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Guest Column: Just say no to elected drug warriors

By Allmand Allen | June 12, 2004 | amarillo.com

TULSA, Okla. - The so-called War on Drugs is far more dangerous than illegal drugs themselves.
The danger of illegal drugs lies in their prohibition, which artificially inflates their value and gives criminals and terrorists alike a means of raising substantial untaxable and untraceable funds.

It corrupts our police, clogs our courts and clouds the minds of politicians as they try not to appear "soft on drugs."

The moral ideology of the drug warriors has created a blind spot that allows them to justify jailing the sick and dying.

Precious federal and state law enforcement resources are wasted pursuing medical marijuana cooperatives that are legal under state law. They will not allow science or facts to interfere with their jihad against illegal drugs in general and marijuana in particular, even though every major study of drug policy has concluded that the consequences of drug prohibition are far more dangerous and harmful to the population than the illegal drugs themselves.

The First Amendment does not matter either. U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., inserted a provision into a recently passed federal funding bill ordering that no federal funds go to transit systems that run any ad that "promotes the legalization or medical use of" any drug listed in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.

The same bill authorized $145 million of our tax dollars to fight medical marijuana advocacy. Fortunately, a federal judge ruled this provision as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech, but how many tax dollars were wasted defending this indefensible position?

Finally, the drug warriors' ideology allows them to misrepresent the facts and even lie to justify their position.

Claims of dramatically increased potency of marijuana causing addiction among the youth of America are patently false. Marijuana potency has increased only marginally since the 1980s, according to the federal Potency Monitoring Project.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, there is no scientific evidence that marijuana that is more potent leads to greater levels of dependence.

Because any use of marijuana is seen as abuse in the eyes of the law, drug court diversion programs that force marijuana users into treatment artificially inflate the treatment numbers. This increase in adults and youth in treatment is then used by the government as proof that marijuana is dangerous and addictive. This is a Catch 22 Kurt Vonnegut would be proud of.

Good citizenship requires active participation in the process of democratic government. In his June 5 guest column, "War on drugs is a losing battle for America," Billy Mosteller of Canyon challenges you to use facts rather than ideology to make up your minds about the drug war and asks that you contact your representatives and share your opinions.

Without feedback, these elected officials will see their own bias and blind spots as truth and feel no need to change the status quo.

Allmand Allen, an energy conservation and renewable resources engineer in Tulsa, Okla., is an anti-prohibitionist, citizen activist and anti-drug war advocate.

[Suetaznote: Another excellent column that needs to be passed around and read by everyone. He says, "Without feedback, these elected officials will see their own bias..." Certain elected officials ignore the feedback and avoid it as much as possible. This is why it is neccessary to write to your representative and give them as much 'feedback' as possible! If they are bombarded with 'feedback' they won't be able to ignore us.]

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