Black Police Association To Obama: No "Drug Czar" Ramstad

President-elect Obama's potential drug czar pick has stirred protest from numerous groups:

A coalition of advocacy and nonprofit organizations, including the National Black Police Association, sent a letter today to President-elect Obama preemptively pushing back against the nomination of Rep. James Ramstad (R-Minn.) to be head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or "Drug Czar."

Ramstad has not been nominated for the position, but his name has been mentioned in Democratic circles and he has expressed gratification at the prospect of his consideration.

"While we applaud Representative Ramstad for his courageous and steady support for expanding drug treatment access and improving addiction awareness, and honor his own personal and very public triumph over addiction, we have strong reservations about his candidacy for the drug czar position," reads the letter. ...

In his twenty-eight years in the U.S. House, Representative Ramstad has consistently opposed policies that seek to reduce drug-related harm and create common ground on polarizing issues.

Huffington Post blogger Maia Szalavitz, a former drug user herself, blogged recently about Ramstad's opposition to needle exchanges and medical marijuana.

Comments

[PatCroft]

I hope they learn to drop the Czar title. It is in pore taste to adopt names from a very bad past.
In fact drop this entire position. Perhaps if they gave people the opportunity to earn a living wage they may be less likely to pursue other resources.

[LazarusLong]

Please.

Anyone who cares about this issue should let their opinions be known at http://change.gov

[NoFactsJustTruth]

How OUR President-elect addresses the corrupt, discriminatory, outdated and lobby-driven corporate giveaways called the War on Drugs will be all that's needed to determine if ANY 'change' has come to OUR country. Current laws provide endless 'profit protections' for private-prison, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries at the incredible expense of destroying far more of OUR citizen's lives than the drugs themselves ever could, if legalized and controlled.

Industry LOBBIES and racists have driven the arcane and truly unconstitutional anti-drug policies in OUR country the last century for 2 major reasons. The first reason has been to protect the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries from the RENEWABLE RESOURCE called hemp (thereby also devastating American farmers in the process), and the second (but more prevalent) reason has been to discriminate against ANY non-white cultures.

The War on Drugs is every bit as insane as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and largely for the same reasons. Both inhumane events are motivated by corporate greed, exploit the individual's prejudices and fears, and should be judged by history accordingly.

[Bettysdad]

America needs a drug "Czar" that will actively work to end the "ware on drugs."

It is far, far more destructive, and costly, than drug use could ever be.

[ddanimal]

The only drugs which should be illegal are the truly dangerous ones-crystal meth, heroin, cocaine, PCP and so on. Natural "drugs" such as marijuana, magic mushrooms and the like should be completely legal. These are relatively safe and in a free society people deserve the freedom to make their own choices about whether to use them.

Unfortunately, it looks like we are in for four more years of senseless, counterproductive and destructive drug war. This country is so completely unable to reform itself it is disgusting. The united states deserves to fail, and it is.

[meeneecat]

You couldn't be more wrong. What causes the most harm is Prohibition itself. Those so called "dangerous drugs" cause about 10,000 deaths a year, many can be attributed to Prohibition itself, which makes it impossible to obtain safe drugs (i.e. users can't tell purity and strength)...and so many accidental overdoses result. So if your talking about so called "dangerous drugs" it's alcohol and tobacco that kill the most people. Those are the most dangerous BY FAR. Should we ban those, by your logic, too? No we shouldn't, because Prohibition, no matter what illegal drug you are talking about, heroin, meth, ecstasy, no matter how dangerous it is perceived to be, will always cause more harm than the actual drug. Might I add, those so called "dangerous drugs", most of them are available in some form or another in prescription form...so the perception that they are do dangerous and harmful is mostly a result of years of propaganda.

The disastrous "war on drugs" needs to be ended. We don't need to continue with a "war on some drugs" we need an end to the "war on ALL drugs".

[sayinisayu]

You are correct to the 100th power meenee..........The war on drugs is a hoax, they've put the prisons on the stock market another money making scheme.

[lovethesinner]

Read the Wikipedia page for "War on Drugs" and it sounds like a guest list of old Bush family family friends:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs

Is it just a coincidence that in the last four decades America has always had an armed conflict near or in a heroin or cocaine producing country?

But, Nixon started the whole political part of the "war on drugs" as a dialog on inner city crime (the first overtures to the "Reagan Democrats") It was code to get racist votes. It was probably Pat Buchanan who came up with the idea. i know people in LA who swear the Watts Riots were started by the CIA. (God knows, Nixon was certainly corrupt enough to do it.)

[dadw5boys]

Give Mexico a warning !

Shut down the drug flow or we spray all of Mexico with AGENT ORANGE !

[ddanimal]

Since when is it mexico's responsibility to enforce sobriety for US drug users?

Get a clue you silly drug warrior.

[ddanimal]

If Obama selects a medical marijuana opponent and drug warrior, then I will no longer support Obama. He will have proven himself to be a Clintonesque traigulator.

A majority of the american people, and a super majority of democrats support medical marijuana and drug policy reform. More drug war from Obama is an insult.

[igorz]

You mean, you actually want *doctors* to decide medical treatment? Oh, come on now, when *I* want medical advice, I *always* consult a politician...don't you?

[lovethesinner]

If you ask me, we should declare victory in the "War on Drugs", dump the drug Czar position, and decriminalize drugs completely. The American drug market is just a front for the CIA to fund black ops. Why do you think Russia and the US have been in Afghanistan for the last bazillion years? It's Fantasy Island... you know...

"Look boss, the plane the plane":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFK1rvL2NoQ

Another day, another dollar, hum boss?

[harrymellon]

This guy is a fraud just like the war on drugs that he perpetuates. These crooks make too much money on the prison industry and if Obama pulls a Clinton on this one(more people arrested for pot under Clinton than Bush and Reagan combined) then I will abandon him and his broken promise of change WE can believe in.

[movecenter]

So, he's for expanding drug treatment access and improving addiction awareness. And the problem is??? Sounds good to me.

[ddanimal]

Thats what Barrry McCaffrey and the current idiot drug czar said also.

This clown that Obama might pick is also for arresting medical marijuana users and blocking clean needles for addicts.

This isnt change. This is more of the same BS we have endured since Reagan. Its worse for it to happen now, because the country has moved on and supports medical marijuana.

Prop 215 legalizinfg medical mj in CA happened in 1996. Twelve freaking years we have waited for the feds to behave reasonable and with compassion. Clinton screwed us, and of course Bush did to (which of course isnt a surprise). And now this.

[MsFeminist]

Proposition 215 is a California state proposition the people voted for. Then the federal prosecutors moved in to raid,convict and sentence medical marijuana perconal or lawful dispensary growers... and refuse to let it be known at these trials that the grower is an appoved medical marijuana patient .. and ship them off to prison.

The rationale? "State law does not forgive Federal Law."
This compassionate law and Bush's compassionate medical marijuana talk doesn't mesh.
Will Prez Obama do better? His chioicde of a drug czar with a rep for not believing in medical marijuana is not great news for patients whose pain and daily ability to function depends on MM. What is Obama thinking?

13 states approved medical marijuana for certified patients.. but the federal government says Raid ON.
Check out bryan Epis,the poster child of this game... the first patient whose case went through the federal courts. He completed two years in the Fed prison; got bail and was tried again. It's an interestng story and I won't spoil the end for you. Check him out.
Google
Bryan
Epis

[julius1n]

all we need to do is make this war with no profit for the police or the private prisons and you watch, they will call a end to it.

[evekendall]

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
~ Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

[meemu]

I consider this whole "war on drugs" to be so much BS. It's all about money, again. SOME people are making a fortune off of the numbers they can get and keep in prison. And it's costing us all. What good has it done? Especially the "war" on pot users--I used to smoke it myself, I know it doesn't cause people to become violent!! That is just not true--alcohol on the other hand, causes a great deal of violence and death. Yet that is legal....Again it's BS, and making big money that's really what it's all about.

[Hare]

Time to legalize drugs and get it from the hands of common criminals. What country will take the lead, on this? Legalizing drugs will jack up the price and get taxes on top ot that will solve the deficit. it will be like with cigarrettes, harder to obtain. Imagine to use all that money for things like education pay for schools, the poor, fix roads, bridges etc. It will also force this government to stop putting young people in jail and back in school where they belong. Sanity will return.

[papapj]

...Not only that, look at the manifold uses of Hemp! Everything from paper to fuel to cloth and more!

It's not just the megacorp drug companies who have a vested interest in maintaining the frighteners on the harmless weed....

[ManyColored]

Do you honestly believe that legalizing drugs will drive up the price?? The whole idea of legalizing drugs is to take the economic motive away from the drug dealers, and thus reduce the criminal activity associated with it. People who are addicted don't have the economic wherewithall to afford drugs; so they steal and rob. The government would have to distribute the drugs freely to addicts in controlled doses, like the Dutch do. But you won't be able to make a profit from drug sale. It won't work. But certainly it would impact the crime rate very positively. I don't think it would lower the addiction rate much, although dealers wouldn't be sucking in kids to use drugs so they can sell more; kids will try drugs anyway, no matter what you do, so the addiction rate probably won't change much.

[11907281]

See 1920's prohibition.

Marijuana grows naturally, you have to let something sit in it's own rot to get alcohol.

The fact America has more prisoners than any other country in the world (not per capita but raw numbers) shows what a hard line stance on drugs does. Let's not forget the CIA's involvment in the drug trade too. See Michael Ruppert

In 1977, Ruppert discovered an extensive drug trafficking operation run by the Central Intelligence Agency and went on record about this ongoing criminal activity. He resigned from the LAPD in 1978 despite earning the highest rating reports possible, over the tolerance of continued CIA drug dealing activities.

[j.gold]

Keeping drugs illegal doesn't change the addict rate either. So what do we have to lose? Crime! Besides if we put all the money into rehabs that we spend on jails and other prohibition related costs then maybe the addict rate would go down. We have been criminalizing a social problem and that has created more criminal problems.

Let's take the drug dealing out of the hands of 15 year olds kids, please!