Bush targets marijuana smokers (Guardian UK)

[Liberal Classic]

Never let it be said that I never posted anything critical of the Bush Administration.

Bush targets marijuana smokers

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1268654,00.html

Richard Luscombe in Miami
Sunday July 25, 2004
The Observer

New super-strength marijuana readily available on US streets is prompting the White House to change direction in its war against drugs.

Research from the government-sponsored Marijuana Potency Project claims today's cannabis is more than twice as strong as in the mid-Eighties, leading to greater health risks for those smoking it at increasingly younger ages.

Now President George Bush, who had already promised a more aggressive campaign against substance abuse, has ordered that resources be allocated to fighting so-called 'soft' drugs instead of concentrating on harder forms, such as heroin and cocaine.

Things that make you go 'hmm.'

:eyes:

[Sugarbleus]

1. The man called Kerry a flip flopper....?

Indeed, 'Things that make you go, hmmm'..

We gonna do this today, then we gonna turn around and do dat toomarra.

Geeeeeez

[AndyTiedye]

2. They Already Diverted Resources from Fighting Terrorism to This

incuding most of the fighter jets that used to prevent things like
what happened on 9/11. Asscroft sent those jets to look for pot
smugglers instead in mid 2001. Perhaps if those jets had still been
on duty on 9/11/2001, the towers might still be standing today,
and 3000 people might still be alive.

In 2002 and 2003, he also took time off from looking for terrorists to
arrest cancer patients and other medical marijuana users in California.

They now propose to divert even more resources to this!?!?!

[Liberal Classic]

6. I don't like to play the 'what if' game too much

It's all too easy to look back with hindsight and demand what "should" have been done. What we *can* do, however, is change what we're doing now.

I've always believed in a strong correlation between the black market and the profitability of smuggling. The enormous profit motive enticing people to defeat border security could be lessened if we changed our domestic drug policy. Similarly, we could also reduce the number of people trying to get across by easing immigration restrictions and allowing guest workers to enter at the border crossings. If we can reduce the sheer number of people trying to defeat border security, and lessen the profitability associated with the smuggling of people or drugs across the border, these things could make the job of customs and the border patrol of keeping terrorists out easier in the long run. If drugs and guest workers came through at the border crossings, they can be searched for explosives and radioactivity. People's identities can be checked. And anyone sneaking across the desert while armed can be pretty much assumed to be up to no good, and dealt with in the strongest possible methods. Given the amount of drugs and the number of people making it inside the borders, it would seem clear to me our borders are highly porous and any sense that the border is secure against terrorists is no better than fiction.

Though this article is critical of the Bush Administration and the Republicans are well known for characterizing the 'drug war' in the same black and white terms as the 'war on terror', it is not just the Republicans who are on the wrong side of this issue. It's important to note neither the Clinton Administration nor Janet Reno's justice department were sympathetic to the issue, whether we're talking about legal challenges or ballot initiatives.

[slutticus]

3. In my experience....

....the stronger weed makes me smoke LESS than I did before. One hit and I'm golden.

I don't get the greater health risks... :shrug:

On Edit: I am not advocating the use of illeagal substances...i'm just sayin'...

[Liberal Classic]

7. I certianly don't support drug abuse

But I am sceptical of the findings of the "government-sponsored Marijuana Potency Project." Somehow I just don't believe they're impartial. The government has made this same argument since the nineteen seventies, that the evil weed of today contains massively strong doses as compared with the evil weed of the happy go-lucky past.

[TX-RAT]

8. that the evil weed of today contains massively strong doses?

Obviously they never smoked any of the Thia-Sticks in Vietnam.
Sure made guard duty interesting.

[slackmaster]

10. Strong sinsemilla was available as far back as I can remember

People who figured out how to cull male plants and had the restraint to not harvest too early have always had access to strong weed. When I was in my teens there were occasional Thai sticks available, also Hawaiian pot, strong Mexican and Colombian, and hashish.

[Liberal Classic]

11. And hashish is not what I'd call a new invention

On the other hand, I'm not saying that hydroponically grown plants aren't more potent than ditch weed, and that people can't get in trouble with either. As I said to another poster, I do not encourage drug abuse and do not say that marijuana is harmless. I do however think it is important to question the methodology of the University of Mississippi's Marijuana Potency Project, and that if they're operating under a grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, that there might be pressure from the government for them to release figures which supports the government's case.

Even assuming that the Marijuana Potency Project's figures are correct in every way, do the figures justify diverting taxpayer monies and law enforcement manpower away from fighting distributors of amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin in order to combat marijuana use?

[slackmaster]

9. They assume that people can't or don't titrate their dosage

In proportion to the strength of whatever type they're smoking.

That assumption is not supported by research. Way back in the '70s there were some studies that showed pretty strong evidence that experienced users are aware of how high they are getting when smoking cannabis, and self-limit their dosage. Inexperienced users and people who eat rather than smoke the stuff are more likely to take enough that they regret it.

[slackmaster]

4. As if I needed one more reason to want him OUT of there

:hippie:

[D-Notice]

5. Priorities

Now President George Bush, who had already promised a more aggressive campaign against substance abuse, has ordered that resources be allocated to fighting so-called 'soft' drugs instead of concentrating on harder forms, such as heroin and cocaine.

I guess this shows that the CIA makes more $$$$ off smack & coke than grass...

[goju]

12. There should be funds allocated

toward stupidity research. I really thought we were passed all this crap. Of all the things that can occupy chief executive time, is weed really that big of an issue?

I dont condone smoking it either but I cant imagine a bigger waste of time and money. Its a joint, not a nukular bomb!

[Liberal Classic]

14. RE: waste of time and money

Law enforcement can only patrol so many man-hours, and the taxpayers can only pay so much. Limits exist on the number of things our police and federal investigators can realistically achieve in any one year. It would make sense to me as a layman that if money were being diverted anywhere, it would to be to the "war on terror."

edit typo

[NorthernSpy]

13. it's like complaining that whiskey is stronger than beer...

... and then trying to justify Prohibition on that irrelevant basis.

If the marijuana of today were weaker, we would see a redoubled effort to control it for just that reason. We would be reading scary news reports of people having to smoke more and more to achieve the desired effects -- and inhaling more lung-damaging combustion particles in the process.

Anything can be advertised as a crisis, and the ensuing 'war' against the supposed crisis inevitably becomes the basis for a further transfer of rights and power from the citizen to the almighty state.


Mary