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JnEverett

Federal official criticizes marijuana ballot issue
11-04-06 l Sioux City Journal

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- A medical marijuana ballot issue in South Dakota is being supported by people who want to legalize drugs, a top federal drug official said Friday.

John Walters, director of National Drug Control Policy in Washington, said people who have been trying to legalize marijuana are exploiting the suffering of genuinely sick people to further their political ends.

South Dakota would join 11 other states that allow some medical patients to smoke marijuana to ease their pain and other medical problems if voters approve Initiated Measure 4 on Tuesday.

Diseases and conditions that would be covered include: cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS, severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, severe or persistent muscle spasms and multiple sclerosis. The state Department of Health also could approve other medical conditions.

Valerie Hannah of Deerfield, who smokes marijuana to help ease chronic pain, said Walters' comments are without merit and amount to last-minute scare tactics.

"I'm one of those people who have been trying to get this drug legalized for those sick people," said Hannah, who served in the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s and was exposed to chemical weapons that are basically causing her nerves to dissolve.

She called marijuana "an innocuous and harmless weed" and that drug officials' statements about the ballot issue have "just gotten really silly."

In a release, Walters said the Food and Drug Administration, the American Medical Association, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society do not support the smoked form of marijuana as medicine.

Walters said there are more teenagers in treatment for marijuana dependence than for all other illegal drugs combined. The Office of National Drug Control Policy release did not provide figures on teenage treatment.

"Marijuana is a much more harmful drug than many Americans realize," he said.

But Hannah said in the 11 states that have legalized the substance, marijuana use among teens has gone down 15 percent to 45 percent, depending on the state. She said that in Rhode Island, where the Legislature approved medical marijuana, only one incident of abuse was reported among 136 people who registered for the substance in a year.

That person was prosecuted, just as what would happen in South Dakota if anything went wrong, she said.

 

king cola

How many of those teens were arrested for the marijuana or caught with marijuana by their parents before going to treatment classes?

Some of us know that when someone gets arrested for marijuana their first time they go to a drug/alcohol class so they have a clean record after, once the class is complete and they stay out of trouble for a year it's off their court record and if they get caught a second time it's more of like their first offense but charges will stick and they could get punished. When some parents catch their teens smoking pot and they are under 18 years of age they could make them go to rehab for treatment. Then drug czars like John Walters takes that percentage of people that went to rehab for marijuana and throw it in the publics face and don't mention why a lot of these people are in treatment for marijuana. They make statements but don't explain and stop short of facts.

xxdr_zombiexx

Hooo-doggies.....This is pretty much the state of where the movement is: The Feds have the cash and the media access to lie effortlessly. They just repeat the same crap over and over (bullshit is a renewable resource). They hire and appoint professional liars.

There is no need to waste breath refuting the ONDCP propaganda and this lady has approached it right: she called it silly, which is a polite start in the right direction.

"Bullshit" is more the retort, than any sort of effort to debunk the propaganda.

A proper rant to lay out would go like this:And then move on to talk about OUR talking points.

Bush appointed John Walters over howls of protest: Walters is just one more mid-level incompetent, lying GOP crony appointed by the Great Decider(tm). He has that down to an art.

There is simply no need to engage in "debate". The focus should be on totally dismissing what "they say" as quickly and damagingly as possible, then jump the focus onto OUR message.

All the talk of studies and more studies is a stonewall ploy and must be rejected. Logical discourse isn't going to make the difference many people hope it will: this is specifically because reefer madness, just like the propaganda of the war on terror, is built on lies and emotions, like fear. Instead of making people fearful, we should make them angry: anger motivates and fear inhibits.

Motivate people.

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.