basic gist of her tirade was: science hasn’t yet proven that marijuana is medicine; we’d be setting science back to look to plants; states will face more problems from both limit-testing defense attorneys and, implicitly, the federal government if they try to be different on this issue, so they may as well conform. Then she cited some anecdotal "evidence" from her 20 years as a physician in Illinois, where she worked with kids who said that "marijuana is medicine and therefore thought it was good for them." She concluded by saying, "But marijuana is not medicine." (See "Snake-Oil Salesmen," page 30.)The pro-medical-marijuana faction hissed.The Globe reporter scanned an R. Crumb cartoon about New York’s Fashion Week.The next speaker immediately contradicted Barthwell. Dr. Billy Martin, chair of the department of pharmacology and toxicology at Virginia Commonwealth University’s medical school, said that yes, marijuana has helped patients, but that’s not the issue. The issue is that marijuana needs further research before doctors start prescribing it to patients. "So we have a choice," Martin said. "And I think it’s a simple one. Do we want to devote resources, do we want to try to answer this question, does it have a role in medicine?"Dr. Mark Kraus, president of the Connecticut Society of Addiction Medicine, returned to Barthwell territory: "The campaign to legalize marijuana is a campaign that in New England and other parts of the country is a campaign of self-serving political propaganda, misinformation, and deception. It must stop."When the panelists opened themselves up to questions, Governor Rowland nearly tripped over himself trying to commend their efforts. "I think the panel hit the issue out of the ballpark." Their home-run, according to Rowland? They helped show that "reporting mixed messages is a mistake." Romney, for his part, asked some very levelheaded questions. Why don’t we treat marijuana like a prescription drug? Wouldn't it be appropriate to subject marijuana to these same processes? What is the process? And why don’t we treat this like a pharmaceutical?The pro-medical-marijuana advocates clapped.Startled, he immediately clarified himself: "This isn’t an advocacy position." Which may be true. But Romney’s questions are the same types of questions advocates ask. Over and over. And so — even though the panel chose to answer his questions by focusing on who would fund the research — he gave the advocates a glimmer of hope.During the press conference held after the summit, each governor delivered a post-event briefing. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, the governors said. This is a serious problem and we must make changes, they added. We’re so thankful that this gathering has brought our regional drug problem to the forefront of issues, they reiterated. Then Dr. Barthwell opened the floor to questions.A female reporter piped up first. "Two questions for Governor Romney. First, Governor Romney, do you support school drug testing? And second, have you made a bet with Governor Pataki about the Red Sox–Yankees series?"Romney grinned puckishly, explaining that he’d already chatted with Pataki. "I suggested that the governor be required to ride a horse through the Boston Garden" — it was unclear whether he meant the Boston Common, the Public Garden, or the FleetCenter, but very clear why the details of his Massachusetts residency were an issue during his campaign — "because of the term ‘cowboy up.’ " Romney proceeded to explain that the prize hadn’t been set, but that the bet would be confirmed by the end of the day.Oh, and drugs. "Your first question was about testing in schools," Romney remembered. "I haven’t formed an opinion on that.""Governor Romney," interjected another reporter, who hadn’t been sighted at the summit. "Some local politicians had been given access to Red Sox tickets which are pretty hard to come by; on top of that, they’re getting them for face value. Even though it’s legal, do you think this is fair?""People can make their own decisions," Romney smirked, drawing a laugh from the press corps. "I’m not going to be casting dispersions [sic] on anyone else who takes advantage of that feature, but I personally am not."Then political commentator Jon Keller, who hadn’t been spotted at the summit either, asked about the California recall election. The governors looked uneasy, though a couple addressed the issue noncommittally. Keller followed up, his relentless prodding even getting a hesitant Democrat, Maine governor Baldacci, to take the podium begrudgingly and address what the recall election meant.Nearly 15 minutes into the press conference, someone finally called out, "Do you think we can have Walters up here for some questions about drugs?" Walters ascended the podium and repeated his pitch for school-based drug testing, suggesting that in communities where it has been implemented, students are "less afraid."But the most vital questions remained unasked. Will drug abuse really come to the forefront of local issues? Or was the ONDCP’s summit merely four hours of furrowed brows and theatrical bluster designed to grab a day’s worth of front-page headlines, put a bug in New England’s ear about high-school drug testing, and issue a stern warning to governors about following federal law concerning medical marijuana?"There’s a big difference between talking about drug abuse in a conference room and talking about it on the streets with real people with real problems," said Mayor Menino before it all began. The fact that most of the people making decisions are a million miles away from the problems they’re forced to confront seemed to be a minor technicality.Note: What really went on at the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Summit of New England Governors.Source: Boston Phoenix (MA) Author: Camille DoderoPublished: October 17 - 23, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Phoenix Media Communications GroupContact: letters phx.com Website: http://www.bostonphoenix.com/ Related Article:Snake-Oil Salesmen http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17593.shtml

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