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Drug Czar Calls for End to War on Drugs
Unfortunately, it's the name he doesn't like, not the policy. Gil Kerlikowske, the former Seattle police chief who now heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy, tells The Wall Street Journal:
Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a "war on drugs" or a "war on a product," people see a war as a war on them. We're not at war with people in this country.
According to the Journal, "Mr. Kerlikowske's comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate—and likely more controversial—stance on the nation's drug problems....The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment's role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said."
Where have we heard this before? From Barry McCaffrey, Bill Clinton's drug czar, who turned out to be so hardline that he refused to admit there was any evidence of marijuana's therapeutic value and could not stomach the idea of letting states set their own policies regarding medical use of the plant. Under McCaffrey, the federal government went beyond busting medical marijuana growers and distributors by threatening doctors who dared recommend marijuana to their patients with loss of their prescription privileges and jail. In other words, it tried to punish them for exercising their freedom of speech, a policy that was rejected by a federal appeals court in a 2002 decision that the Supreme Court declined to review.
Although McCaffrey had little concern for actual cancer patients who use marijuana to relieve the nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy, the former general liked to say that suppressing drug use is more like treating a cancer than waging a war. As I noted in 1998, however, he "still thinks that people who possess politically incorrect chemicals should be arrested, humiliated, imprisoned, and divested of their property. Presumably, though, it should be done with compassion."
So far the Obama administration is notably better than either of the two preceding administrations on sentencing, and it has sent encouraging signals regarding medical marijuana (although the reality still does not match the rhetoric). But as the Journal notes, "prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach." We should not be fooled by medicalized language into believing that drug prohibition is less brutal or less of an assault on our rights. Pace Kerlikowske, the government will be "at war with people in this country" as along as it tries to forcibly prevent them from altering their consciousness with taboo substances.
In a 2000 column, on the occasion of McCaffrey's
resignation, I reviewed some of
his anti-drug whoppers. In 2006 I noted McCaffrey's declaration that the
U.S. was winning the war on medical
intervention against Afghan opium. That pronouncement turned out to
be premature. I discuss drug
policy reformers' hopes for Kerlikowske here, here, and here.
! </a|5.14.09 @ 2:12PM|#
No more enemy combatants, no more war on terrorists, now no more
drug war.
Hope and Change every day!
phalkor|5.14.09 @ 2:16PM|#
We're not at war with people in this country.
The forthcoming book by Naomi Klein, "Another Isolated Incident",
will show that this is an out-and-out lie. Too bad the ghostwriter
(I can't remember his name, Bradley Macko?) won't get any of the
credit. Still, pick up a copy, fight the power!
Fascitis Necrotizante|5.14.09 @ 2:17PM|#
A domestic contingency operation on drugs, then? Things're lookin' up!
Xeones|5.14.09 @ 2:24PM|#
Way to crush my heart between the headline and first sentence, Sullum. Who do you think you are, Radley Balko?
endpoint|5.14.09 @ 2:25PM|#
Afghan opium? What Afghan opium?
Karzai's brother threatens Mcclatchy reporter
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/67823.html?pageNum=2&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container
see name for link as well
<div class=\"white-com-blck\">|5.14.09 @ 2:25PM|#
We're not at war with people in this country.
Rape is not war.
|5.14.09 @ 2:27PM|#
We're not at war with people in this country.
Lying sack of shit.
He'll fit right in.
Mister DNA|5.14.09 @ 2:28PM|#
We're not at war with people in this country.
We're at war with their constitutional rights.
Oh... and their dogs.
Paul|5.14.09 @ 2:33PM|#
War on Drugs, War on Obesity, War on Smoking, this country
is at war with its people. I mean, come on. Smoking bans,
bans on transfats, liquor laws, .08 BAC for DUI.
I do regard this as positive news.
|5.14.09 @ 2:34PM|#
Wow, question mark really FUBARed the HTML on this page with that div embedding.
phalkor|5.14.09 @ 2:34PM|#
Epi, what do you think you're doing!??!?
Screwing up my internets...kids these days.
|5.14.09 @ 2:48PM|#
Xeones | May 14, 2009, 2:34pm | #
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.
Goddammit, that was funny.
Somebody's probably going to have to put this thread out of its
misery before all the tubes become infected.
|5.14.09 @ 2:48PM|#
Question mark started it with a div embed, I was merely trying to fix it; but I think the only solution would be for the web admin to go in and actually delete the embeds.
|5.14.09 @ 2:50PM|#
We're not at war with people in this country.
What the Fuck? In what way exactly aren't we at war with
people in this country?
Xeones|5.14.09 @ 2:53PM|#
I was merely trying to fix it
So you're Obama to ?'s Bush?
I think that means phalkor is Geithner.
|5.14.09 @ 3:06PM|#
Good-bye, Episiarch. I hope you've learned not to tamper with things beyond your understanding.
|5.14.09 @ 4:09PM|#
"We're not at war with people in this country."
But ... but ... there are CASUALTIES on both sides already! Not
just metaphorical damage to the Bill of Rights, but actual dead or
wounded people and pets! Unless this fellow's declaration
guarantees no more casualties, then it is without meaning.
Here is the language I want to see employed: "The War on Drugs is
hereby declared over and the Controlled Substances Act repealed.
The Bill of Rights and the American People won. God bless and
protect the United States of America."
HopeyChangemas|5.14.09 @ 5:33PM|#
Here is the language I want to see employed: Dick Cheney is war mongering zionist capitalist imperialist theocrat and the OG of the military industrial complex he shouldn't be allowed to breathe let alone talk- oh, wait a second I thought I was on The Huffington Post. Sorry!
|5.14.09 @ 6:03PM|#
Yes America IS at
"WAR on our own citizens"
If we weren't, then how do you explain imprisoning so many citizens
for using a plant that is less harmful than legal substances?????
If were not at war then why do more than half of the American
citizens want marijuana to be legal? If we are not at war then why
are we turning non violent tax paying citizens into tax burdens for
the rest of us?????????????????????????????
just another follower without a backbone to stick up for what he
has proven he knows is right, too sad.
|5.14.09 @ 6:35PM|#
"....The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a
matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with
treatment's role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske
said."
Saying that the Obama administration is "likely" to do something is
pretty weak. They also say that criminal actions will continue. I
asume that means no-knock raids and all the rest. I am not
impressed yet.
Nope still broke|5.15.09 @ 1:58AM|#
DdC|5.15.09 @ 5:48AM|#
White House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs'?
Ah, Jeez,
Not This Shit Again!
New Drug Czar Is Seeking Ways to Bolster His
Hand
Published: Sunday, March 17, 1996
General McCaffrey knows a war when he sees one, first in Vietnam
and more recently in the Persian Gulf, where he led the 24th
Mechanized Infantry Division. So it seemed remarkable that during
an hourlong interview in his Washington office, he avoided the
cliche of a war on drugs.
"The analogy of cancer is far more adaptive and useful as a
model to a way of thinking and talking about the problem,"
the general said.
Just Do What? By Jacob Sullum
McCaffrey has another metaphor up his sleeve: "He compares the drug
problem to a cancer that requires treatment, cautioning listeners
not to expect victory for at least 10 years."
"We've got a national campaign by drug legalizers, in my
view, to try and use medicinal uses of drugs and legalization of
hemp as a stalking horse to get in under the radar
screen."
~ Gen. Barry McCaffrey - Former Drug Czar (Clinton)
How America Lost the War on Drugs
Ben Wallace-WellsPosted Dec 13, 2007
In 1996, less than a year into his term, the new drug czar met Jim
Burke, a smooth-talking, silver-haired executive who chaired the
Partnership for a Drug-Free America - the advertising organization
best known for the slogan "This is your brain on drugs." "Burke
personally was very hard to resist," one of his former colleagues
tells me. "I've seen him sell many conservative members of Congress
and also liberals like Mario Cuomo."
US: McCaffrey's Brain On Drugs 05/04/00
"A more accurate comparison is to the fight against cancer
-- ``Prevention coupled with treatment accompanied by
research,''
~ Barry McCaffrey said in his final report on America's drug
problem.
McCaffrey Advocates Prevention, Treatment
S.F. Gate January 03, 2001
The longtime rallying cry of a ``war on drugs'' to describe the
effort to curtail illegal drug use in the United States has become
``misleading'' the White House drug policy director says.
"The whole notion that someone could be a drug czar simply
reflects ignorance of how the American Government
works,"
~ Prof. Mark A. R. Kleiman,
a drug-policy expert at Harvard University.
We ain't at war with these drug thug worrier
degenerates,
To them we're lepers.
Cops paid by taxes should remain neutral.
Not politicops... DdC
CAPITOL UPDATE By John Lovell March 27,
2009
Law enforcement launched its major push against AB 390, Assembly
Member Ammanio's marijuana legalization bill. Police Chiefs all
over the state contacted each member of the Assembly Public Safety
Committee and urged members to reject this terrible proposal - a
proposal that, among other things, would have lowered the penalties
for selling marijuana to children from a felony to a mere
infraction. Your calls made a huge impact.
Legalizing
Legal Lies
OK lets wrap this Ganjawar thing up. Nixon lied to Congress and
rejected his own tax paid study to start the Controlled Substance
Act for greed and control, not helping kids. By including Hemp and
Rx Ganja, not included in the 1937 Tax Act. He eliminated
competition for fossil fools, trees, steel, paper, meat, dairy,
plastic, lubricants and thousands of medicinal and health care
products. While bloating the Prison/Police Industrial Complex,
World Bankster interest and the Military. As well as our global
stash of DEA officiates. Black budgets funding elections, coups and
Contras. Could you order a better agenda for a few filthy rich to
prosper at the expense of the blue collar labor pool. Gutting Fort
Knox to pay off their trillion dollar gambling debts.. High
unemployment is an incentive against whistleblowing. Dangling that
j-o-b carrot like trickle down voodoo economics.
We're still just numbers and still we argue each other over the
hobgoblins they toss, like bones to stray hungry dogs. Afraid of
the chance of our good names or vested ignorance getting exposed?
Cozy closet tokers. Or the expert soothsayers predicting futures
and legislating moronality. The system is what is rotten and the
Ganjawar is only a leg of the octopus with several DNCGOPerversions
from NAFTA/GATT to the Higher Education Ax maintaining dysfunction.
Prison slave labor is Constitutionally legal! Cheaper than the
freight from Wallmart Streets China sweatshops. That is cheaper
than made in the USA. Research is banned! 95% busted, cop a plea to
avoid mandatory minimum sentencing deterrents to jury trials.
Stigmatizing stoners for the very same applications as for racist
stigmatizing or gender stigmatizing or any stigmatizing. For a
means to an end. Can't keep someone down if they're innocent. Have
to make em guilty or at least feel guilty or threatened. Absolutely
nothing wrong with smoking Ganja. Thousand year old practice with
no toxic reactions or deaths. Comparing it to chemical cigarettes
is as false as the Gateway and Mo Potent than yo mama Grimm
Fairytales.
Logical if family farms, Indians and poor Mexicans could grow Hemp
and utilize the seed, oil and fiber as Canada and 30 other
countries do. Spurting the textiles growth and a Willie Nelson
biodiesel truckstop for local communities. They could sustain their
villages and lessen the tax burden. Only threatening Ag Chem Biz
and farm labor exploitation profits. Getting back to the
traditional ways of organic food and natural fiber, not cottons 90
million pounds of poisons. Aborting more bible belt op rescue
babies than Roe V Wade. OK for asbestos to cancerize US towns
populations, DDT PCB Aspartame and Agent Orange drugs aren't even
scheduled. Mental Illness and Drug Addiction aren't on most health
insurance menu's. "Treatment" Asylums bars are as thick as prisons,
without a crime even needed. Mandatory "treatment" is like getting
answers from torture. Anything you say mon. 3000 kids raped in
juvenile prison each year. PTSD isn't scheduled either. 7.4.9 D.C.
Convergence.
The Global
Ganja Gathering of 2009
4/20 @
4:20
These DEAth Merchants and War Brokers have no humanity in their
bottom line. We would harp on any foreign country terrorizing the
elderly and sick. Instant demonizing, profiled and plastered over
the media. But no deviating from the manual for terrorizing our own
finding aid with Ganja. So many red flags not seen or censored.
Stories hidden in hopes of being forgotten, who in the hell do they
think they're kidding? Ganja is or Ganja isn't. Physics says it is.
Debates over.
DEAth lies are a means to a semi-religious duty of a kind of
puritanical unattainable goal of perpetuating profits maintaining
dysfunction. The dirty DEAty use violence intimidation and
degradation to cleanse the loyal masses of -fill in the blank- I
sincerely don't advocate violence on these liars and scum, not that
I give a damn about their safety. They deserve the gallows along
with Boosheney Klintoongord and their administrations torturing
Ganja users either Psychologically or Physically. Including
Oblamo's DNC ditto's and rehashed Klintoonians. I don't advocate
violence because they have all the big guns and I hate cages.
Include the Corporation clones and Banksters these elected
lobbyists work for. Damn their black hearts!
WAMM
Why is the DEA terrorizing sick people? We've lost 40
members this year, and that number will increase because of this
raid,
~ Diana Dodson
"Yes, we still survive the DEA's raid and American injustice. We
were raided Sept. 5 at 6:50 am. However, that's just a minor
interference by the federal government into the lives of sick and
dying people. No injustice will keep us from our work, no injustice
will stop the truth."
During the Sept. 5 raid, 20 gun-toting DEA agents, led by Patrick
Kelly, stormed the WAMM property, arresting a pajama-clad Corral
and husband Michael before razing 130 marijuana plants to the
ground with chain saws. DEA agents destroyed WAMM's 2002 crop, thus
depriving the cooperative's 238 members of the medicine they use to
treat AIDS, cancer, epilepsy and other fatal and highly painful
disorders.
"This is an act of violence under guise of the
law,"
~ Joe Wouk,
WAMM supporter said as the DEA drove away
in SUV vans and U-Haul trucks stuffed with massacred pot
plants.
"56 percent of all people using illegal drugs are using
marijuana. Legalizing marijuana would create a chink in the DEA's
armor, a lot of budgets would go south. That's why they don't care
how many sick people are hurt by this."
~ Bruce Mirken,
Medical Marijuana Policy Project communications
director.
The Murder of Peter McWilliams -
An Indictment, Not an Obituary - by Richard Cowan
Peter McWilliams, 50, best selling author, poet, photographer,
publisher, libertarian crusader, medical marijuana activist, AIDS
patient and cancer survivor, was found dead on the floor of his
bathroom, apparently having choked to death after vomiting, for
want of medical marijuana.
There will be an autopsy, but whatever the immediate cause of death
may have been, he was murdered by the United States Government as
surely as if they shot him.
The Rainbow Farm Massacre
For over 5 years Rainbow Farm was the location of the best Pro-Hemp
Festivals in the Mid-West. The 2-3 day festivals drew crowds of
Drug Reform Activists that numbered literally in the thousands.
Over the Labor Day weekend (in September of 2001) over 100 Local,
State and Federal agents descending onto the grounds of Rainbow
Farm. In the next few days they stalked and murdered the owner, Tom
Crosslin and his friend Roland Rohm.
Drug War Travesties
Eugene Siler. Cops torture him to get him to sign a consent form
for their search of his place.
Pat|5.15.09 @ 9:29AM|#
So what does the Drug Czar want us to call it? The Pogrom on drug consumers? Obama Re-branding the "War on Drugs" - Pogrom? http://drugwartreason.blogspot.com/2009/05/obama-re-branding-war-on-drugs-pogrom.html
|5.15.09 @ 12:32PM|#
Here's a note I sent - the second paragraph is my
paragraph.
https://secure2.convio.net/dpa/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=356
I am pleased to learn that you reject the idea of a "war on drugs,"
but I hope your commitment goes deeper than a simple change in
terminology. It is time for meaningful policy change: an exit
strategy for the drug war.
The "drug war" has been a vast, unmitigated, racist and cruel
failure. Prohibition simply never has worked and only causes a lot
of suffering and death due to the willingness to take huge risks
for the enormous profits engendered. As an example, even the poppy
fields of Afghanistan--if they just legalized drugs, this could be
an enormous economic opportunity that would help local farmers,
destabilize the Taleban and increase productivity of an enormously
useful and in-demand stockpile of morphine. It does have medicinal
uses! Plus, heroin could be produced to help ween addicts off of
drugs.
It will take innovative thinking to get us out of the mess created
by the policies of the last several decades, and a wide range of
solutions should be up for debate. I urge you to put all ideas on
the table, including regulating marijuana like alcohol.
The administration is off to a good start with its support for
ending federal raids on medical marijuana patients, fixing the
crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity, and repealing the
federal ban on syringe exchange funding.
However, I remain concerned because so far, there has been more
talk than action. Medical marijuana raids have continued and the
syringe ban is still in the budget President Obama submitted to
Congress.
Please back up your call for an end to the war on drugs by
considering bold policy changes that will end this misguided war in
practice, not just in name.
|5.15.09 @ 1:34PM|#
According to the right, drugs should only be legal for right-wing talk-show hosts and Republican Congressmen...
HopeyChangemas|5.15.09 @ 1:49PM|#
Clavin, you do know the current POTUS used to lines of coke in the men's room at Occidental college right?
oat willie|5.16.09 @ 5:48PM|#
"If we weren't, then how do you explain imprisoning so many
citizens for using a plant that is less harmful than legal
substances????? If were not at war then why do more than half of
the American citizens want marijuana to be legal? If we are not at
war then why are we turning non violent tax paying citizens into
tax burdens for the rest of
us?????????????????????????????"
You forgot to mention the War on Some Drugs cheeleading in the form
of encouraging piss tests to show your worthiness for a job,
thereby discouraging people who are qualified but are unwilling to
give up personal liberty in order to seek temporary financial
security.
The war on some drugs disqualifies qualified, hard working,
responsible cannabis using individuals from contributing to
society.
ActionJackson|5.18.09 @ 2:32PM|#
This is a ridiculous argument that should have never happened in
the first place. The man that created the war on drugs was actually
one of the main proponents of the introduction of crack cocaine
into L.A.
That's right.
The government of this country has been impeding our rights under
the policies of a past mega-hypocrite douche bag who didn't deserve
to run this country. Thanks for spending my tax dollars and ruining
my constitution postmortem, Ex-President Reagan.
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