PUBLIC FORUM : SOME READERS FEEL VIEWS ON DRUG USE ARE CHANGING.The passage of Proposition 215 and the defeat of Proposition 205 signify a change of attitude toward drugs. The votes on the propositions do not indicate that attitudes toward drugs are softening. They are, however, becoming more realistic. There is a drug problem in America. However, building more prisons and keeping illegal the beneficial uses of certain drugs because they are recreationally abused are not the answers. The yes vote on Proposition 215 indicates that people realize that marijuana may have a medicinal benefit and it is wrong to make the use for such a purpose illegal. The no vote on Proposition 205 indicates that people realize that punishment is not the best strategy to fight illicit drug illicit drug Street drug, see there use. Overall, the votes reflect a more rational approach to the drug problem. - Steven Fujita Woodland Hills We have been fighting a war on drugs for over 30 years, longer than we've fought alcohol, Nazis and the North Vietnamese North Vietnam A former country of southeast Asia. It existed from 1954, after the fall of the French at Dien Bien Phu, to 1975, when the South Vietnamese government collapsed at the end of the Vietnam War. It is now part of the country of Vietnam. combined. Where are we today? We have wasted over $1.5 billion fighting drugs. While each year illegal drugs directly kill about 4,000 people, the fact that they are illegal leads to crime that kills 10 times that many and wounds or affects the lives of 100 times that many. Our prisons and jails are bursting at the seams. Our court system is clogged. Racial tensions are high because crack cocaine crimes are punished much more severely than crimes involving powder cocaine or speed. I have to fill out extra paperwork at the bank to prove my cash deposit is not drug money. I can go to a job interview while hung over, but if I test positive for pot, I will not be hired. For being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I can be shot by gangbangers or hassled by cops. Through the highest law in the land, a constitutional amendment, we once tried to ban alcohol. It took us a dozen years to learn that all we got for the effort was bad booze, the rattle of tommy guns and the rise of organized crime. People have been clogging their minds with chemicals since long before Jesus turned water into wine. The parents of today, from President Clinton on down, are the beer-guzzling, pot-smoking, acid-dropping, pill-pushing college students of the late '60s and '70s. What moral authority can Bill and Hillary have when they speak to their daughter? How many more millions of dollars and thousands of lives are going to waste? Stop the ``crime'' war and turn the fight over to the departments of health and education. - Woodrow J. Hughes Northridge The ``War on Drugs'' has been lost. This insane ``war'' is ruining our cities, filling our prisons and squandering squan·der tr.v. squan·dered, squan·der·ing, squan·ders 1. To spend wastefully or extravagantly; dissipate. See Synonyms at waste. 2. billions of dollars while trampling our civil rights and using forfeitures to destroy our freedoms. Prohibition ended in defeat and repeal. The war against drugs has lasted 30 years and is destroying our nation. The answer to drugs is not legalization LEGALIZATION. The act of making lawful. 2. By legalization, is also understood the act by which a judge or competent officer authenticates a record, or other matter, in order that the same may be lawfully read in evidence. Vide Authentication. ; it is regulation, control and taxation. Just as we could not stop people from using alcohol, it is not possible to stop them from using certain drugs. The only people opposed to placing drugs under prescription laws are the Mafia, smugglers, dealers, corrupt government and police officials, and others who rely on massive bribes and payoffs. When all drugs are placed under prescription control and regulated, the drug cartels, the crooked cops and public officials and their Mafia connections will fade away Verb 1. fade away - become weaker; "The sound faded out" dissolve, fade out change state, turn - undergo a transformation or a change of position or action; "We turned from Socialism to Capitalism"; "The people turned against the President when he stole the . - George Grey George Grey may refer to:
Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. Attitudes toward drugs are not softening. What is happening is public awareness is growing - growing tired of having our body fluids, homes and cars searched, having our property confiscated con·fis·cate tr.v. con·fis·cat·ed, con·fis·cat·ing, con·fis·cates 1. To seize (private property) for the public treasury. 2. To seize by or as if by authority. See Synonyms at appropriate. adj. without ever being charged with a crime. America has become the No. 1 jailer of its citizens, and prisons continue to be built. The most destructive drugs are legal. The saddest part is, people on both sides of the issue want the same things: less drug abuse and a better country. We just disagree on how. Can we not agree that the drug war is lost? Does anybody remember the violence and black market of alcohol prohibition? The Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was established in 1973 by President richard m. nixon as part of the Justice Department, thus uniting a number of federal drug agencies that had often worked at cross-purposes. has become quite a cottage industry cottage industry: see sweating system. ; does it want drug use to decline? Only through education will people know how stupid drug abuse is, but in a free society, I should be able to harm my own body if I choose. Our Constitution slowly dies but hypocrisy lives on. - Anthony Stengel Glendale Legalizing of drugs is one thing that the extreme left and the extreme right agree on. They are both for it. The extreme right believes in ``hands-off'' capitalism and that the market will control itself. It wants no government intervention. The extreme left believes that organic drugs found in nature can be useful. It believes we can experiment. The government, being moderate in all ways, wants drugs to remain illegal. To further this, the Carter administration's drug czar The term Drug Czar is an informal title that can mean: United States Between 1973 and 1988, several ad hoc executive positions were established that the press termed "Drug Czar". tried to legitimate the term ``recreational drug rec·re·a·tion·al drug n. A drug used nonmedically for personal enjoyment. recreational drug Substance abuse Any agent–most have significant psychotropic effects–used without medical indications or use'' and make a distinction between ``hard'' and ``soft'' drug use. That action eliminates the possibility of having realistic discussion of America's drug problem. ``Just say no'' orthodoxy does not work, say the left and right. And so, too, should the middle. - Craig L. Kysar Sherman Oaks The passage of Proposition 215 reflects the true affection and generosity of the American people toward each other and perhaps also reflects their gullibility. The pro-Proposition 215 campaign didn't tell the public that a medically useful cannabin can·na·bin n. A resinous material extracted from cannabis. [cannab(is) + -in.] Noun 1. identical to one of the natural active ingredients in marijuana was already available by prescription as Marinol. Marinol has the same effects as the natural cannabis and can be given to those who need marijuana for medical purposes with none of the harmful effects of the smoke produced by burning the marijuana leaf. Had the public been aware of this, the results of the voting might have been quite different. I do not believe that the passage of Proposition 215 is a signal that the public's attitude toward drugs is softening. I believe that through the passage of Proposition 215, the public is telling the medical profession to provide better pain control for the terminally ill Terminally Ill When a person is not expected to live more than 12 months. Notes: Any gifts given out by the afflicted person at this time may be considered as a dispersion of the estate rather than a gift. . Unfortunately, the voters have now made the physician's effort to provide such medicine to appropriate patients more difficult, rather than easier. - Melvin H. Kirschner, M.D. Van Nuys I am a care-giver to a person living with AIDS and HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. for 13 years now. Prior to his smoking pot, he was very depressed and weighed 123 pounds. Hospitalization due to depression, and related drugs, cost Medicare and Medi-Cal - the taxpayer - over $40,000 in a three-year period, with no real improvement. Since smoking pot, less than one ounce a month, he now weighs 165 pounds. To obtain pot he must do business with the local gang. He pages them and pot is promptly delivered, always good quality. He does about the same when ordering his regular prescriptions. He is at home 99 percent of the time, due mainly to financial reasons - it takes almost all of his money to eat healthily and maintain weight. We would love to break the ties in dealing with the gang and go through the cannabis buyers club The Cannabis Buyers Club was the first public medical marijuana dispensary. It opened in February 1994 at 194 Church Street in San Francisco, California, founded by Proposition 215 coauthors "Brownie Mary" Rathburn, Dennis Peron, Dale Gieringer, with Beth Moore, Jon Entwhistle, , but his name would be ``on the list.'' The feds could put him in jail with other hardened criminals, put him back on expensive anti-depressants, tranquilizers and anti-AIDS drugs while feeding him bologna sandwiches and bean burritos. Yes, the voters have spoken. Until such a time that AIDS and cancer are cured, let the patients live their life. - W. McMahon Los Angeles The voters of California and Arizona have declared the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is legal. Now comes federal drug czar Barry McCaffrey saying, essentially, that any person in pain caught with a prescribed joint will be arrested. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , he demands that sick people suffer. Our attitudes toward hard drugs have not softened; we are just tired of government meddling med·dle intr.v. med·dled, med·dling, med·dles 1. To intrude into other people's affairs or business; interfere. See Synonyms at interfere. 2. To handle something idly or ignorantly; tamper. in our private lives. The answer to the legal quandary is simple: Redirect your priorities. Go after the gangbangers and other violent criminals. By leaving pot smokers alone, you will not need all of those extra prisons and even have room for real criminals. - John King North Hills Now that baby boomers are turning gray, I'm hoping that there is a substantial contingent of citizens who, rather than ``going soft'' on drugs, are instead voting for public policy that shows a more accurate view of drugs: a view that recognizes and discriminates between different drugs - and a view about marijuana that continues to attract highly visible opinions saying that the decriminalization decriminalization n. the repeal or amendment (undoing) of statutes which made certain acts criminal, so that those acts no longer are crimes or subject to prosecution. of any tenet of law in its regard will lead to disaster. I'm thinking that this substantial contingent believes otherwise. Surely no one is claiming any medicinal benefit for tobacco products. Neither are they likely to be declared illegal. Twentieth century public policy about marijuana has promoted biased, erroneous and inaccurate views about this substance for a long time. Arguably, both tobacco and alcoholic beverages are more dangerous and addictive than marijuana, and there is considerable evidence to support the position that the magnitude of social and health liabilities from alcohol and tobacco use are far greater. There is a need for accurate discrimination between substances in our public policy, which has long been missing. To include the relatively benign substance of marijuana in the same group with others such as crack, cocaine, amphetamines Amphetamines Sympathomimetic amines; sometimes called speed; synthetic chemicals that stimulate the central nervous system. Mentioned in: Weight Loss Drugs amphetamines , barbiturates Barbiturates Definition Barbiturates are medicines that act on the central nervous system and cause drowsiness and can control seizures. Purpose , heroin, etc., is a pitiful and disastrous mistake. For our youths, who are immersed in the teachings of current public policy, the failure to discriminate and reclassify Verb 1. reclassify - classify anew, change the previous classification; "The zoologists had to reclassify the mollusks after they found new species" class, classify, sort out, assort, sort, separate - arrange or order by classes or categories; "How would you can have a tragic and devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. effect. Insistence that marijuana be classified the same as more dangerous drugs is actually a roadblock to the development of any effective policy. Until Proposition 215, the inaccurate view has prevailed. It may yet continue to prevail. I hope not. I care about our kids. I don't want us to get soft on drugs - just smarter. I'm happy, albeit somewhat surprised, to see that Proposition 215 was voted to an intelligent decision. - Stephen E. Fowler Simi Valley CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Reefer reef·er n. Marijuana, especially a marijuana cigarette. madness or pragmatic pain relief? |
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