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Learn the Business of I-28
Portlandsterdam University
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Obama Administration Ends Drug War
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april012009/leap_aprilfool_4-1-09.php
By Peter Christ of LEAP for Salem-News.com
Apr-01-2009 07:25
Kind of shocking isn't it? But then I read the body of the President's
new drug czar's press release. Former Seattle Police Chief and new head
man at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil
Kerlikowske admitted that the government had abdicated its' duty to the
citizens of our country by not just blocking, but in some cases hiding
evidence that clearly demonstrated our drug policies were based solely
on ideology and not science or legal jurisprudence.
As an example, Kerlilkowski said, "government studies have shown over
and over that marijuana is not a threat to civil or social order and is
in fact a safer intoxicant than alcohol."
As a former cop I could not help but think "it's about time." And as an
ex-cop that has been against our drug war for many years I was
overjoyed at the prospect that police officers would actually be freed
to perform their duties against real crime instead of chasing pot
smokers and troubled addicts. I knew that the Obama administration was
doing work toward reform but the text of this statement from our
nation's drug czar was just amazing.
Kerlikowski pointed out that some programs had begun almost immediately
upon Mr. Obama becoming President. Already our prison populations were
dropping due to the Stamper Commission’s recommendations (named for
it’s director, Chief Norm Stamper) to review criminal backgrounds of
offenders and to move them back into their communities…families were
being reunited and money previously spent on corrections facilities was
now being spent on job training and funding entrepreneur programs.
Needle exchanges were being funded. Marijuana was now neither legal nor
illegal. Rather it was left as an issue for each state to decide how
they wished to best handle cannabis in its' various forms - as
medicine, agri-industrial hemp and its' recreational use. Pot would be
managed on the same model alcohol operates under.
Little did anyone know how serious President Obama was when he said:
"Promoting science isn't just about providing resources, it is also
about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists
like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or
coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's
inconvenient especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring
that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a
political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts,
not ideology."
Well, I hate to say this... but... April Fools!
I wish that were all true, but the truth is "change" doesn't seem to be
the mantra we all thought and hoped it would be in regards to our
punitive Prohibition drug policies. Our moves towards "handling" the
violence now going on in Mexico calls for escalating the war as a war.
More aircraft, weapons, law enforcement personnel and now, soldiers,
will go to fighting a war we lost on the first day.
Prohibition hasn't worked since God told Adam and Eve "you can't eat
from that ONE tree. OK?" We know how that turned out and, well, if God
can't enforce Prohibition aren't we perhaps a bit delusional thinking
we can? I mean it hasn't worked well so far. Alcohol Prohibition only
took 13 years to end (so miserable were the consequences of that),
drugs Prohibition began over a century ago and drugs are everywhere.
And criminals control virtually every one of them and profit -- tax
free -- from them all.
Sadly the drug war won't end any day soon. More cops will die fighting
against the unending tide of illegal drugs or be swept up by the
temptations of corruption. More innocent civilians like Kathryn
Johnston of Atlanta or Patrick Dorismond, or Zeke Hernandez, or Tiffany
and Charity Bowers... will die, caught in the crossfire between the
peddlers of illegal drugs and the law.
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