Thursday, September 16, 2010

Another Kerlikowske absurdity: Discussion of medical marijuana is leading to more teenage marijuana use

Commenting on the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health on 2009 data, ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske says

"I can absolutely not rule out this constant discussion of so-called medical marijuana, marijuana legalization and the downplaying of marijuana harms that is prevalent in the media,"
according to Businessweek/Bloomberg, is the cause of an increase in marijuana use among teens aged 12 to 17.

In his silence, he tries to rule out the fact that ONDCP's Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign has been found -- repeatedly by ONDCP's own contractors and the GAO -- to have been counterproductive in reducing teen drug use. Nevertheless, Director Kerlikowske asked for $21.5 million more for this program in 2011 than in 2010.

In Kerlikowske land, he omits to mention the fact that the Federal government's Safe and Drug Free Schools Program was so effective, the ONDCP proposed that it be completely eliminated in FY 2011.

Isn't it more plausible that drug education -- or miseducation -- programs which have been proven to be failures might have something to do with an increase in the use of marijuana?

Teenage marijuana use went down for many years as more and more states passed medical marijuana laws starting in 1996. Medical marijuana and its advocacy have nothing to do with teenage marijuana use.

How does he explain the increase in teenage initiation of tobacco? Medical tobacco use?

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

PRISONS FOR PROFIT FOR PROHIBITION:

One in every hundred Americans is now locked behind bars and one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As the prison population is growing faster than the government can build prisons, private companies see an opportunity for profit.

The US government's outsources prisons and prisoners to the private sector. It is therefor in the interest of this sector to forcibly stand in the way of any criminal justice reform that would cut into their revenue, even if this results in sacrificing public safety or citizens rights.

Here's a transcript of a 2008 PBS special:

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/419/transcript.html

Though the average citizen does not know it, they very likely invest in the Prison-Industrial-Complex through the purchase of stock in the more than 2000 mutual funds in operation, as these derive at least some of their profits from inmate labor or prison construction. Companies such as Disney, General Electric, American Express, TWA, and Microsoft all make a portion of their profits from this industry

http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/The_Corporate_Prison__The_Prod_of_Crime_and_the_Sale_of_Discipline.pdf

The following link will show you the very close relationship between Prohibition and the Prison-Industrial-Complex:

http://www.hermes-press.com/prisons_drugs.htm

The fact is, prison-for-profit prohibitionists don't care! They don't care that, historically, the prohibition of any mind altering substance has never succeeded. They don't care that America has the highest percentage of it's citizens incarcerated of any country in the history of the planet. They don't care about spawning far worse conditions than those they claim to be alleviating. These despotic imbeciles are actually quite happy to create as much mayhem as possible. After all, it's what fills their prisons and gets them elected.

Here's what the UK Economist Magazine thinks of us: "Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little" http://www.economist.com/node/16636027

Here is a list of the organizations opposing proposition 19 - the legalized regulation of recreational cannabis for adults in California this November.

Calif. District Attorney Investigators’ Assoc.,
San Bernardino,CA,92415
$1,000.00
2010-05-08

Peace Officers Assoc. of Los Angeles County.
Los Angeles,CA,90012
$5,000.00
2010-06-03

Calif. Police Chiefs Assoc.
Sacramento,CA,95814
$30,000.00
2010-06-14

Calif. Peace Officers Assoc.
Sacramento,CA,95815
$5,000.00
2010-06-30

Calif. Narcotic Officers’ Assoc.
Santa Clarita,CA,91355
$20,500.00
2010-07-13

http://projects.latimes.com/prop19/

ChristMotForbud said...

In the midst of my latest rant, um, mini-sermon, I read a similar quote attributed to Leonhart, "What worries me is that we have seen–after years of stabilization of drug use–a spike," Leonhart said. "I believe that spike is directly related to all the conversation we are now hearing about the legalization of drugs."

There are two things I see here:
1. Typical hatred of free-speech from those who have been doing their darnedest to stifle (or pervert) science, free-speech, and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, religious or not.

2. As has been the case with the prohibitionists, they overlook the obvious in order to force their skewed world-view on us. This was evident in national alcohol prohibition too.

As far as I'm concerned the reason for any "spike" (real or not) in drug use is entirely due to those running the black market, they know good and well us "legalizers" have their profits in our targets and we fully aim to remove them sooner rather than later: they corrupt government, they corrupt corporations, and many other ills. Those profits are the reason for a "400% rise in heroin use in Wisconsin" (link to PBS video). Those profits are the reason pushers are trying to get 10-year-olds hooked on heroin in Ireland.

Kerlikowske, Leonhart, Sabet, Walters, and their ilk have become masters of spin and deception. They realize that we have a conscience, unlike them, so they try to get us to feel guilty about their failures. This is exactly how sicko wife-beaters, child-abusers, and other twisted minds operate. They blame others for their glaring deficiencies.