Jared Polis Wants To Know... Is Heroin Worse For Someone's Health Than Marijuana?

Jared Polis (D-CO) has been an eloquent advocate for marijuana decriminalization. Last week he grilled Obama's clueless DEA Administrator, Michele Leonhart, over the relative health impacts of marijuana versus other drugs. She was either unwilling or unable to answer even the most simple questions Polis asked her about the relative dangers to public health posed by marijuana and much more addictive substances, like speed and prescription drugs. It may seem funny... but it isn't. Leonhart's idiocy-- i.e., the Obama Administration's idiocy-- is a dangerous throwback to a failed policy agenda that predates even Nixon's tragic 1971 declaration of a "war on drugs" and goes back to 1937, when America's richest man-- Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon-- got the Marijuana Transfer Tax Act passed so that he could destroy the hemp industry for the sake of a new synthetic he had invested heavily in-- with his fascist buddies at DuPont: nylon, whose success was dependent on its replacing hemp.

When I was 15 I hitchhiked to California from New York and, at one point, wound up in Colorado in a van with a bunch of longhaired pre-hippie pot smokers. I was aghast because I had been taught in school that marijuana was the same as heroin and that if you used it you would die. I think my experience with the Colorado pre-hippies undermined my faith in authority. They didn't die. In fact, they were the happiest, coolest people I had ever met. If school was lying about that, what else were they lying about? Without that chance meeting in the early 1960s, there might not even be a DWT today; I could be working in a bank! After a few days, I started getting high with the pre-hippies.

When I got back to Brooklyn I couldn't find any pot. But then I remembered what I learned in school: marijuana was the same as heroin. Heroin was easy to find under the el near Dubrow's on Kings Highway and 16th Street. Fortunately, for me, it's easier to kick a heroin addiction when you're 15 than when you get older.

This 1936 anti-pot propaganda movie (below) is still driving policy today-- even if public attitudes have shifted dramatically. It apparently had a big influence on anti-marijuana warrior Buck McKeon, a reactionary California Republican and Mormon fanatic who spends his time gambling in Vegas casinos-- running up gigantic debts that put him in hock to mobsters like Sheldon Adelson-- while preaching against the sinful marijuana vice. Fortunately, Buck's on his last leg and his likely successor is a progressive young physician who embraces science and has a different way of looking at drug problems than McKeon does. Rogers, director of L.A.'s prestigious Amputation Prevention Center at Valley Presbyterian Hospital:

"As a doctor, I usually look at our drug problems through a different lens. I frequently encounter patients addicted to prescription or illegal drugs. There is plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that marijuana, or it's active ingredient THC, should be moved from a DEA Schedule I drug to a Schedule II drug. Schedule I drugs are classified by the Controlled Substances Act as those that have no accepted medical use in the United States. That's simply not true of marijuana. Patients with chronic pain, cancer, or those who are terminally ill, have improved quality of life and pain relief when using the drug in any of it's forms. Doctors should have access to this medication when a patient would benefit. Even cocaine is a Schedule II drug because it's effective as an anesthetic and to stop nose bleeds. Additionally, as a society, we have to realize that drug addiction is a health problem. Health problems are not best treated in the penal system. We can accomplish the goals of rehabilitation and save money by keeping people out of prisons for non-violent drug offenses, and instead treating them medically at a fraction of the cost."

Lee Rogers has been endorsed by the Blue America PAC. Buck McKeon, of course, hasn't. If you'd like to contribute to Rogers' congressional campaign, you can do so here.




COMING UP AT 9PM PT: WHAT NOW AFTER THE
SUPREMES' BOLD AFFIRMATION OF CITIZENS UNITED?

Sorry, I meant to have this ready for 6pm PT, but I've gotten backed up pulling stuff together. So I'll have my post up at 9pm PM. -- Ken

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