So, yesterday the big news was that the White House sent a memo out to the attorneys general in all the states where it’s legal to use medical marijuana. You might be thinking that if you’re not sick it doesn’t affect you, but you’d be wrong. It’s a step in the right direction, and every baby-step counts, people!

Besides the estimated 28 million people in this country that smoke pot (legally and otherwise), there’s a growing number of Americans who are waking up to the fact that marijuana isn’t the dangerous drug that they’ve been brainwashed into believing. In fact, a slim majority of Americans now believe that alcohol is a more dangerous drug than weed. Think about that.

Ultimately, public opinion is what will eventually make marijuana legal. If more and more people (whether they’re users or not) are realizing that pot isn’t a dangerous drug, then it follows that eventually more and more people are going to get fed up with seeing their tax dollars spent on fighting a losing battle. Even the White House gets this, based on this passage from yesterday’s memo:

“…prosecution of individuals with cancer or other serious illnesses who use marijuana as part of a recommended treatment regimen consistent with applicable state law, or those caregivers in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law who provide such individuals with marijuana, is unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources.”

In other words, the Obama administration thinks it’s a waste of federal dollars to fight medical marijuana – and it knows that most Americans think so too.

We should all let our government know that we support its decision regarding medical marijuana. Maybe it isn’t much, but it’s also one more way to let them know that the tide of public opinion in general is changing regarding marijuana laws.

Want to say “thank you” to President Obama? NORML has set up a page on their website that makes it easy to do just that. All you have to do is fill in your name & contact info (I suppose so that they can see what district you’re from).

To send an email to the White House, go here: http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=14205391

And while we’re at it, we should give NORML a big shout out too. It’s organizations like theirs that keep the fight moving forward.

In his long career in the U.S. Senate, John McCain’s support for the Drug War has never wavered. Campaigning for president in 2000, McCain’s positions were the most hawkish of the four major candidates, the Boston Globe reported. “He wants to increase penalties for selling drugs, supports the death penalty for drug kingpins, favors tightening security to stop the flow of drugs into the country, and wants to restrict availability of methadone for heroin addicts.”

This latter position was embodied in the “Addiction Free Treatment Act” that McCain introduced in the Senate in 1999, which called for defunding any drug program that used methadone, unless the program followed a restrictive set of guidelines.

McCain has criticized the former Clinton administration for going “AWOL on the war on drugs,” and has pushed tirelessly for greater military assistance to drug-exporting nations like Columbia.

In more recent activity, Senator McCain sponsored a a 2005 bill, “The Clean Sports Act,” mandating drug testing in all major professional sports leagues. And in 2006, McCain signed on to the “Safe Streets Act Amendment,” which called for federal grants to Indian tribes to fight methamphetamine addiction.

This year, “McCain met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss immigration, trade and the recently passed Merida Initiative, a $400 million U.S. aid package to help Mexico fight an increasingly bloody drug war that has claimed more than 1,800 lives this year.”

“Drugs are a big, big problem in America,” McCain said in a fact-finding trip to Columbia in July. “The continued flow of drugs from Colombia through Mexico into the United States is still one of our major challenges for all Americans.”

McCain’s response last year to a New Hampshire police officer’s question about the failure of the Drug War does not bode well for the prospects of responsible changes in drug awareness and addiction treatment in a McCain administration: “Look, I’ve heard the comparison between drugs and alcohol. I think most experts would say that in moderation, one or two drinks of alcohol does not have an effect on one’s judgment, mental acuity, or their physical abilities. I think most experts would say that the first ingestion of drugs leads to mind-altering and other experiences, other effects, and can lead over time to serious, serious problems."

A search of the McCain-Palin campaign website for the term “drug war” came up empty.

By: Dirk Hanson

About the Author:

There were so many things in this AP news release that had me rolling my eyes that I hardly know where to begin. It’s like, they took the facts and used misleading quotes to support a false conclusion. Here’s a good example in this quote by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the University of Mississippi study.:

"Particularly worrisome is the possibility that the more potent THC might be more effective at triggering the changes in the brain that can lead to addiction," Volkow said.

"Might be more effective…"? In the FIRST place, it’s yet to be proven that THC is effective at all in triggering these changes. To people who don’t know any better, statements like this only reinforce the anti-pot propaganda machine.

Here’s an excerpt that particularly pissed me off:

A report from the office last month found that a teenager who has been depressed in the past year was more than twice as likely to have used marijuana than teenagers who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent. The study said marijuana use increased the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent.

Gee, and I suppose that means that there is absolutely no connection at all between a teenager living in a fucked-up world and dealing with an inadequate educational system and and them WANTING to get high to find some relief?? To say that marijuana causes depression in teenagers is a COMPLETE cop-out that allows the government to avoid dealing with the real underlying issues of teen depression. But those would probably cost money to fix, so there’s no point in spending money on those kinds of studies, ‘eh?

One huge thing this news release fails to mention is that the potency level figure they came up with is an average derived from seized samples. It only takes a few potent samples to increase the average for the group, but that’s not proof that the average user is smoking super-potent weed. And besides – another thing this article fails to mention is that the average potency level of pot in European countries is much higher than here in the U.S., and they haven’t noticed an increase in any of the problems that the National Institute on Drug Abuse is trying to raise an alarm about.

It’s true that smoking pot can cause respiratory problems in a few people. That’s just common sense, because you’re smoking. But the fact is, when you’re smoking potent pot you’re probably going to smoke less – just like you do when you’re drinking alcohol. No one would drink the same volume of vodka or whiskey as they would beer, for instance. They’d pass out well before then, for one thing. So when you’re smoking the good stuff, you just smoke less, DUH. So instead of interpreting the information in this study as proof that THC is bad for you, all it means to me is that smoking pot is safer than ever!