Our nation's new chief of drug policy (I will not willfully use the term "Drug Czar," viewing it as I do a strange title for our country to be using), former Chief of the Seattle Police Department, Gil Kerlikowske appeared in print, speaking for the first time in an interview with the Wall Street Journal's Gary Fields.
While no John Walters (the Bush administration's head of the White House Office of No Drug Control Policy - who suffers from a severe case of Reefer Madness, the sure signs of which are rabid anti-cannabism and avoidance of public debate), Kerlikowske still wears the mantle of our nation's head Prohibitionist.
In Fields' article, White House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs', Mr. Kerlikowske sounds reasonable, for a professional Prohibitionist. He says many of the almost right things - support for needle exchange (even though the Obama administration did not remove the needle exchange ban in their budget proposal), dealing with addiction through treatment instead of incarceration...
But Chief Kerlikowske also said this:
"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."
Oh really?
I heartily disagree sir. What else would you call it other than "war" when the government willfully and maliciously lies to maintain a policy that has made our nation -- a nation founded upon deeper principle than just our Bill of Rights and Constitution -- the world's largest and most voracious jailer? I'll be damned if it is not a war, sir... It IS very much a war and we, the people, are the prisoners of this war, we are the dead from this war, we are the soldiers in this war and every dollar paying for this war comes directly from our pockets and takes food off our tables.
This war, sir, has rent the very fabric of our society, with parents taken from their children and children from their parents. This war, sir, has corrupted our police, our politics and our military... this war, sir, has us spraying poison on the crops, livestock, families, rivers and lands of some of the most impoverished farmers in the America's, in Colombia.
This war, sir, takes truth and buries it. This war mocks science and ignores compassion.
This War On (some) Drugs will lose that title no sooner than it deserves to lose it. For now, we will indeed call it a war. Until such time that drug policy reform advocates have a voice at the table -- your table -- we will oppose this war and fight against it, through peaceful petition and a continuing campaign of education.
There has been enough obfuscation and delay. Our government has done the studies and virtually every government study done has called for decriminalization or legalization of cannabis and a shift away from criminalizing addiction of the "harder" drugs. [See the Schaffer Online Library of Drug Policy's Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy page for a collection of government drugs studies.]
The distressing fact of our mounting toll of innocent civilian drug war deaths must be acknowledged, officially. Someone in government must provide some justification for deaths like that of Kathryn Johnston, an elderly Atlanta woman shot by narcotics officers in a no-knock raid based on a falsified warrant. The officers involved then planted cannabis (marijuana) at the scene in an attempt to cover up their error.
And perhaps Mr. Kerlikowske someone -- maybe you -- can tell us why patients who use cannabis as medicine are denied their right to say so in a federal courtroom. And perhaps whomever speaks to us on this topic can tell us why Peter McWilliams was killed through official cruelty (surely withholding life saving medicine qualifies as a working definition of cruelty) while awaiting his trial in federal court. Or perhaps justify the prosecution of Morro Bay, California's Charles Lynch.
Or even better Chief, explain the Supreme Court's made up "drugs exceptions" to the Constitution. The 4th Amendment to the Constitution is written in plain, easy to understand language. Nowhere does it say "except."
Oh, and Chief K... when we do get that place at the "official" drug policy table? Please make sure your criminal justice peers from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) have at least a couple of chairs reserved for them.
Thanks for listening. And if I can help... just ask.
News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Salem-News.com
Author: Allan Erickson
Contact: Salem-News.com
Copyright: 2009 Salem-News.com
Website: Life Under Gil Kerlikowske
While no John Walters (the Bush administration's head of the White House Office of No Drug Control Policy - who suffers from a severe case of Reefer Madness, the sure signs of which are rabid anti-cannabism and avoidance of public debate), Kerlikowske still wears the mantle of our nation's head Prohibitionist.
In Fields' article, White House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs', Mr. Kerlikowske sounds reasonable, for a professional Prohibitionist. He says many of the almost right things - support for needle exchange (even though the Obama administration did not remove the needle exchange ban in their budget proposal), dealing with addiction through treatment instead of incarceration...
But Chief Kerlikowske also said this:
"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."
Oh really?
I heartily disagree sir. What else would you call it other than "war" when the government willfully and maliciously lies to maintain a policy that has made our nation -- a nation founded upon deeper principle than just our Bill of Rights and Constitution -- the world's largest and most voracious jailer? I'll be damned if it is not a war, sir... It IS very much a war and we, the people, are the prisoners of this war, we are the dead from this war, we are the soldiers in this war and every dollar paying for this war comes directly from our pockets and takes food off our tables.
This war, sir, has rent the very fabric of our society, with parents taken from their children and children from their parents. This war, sir, has corrupted our police, our politics and our military... this war, sir, has us spraying poison on the crops, livestock, families, rivers and lands of some of the most impoverished farmers in the America's, in Colombia.
This war, sir, takes truth and buries it. This war mocks science and ignores compassion.
This War On (some) Drugs will lose that title no sooner than it deserves to lose it. For now, we will indeed call it a war. Until such time that drug policy reform advocates have a voice at the table -- your table -- we will oppose this war and fight against it, through peaceful petition and a continuing campaign of education.
There has been enough obfuscation and delay. Our government has done the studies and virtually every government study done has called for decriminalization or legalization of cannabis and a shift away from criminalizing addiction of the "harder" drugs. [See the Schaffer Online Library of Drug Policy's Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy page for a collection of government drugs studies.]
The distressing fact of our mounting toll of innocent civilian drug war deaths must be acknowledged, officially. Someone in government must provide some justification for deaths like that of Kathryn Johnston, an elderly Atlanta woman shot by narcotics officers in a no-knock raid based on a falsified warrant. The officers involved then planted cannabis (marijuana) at the scene in an attempt to cover up their error.
And perhaps Mr. Kerlikowske someone -- maybe you -- can tell us why patients who use cannabis as medicine are denied their right to say so in a federal courtroom. And perhaps whomever speaks to us on this topic can tell us why Peter McWilliams was killed through official cruelty (surely withholding life saving medicine qualifies as a working definition of cruelty) while awaiting his trial in federal court. Or perhaps justify the prosecution of Morro Bay, California's Charles Lynch.
Or even better Chief, explain the Supreme Court's made up "drugs exceptions" to the Constitution. The 4th Amendment to the Constitution is written in plain, easy to understand language. Nowhere does it say "except."
Oh, and Chief K... when we do get that place at the "official" drug policy table? Please make sure your criminal justice peers from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) have at least a couple of chairs reserved for them.
Thanks for listening. And if I can help... just ask.
News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Salem-News.com
Author: Allan Erickson
Contact: Salem-News.com
Copyright: 2009 Salem-News.com
Website: Life Under Gil Kerlikowske
