Romney "Gets Animated": Marijuana Is "A Plague To Our Country"

RGJ.com:

After two Mitt Romney speeches this morning, the most interesting moment came when an audience member at the Conservative Leadership Conference asked him about medical marijuana.

The question prompted a short tirade against drug use.

Asked whether he would call off the Drug Enforcement Agency from raids in states that have approved medical marijuana use, Romney responded loudly: "No."

"I believe marijuana is the gateway to drug use that is a plague to our children and a plague to our country," he said. "Medical marijuana is a Trojan horse for getting marijuana legalized. That is the last thing America needs. We do not need more drugs in our school and homes."

Read the whole story: RGJ.com

Comments

[WilliePilgrim]

The worst drug in the world is stupidity and Romney and is policies are as short sighted as stupid allows while he parades around wearing on his head the dirty underpants of religion. Take him serously? Maybe if he takes off the underpants and stars talking like he's read a book instead of asking people to take the word of the man beneath the even more rediculous reaganesque haircut.

[dora rice]

any mind altering drug is. We need to educate more and quit making laws already on the books. Education and the draft is the answer to these good for nothing , cuddled by our society, pimps and bums , that are standing on the corner and peddling ,day and night.

[UtahLiberal435]

Actually Mitt, metrosexual, carpet-bagging, Mormon, rich kid, Senator's sons are a plague to our country. Not to mention Joseph Smith's hysterical religious inventions like the Book of Mormon, ostensibly tranlated using magic seer stones. You gotta be on some serious drugs to believe that, and I've actually taken the time to try and read it. Mark Twain called it "laudanum in print," but I'd say it's far worse than any opiate for turning off cerebral neurons.

[Dandy12]

Maybe middle school kids would be required to view "Reefer Madness". This guy must have had an abnormal childhood and adolescence. Wonder what he thinks about pre-marital sex and masturbati­on... Probably never tried either!

[Progress]

Actually Romney is correct when he says, "I believe marijuana is the gateway to drug use that is a plague to our children and a plague to our country."

Research has show that smoking marijuana may actually serve as a "gateway drug" to much more dangerous drugs -- nicotine and alcohol. .....that is, if there really were such a thing as a "gateway drug" in the first place, which has been shown to be pure hyperbolic bullshit.

But don't read me as pro-weed. It's probably the worst thing a kid can use in the educational setting (alcohol not going to help you study either). Loss of focus and concentration, short-term memory loss and amotivational syndrome with chronic use make weed a sure-fired way to flunk out of school for all but the most ADHD of our children -- who ironically report some benefit in being able to settle down and concentrate. I'm sure there are better drugs for attention deficit & hyperactivity disorder.

[Misanthrope2]

Links for these controversial statements please.

[Pdubya]

Just another reason we need Ron Paul.


Mitt Romney is a gateway drug that will continue our habit on corporate welfarism.


www.ronpaul2008.com
www.dailypaul.com

[nowaterboardUSA]

Mitt needs to light up a doobie and chill out!

[Progress]

Isn't it insane how this is all turning out? George Bush who was a pro-war coward and sell out to our anti Vietnam generation is now the president that all the straight "Christians" supposedly voted into office (with the help of a whole lot of voter fraud). Romney seems to be an uptight neurotic hero child. Giuliani is simply a scumbag crook in the Nixonian mode. McCain is so PTSD he can't think straight. Thompson wants another cigarette so bad he'll lobby for them and settles for an incestuous relationship with someone the age of his daughter to satisfy his oral fixation.

Folks, we are not dealing with healthy people here and Cheney and Bush aren't even in the ballpark with these people. It'd make a pretty good Woody Allen movie as long as you keep your eye on your daughter while he's not directing.

Oh, yes. We're America -- God's country. I think I'll go masturbate.

[oafishcad]

The federal government thought pot was none of the federal government's business until the early 1900s, and even after that was relatively ineffectual concerning pot until Nixon began the war on drugs. The truth of course is it's none of the federal governement's business. What a person does in the privacy of their own body is no one else's business up to the point where what they're doing harms another person. That's called freedom. America, land of the free?

[osage]

I certainly do not advocate the use of marijuana, but I question the logic of his priorities when cigarettes are clearly more deadly and destructive to many, many, many more Americans than marijuana is. If marijuana is a "plague", then by comparison, "cigarettes" must be a human catastorphy comparable to the dropping of ten Hiroshima atomic bombs on New York city. What about the "pesticides" and industrial "chemicals" polluting our ground water, streams, rivers, lakes and oceans deposited by big business? What about hand guns and AK-47s? Don't they kill considerably more human beings than the "plague" of marijuana?

[ChrisR]

The "gateway" argument is illogical. Do people who drink beer then go looking for illegal moonshine whiskey? No, they buy their booze at the liquor store. If the only place you can buy pot is from the same guy that also sells cocaine, guess what happens. Pot should be available like alcohol is: taxed and regulated. Alcohol and cigarettes are the killers. All things are fine in moderation, pot included. Romney needs to educate himself on this issue, but how often has a Republican ever taken that route?

[Earl]

Have you ever thought about how we get people to stop smoking cigarettes? Nicotine is far more addictive than anything in pot. And we have chased cigarette smokers out of just about everywhere with what? A $25 FINE!!! That's right, twenty-five bucks gets people to take their habits somewhere else. And even quit them!!! Is it overkill to "help" someone by putting them in jail for pot? You betcha. The "war on drugs" is a war on ourselves. Class warfare to fill the private prisons with paying prisoners. Undemonize marijuana!

[ming099]

.......peo­ple who have NEVER SMOKED pot should not be making these kind of statements­........
.......thi­s guy is another of the REPUBLICANS IN FAVOR OF FILLING OUR JAILS with 'victims' of victimless crimes....­.if you want to REALLY win the war on drugs....d­eclare victory right now.....re­peal the ANTIQUATED drug laws in this country which were written during the early part of last CENTURY...­.and move on.....

....if the Democrats want to win the next few elections ....just let a few of them begin talking about ending the 'war' on drugs and begin talking about spending the billions now spent 'combating' drugs on rehabilita­tion,educa­tion and diversion programs..­..there might even be some left over for SCHIP type programs..­....

....anyone who thinks that drugs are going to go away simply because the government says 'no' are deluding themselves­.......


....prohib­ition DID NOT WORK during the early days of the 20th century...­.this PROHIBITION will not work now.....

[WigWamWag]

Marijuana and Schizophrenia

Smoking pot apparently causes similar brain changes as schizophrenia and hastens the onset of the disease in those who are otherwise susceptible. I have often dismissed such research in the past as drug war propaganda, but this is pretty solid stuff done in the fairly liberal socialist democracy of Denmark.

A second study by researchers at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York looked at the brains of teenagers, comparing some who were heavy cannabis users with schizophrenic patients and healthy adolescents.

The team used a sophisticated scanning technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) which measures the motion of water molecules in the brain which can indicate microscopic abnormalities.

They found similar abnormalities in an area of the brain linked to high level linguistic and auditory skill in cannabis users and those with schizophrenia.

They focused on the arcuate fasciculus, a bundle of fibres connecting the Broca's area in the left frontal lobe and the Wernicke's area in the left temporal lobe.

The abnormalities were not seen in healthy teenagers.

Dr Mazar Ashtari, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine who led the study, said: "Because this language/auditory pathway continues to develop during adolescence, it is most susceptible to the neurotoxins introduced into the body through marijuana use."
This means even if one has no familial tendency to develop schizophrenia, chronic pot smoking may cause schizoid like changes in the brain.

Some users of marijuana and other psychedelic (or entheogenic) substances like to think they have opened the doors of perception through their indulgence and that those who don't partake just have blinders on. I will grant this may be true for occasional use of mind altering substances like pot and mushrooms in an ideal set and setting (as advocated by Timothy Leary back in his serious research days).

[WigWamWag]

However, mounting evidence suggests chronic daily use disturbs the mind of almost all users, particularly those who became habituated in their teens. If you resist this idea, then how do you reconcile the fact that the brain structure of a daily lifelong marijuana user probably looks more like someone with psychosis than it does like that of an enlightened sage. Just because a little of something may be desirable under certain conditions doesn't mean a lot all the time is even more beneficial.

[Rand]

Then, unless you're a hypocrite, I suppose you want to re-introduce the prohibition of alcoholic beverages

Again, fine in small amounts, but extremely harmful for heavy chronic users

[Earl]

Why don't you read up on what prisons do to people? Then choose the route of least harm.

[wndrwrthg]

Those areas may resemble each other, but what are the actions of these people when compared? I agree kids should not partake of most anything until they reach their age of majority, but until they do a study of the long term pot smokers(and by the way, what is heavy use?), I think the story is incomplete.

[Earl]

Yeah, prison is so much better for the mind.

[ChrisR]

Fascinating - but there's more to the story (note, the CAPS are mine):

CHICAGO, Dec. 1, 2005 - Marijuana use may increase the risk of schizophrenia among adolescents who are ALREADY PREDISPOSED to it, suggested a researcher here today.
That finding emerged from a handful of small brain-imaging studies by Manzar Ashtari, Ph.D., of Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y. She identified a brain region affected by both schizophrenia and marijuana use that she said is still "under construction" during adolescence.
Taken together, the results of the studies in adolescents and schizophrenics strongly suggest that marijuana use is a risk factor for schizophrenia "if the teenager has a family history of schizophrenia," Dr. Ashtari said at a press conference sponsored by the Radiological Society of North America. She reported the results today at an RSNA podium presentati­on."
from http://www.medpagetoday.com/tbindex1.cfm?tbid=2239
Young folks should probably not even be drinking coffee or eating big macs for what those things do to their developing systems, never mind drinking alcohol or smoking weed. I think it's fairly obvious that crystal meth, cocaine, heroin are truly nasty drugs that can destroy your life almost immediately, but pot has been a part of the culture for 40 years and the worst I hear is that it can be harmful to those already predisposed towards issues. Alcohol is, again, far more dangerous, but it's here to stay and I think the precautions, the controlled sale, and the AA centers help as much as possible, but this is about medicinal marijuana which chronic-pain or chemotherapy patients say have helped them enormously - why is this a Federal Crime? Romney is running for President. We've just experienced 8 years with a small-minded President, and I'm sick of it. It is always good to know what the possible side-effects can be, but I still see no evidence that marijuana should be classified along with heroin, crack, meth and coke. Now THOSE things are truly evil. Either we're all adults here or we're not.

[Misanthrope2]

Liar. Post links or shut up.

[PAFirefighter]

Now we're left to wonder what was Mitt's (his REAL first name is WILLARD!!!) gateway to this level of stupidity.­..

For name confirmation, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney

PA Firefighter
"Cogito, ergo Liberal!"

[Misanthrope2]

Mormonism.

[OddManOut]

Give me a break.

[davy]

Really? From where I'm sitting it's "Mit" and his ilk that is the plague. Just keep kissing the corporate behind "Mit". 43 billion a year to fight MJ. Hummmm wonder what that's all about.