Two different staffers at the Drug Czar's office have both used the same word recently to describe Obama's approach to drug policy. That word, if you can believe it, is reform. It's a term I use an awful lot myself, and I must admit I'm more than a little intrigued to find Obama's top anti-drug officials co-opting the catchphrases of their critics.
Here's Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the Drug Czar, making the case here in the Huffington Post that Obama's approach to drug policy is something new and dramatically different than what we've seen in the past:
The complexity and scale of our drug problem requires a nationwide effort to support smart drug policies that reduce drug use and its consequences. Since day one, the Obama Administration has been engaged in an unprecedented government-wide effort to reform our nation's drug policies and restore balance to the way we deal with the drug problem. We have pursued a variety of alternatives that abandon an unproductive enforcement-only "War on Drugs" approach to drug control and acknowledge we cannot arrest our way out of the drug problem and, further, that drug addiction is a disease of the brain, not some "moral failing."
It sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? If you'd never followed the issue until now, you might come away with the impression that fundamental changes are taking place. But many of us in the drug policy reform movement have been following this issue for a long time, and memory serves us quite a bit more faithfully than you might infer based on our constant insistence that the law not prohibit us from consuming certain substances.
A decade ago, the Bush Administration was making the same claims we hear from Obama today:
"The president has a balanced approach to the problem of drug abuse in America that emphasizes both treatment and prevention," White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said. "We're confident that John Walters will do an excellent job of implementing the president's vision." [USA Today]
Examples of the Bush administration's self-proclaimed commitment to a "balanced approach to drug control" are abundant, but I chose this one because of its shudderingly ironic same-breath endorsement of John "Unbalanced Approach" Walters to serve as the nation's Drug Czar. Walters went on to badly shatter the credibility of that office, all the while insisting that he was restoring balance to our anti-drug programs and perfecting a formula for success that was vindicated repeatedly according to numerous press releases from and studies commissioned by... John Walters.
Under Obama, we're still spending more on enforcement and interdiction than prevention and treatment, and we're still being told that we ought to be proud of the balanced approach that the President's anti-drug officials have prepared. Obama's budget is a bit more balanced than Bush's, and corrects some serious accounting shell games, but it still spends its bulk on busting and burning our way to a future free of violence, destruction, and people smoking marijuana in their basements. It appears not to be working.
Nevertheless, Lemaitre's remarks do reflect a rather remarkable phenomenon in the drug policy debate: the president and his top anti-drug officials are trying to soften their image when it comes to drugs. That much is pretty clear, and pretty interesting to see when you consider the history of the issue. Despite our disappointment with the substance of Obama's policy on controlled substances, we can and should applaud the President for at least understanding that the thoughtless tough-on-drugs pandering of the 80s and 90s has no place in modern American politics.
We want change, and it's obvious from the rhetoric we're hearing lately that our message hasn't fallen entirely on deaf ears. The Obama Administration's efforts to acknowledge the problems with our drug policy, however disingenuous and insufficient as they may be, are still a welcome departure from the days when politicians spoke only of packing more muscle onto the long arm of the law. If there's any hope of replacing decades of kneejerk drug war idiocy with an actual adult conversation, I suppose that process would begin more or less like this.
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Hatchet? This is a job for a bulldozer.
See this film.
It’s truly time to reflect on the substance of one’s own government when a simple plant can thwart a $50-billion per year judicial-industrial-military complex; and not only that, do it in style.
1) Remove cannabis from the list of scheduled substances completely -- just like alcohol and tobacco. It must be legalized, and actually regulated to be "controlled".
2) Decriminalize ALL other illicit drugs
Anything short of that is just more madness.
That is the crux of the matter: Prohibition & the War on Drugs policies are inextricably intertwined with US foreign policy and when it comes to foreign policy it is irrelevant who is elected president of the US.Thererefore, there is no reason to expect Obama to be the exception — it cannot get more ironic that he even received the Nobel Prize for Peace, for goodness sake, for PEACE. Honestly, he should apologise to the world and return it, interests included, immediately!
It explains why a country that swaggers about lecturing everybody about the rule of law, democracy and human rights, ignores international law, practices extraordinary rendition, tortures, wages illegal wars, finances mercenaries, uses unmanned drones to carry out extra-judicial killings, and is the largest beneficiary of the war on drugs proceeds.
Before anyone goes ballistic about meth and all that stuff, review the numbers first: more than half of all anti-drug expenditures, from law enforcement to incarceration and everything in between, are focused solely on cannabis. Not because it's a particularly harmful drug, mind you... it's just low hanging fruit. The fact that cannabis stands alone as a non-toxic drug that's never directly killed anyone means we can talk about legalization, without getting into the infinitive argument about then having to legalize *all* currently illegal drugs.
Furthermore, cannabis is knowns to produce over 70 unique cannabinoids. The endocannabinoid receptor system is the single largest such system in our body, being found in virtually every type of tissue. All those keys... all those locks... Cannabis has already been clinically proven, in placebo controlled, double-blind trials, to have real value as medicine. This is a call for more research, not the Leonhardt-inspired violent attacks on cannabis users.
Sure, cannabis use causes problems. I don't deny that. But the damage from prohibition is a million times worse. Legalize it, regulate it, tax it if you feel it's necessary. But for God's sake at least stop violently attacking and incarcerating people for using the stuff!
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Worth Repeating
​By Ron Marczyk, R.N.
Health Education Teacher (Retired)
Did you see the medicinal cannabis science report in The New York Times on February 16?
In summary, the report says the great sense of euphoria and calm that many people report experiencing after prolonged exercise ("the runner's high") is not so much governed by the endorphins as "now an emerging field of neuroscience indicates that an altogether different neurochemical system within the body and brain, the endocannabinoid system, may be responsible for that feeling" of "pure happiness, elation, a feeling of unity with one's self and/or nature, endless peacefulness," and "inner harmony."
Ongoing discoveries, which are starting to dominate research on the endocannabinoid system, are validating the ancient stories of healing mind and body with this non-toxic plant.
Only as recently as 1992 did medical researchers discover this previously unknown, body-wide neurocellular receptor system that controls or regulates almost every function in the body, by apparently bringing the mind and body back to a state of homeostasis after being stressed by the environment. This system is the "wisdom of the body" that we all experience as the body "just knowing how to fix itself" after illness. This system is the very definition of wellness!
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/03/worth_repeating_bodys_own_cannabinoids_are_the_bli.php
Studies to Discover the Full Potential of Marijuana's Benefits
Already scientists, researchers and doctors have discovered a wide range of benefits unequaled by any other natural or chemical medication, ever. Period.
No other medication or herb offers relief from symptoms like these:
Relief of muscle spasms
Relief of chronic pain
Reduction in interlobular pressure inside the eye
Suppression of nausea
Weight loss - increase and restore metabolism
No other medication or herb offers treatment from a wide variety of diseases like these:
AIDS - Marijuana can reduce the nausea, loss of appetite, vomiting from the condition itself and the medications as well.
Glaucoma - Marijuana relieves the internal eye pressure of glaucoma, and therefore relieving the pain and slowing or even stopping the condition.
Cancer- Many side effects of the medication to stop cancer can be relieve with Marijuana, some studies suggest that Marijuana tends to slow down the progress of some types of cancer.
Multiple Sclerosis - Muscle pain, spasticity, tremors and unsteadiness are some of the effects caused by the disease that can be relieved by Marijuana.
Epilepsy - in some patients, epileptic seizures can be prevented with Marijuana use.
Chronic pain - Marijuana helps to alleviate the pain caused from many types of injuries and disorders.
Anxiety, Depression or Obsession - Even though mild anxiety is a common side effect in some users, cannabis can elevate your mood and expand the mind.
http://www.health-be.com/2011/05/is-marijuana-wonder-drug-that-could.html