Drug Policy
Related: About this forumOR Rep Blumenauer verbally destroys US Deputy Director of Drug Policy (!!) -- VIDEO
OMG - I have a new favorite House Rep.
Witness Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer shred the US Deputy Director of Drug Policy for our decades long policy of the failed Just Say No campaign telling people that "pot = heroin = equally bad, so just abstain".
Our young people today are way less likely to smoke tobacco or drink, but are experimenting with heroin of all things (!) and in alarming numbers. Allow me to paraphrase his anger/frustration at this equivocation:
If a joint is "just as" dangerous as a needle, why not give both a try, right?
Deputy Director tried to justify that he was responding to the concerns of parents who had lost a child to a drug overdose - but that was Representative Blumenauer's point from his opening remarks - our current federal policy equivocates drugs that cannot be OD'd on (cannabis) as being equally dangerous to those that can - so what is deterring them from trying it all?
This video is a keeper for me as a reminder about the criticality of the drug awareness and education messaging that needs to be out there - whether MMJ is legal in the state or not. Dude nailed it.
Bravo Sir, Bravo.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,318 posts)To respond to the closing remarks - Dear Sir, in the offchance you missed the remarks from the Representative because you were too busy formulating your responses in your head, let me make this clear - the drug issue you describe was CAUSED by YOUR OWN AGENCY and its lack of properly educating the public over the last 4-7 decades (or however long you all have presided over Just Say No). You own this. 'Abstinence education' led to a dramatic rise in abortions before saner policies took root. Learn from that and save our young people the unnecessary trauma.
Uncle Joe
(60,200 posts)he couldn't even cite any, but at least tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands have died from prescription drug overdoses
The reason the Deputy Director couldn't answer the parents' questions as to why medical marijuana should be legalized with all the damage caused by prescription drugs is because 70+ years with the DEA leading the way, the American People have been lied to and brainwashed with bullshit propaganda.
Thanks for the thread, Ruby The Liberal.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)not marijuana.
That's the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard - using parents who kids abuse medicine the parents get from their doctors and then try to blame marijuana.
That's that stupid cone dipped in stupid with stupid sprinkles on top.
C. Everett Koop knew how to deal with this sort of thing - which is what Blumenauer was getting at with cigarettes - and it's done by ACCURATE, factual information, not the bullshit these agencies have relied upon to pay their salaries all these years.
Taylor Branch wrote about this at one point... I excerpted some in a post about Schmoke - but am not feeling well enough to hunt it down. maybe Ruby can be the google liberal, too.
Uncle Joe
(60,200 posts)Stryst
(714 posts)My mother told me that pot was just as addictive and dangerous as pot, all while sucking down barbiturates as fast as the doctors would give them to her. In that kind of environment, when you're told that and you try pot and it doesn't kill you or make you instantly addicted, then why not try heroin?