The MarijuanaNews Report:

By Richard Cowan

“The phrase ‘Won't somebody please think of the children?’ is a running gag on The Simpsons, most often spoken by the character Helen Lovejoy, the minister's wife.”
-From a Wikipedia article about logical fallacies.

The main purpose of the Drug War is supposedly the protection of children, so it is not surprising that the DEA uses a portion of its vast budget to target young Americans with “drug education.”

Just Think Twice is the DEA’s slick new Web site that is desperately trying to be hip, or cool, or whatever. The first thing that one notices is the odd juxtaposition of the link to the anti-marijuana section, which is adjacent to the link to a warning about the dangers of cough medicines, which are sold over-the-counter! In fact, these “safe enough to be legal” drugs can actually be very dangerous, and cause a number of deaths every year – unlike cannabis.

Logical they are not.

Now, if an over-the-counter drug can be deadly, when misused, why does the Drug Czar think that it is important to tell young Americans that cannabis does not have any medical value?

The section on medical cannabis is titled, “Rx Pot: A Prescription for disaster.”

Subtle they are not.

While the DEA does misrepresent – or overstate – the objections to medical cannabis by some organizations, some of these supposedly distinguished groups are not entirely honest, and that is certainly more outrageous than a few lies by narcs.

For example, there is a link to the American Medical Association’s report on medical marijuana, which devotes just one paragraph to the 1999 Institute of Medicine report, and neglects to say that the IOM said, “There is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting."

The AMA also wants the government to invent the vaporizer (“resources should be devoted to developing alternate, smoke-free delivery systems”)!

But, again, why is medical marijuana seen as such a threat to marijuana prohibition, if the DEA can warn about “generally recognized as safe” medicines?

One thing that will not be found at Just Think Twice, or any other prohibitionist propaganda site, is a link to any anti-prohibitionist Web site. We who support the legalization of marijuana want the American people to see the government’s lies for themselves. The government prefers to tell you – to lie to you - about what “legalizers” are saying.

More to the point, why do organizations that supposedly represent doctors – or worse yet, patients – lie to the American people to suppress medical marijuana?

Yes, of course, the pharmaceutical industry spends over 100 million dollars every year on lobbying. However, the entire system, the privileged status of doctors, the power of the police, the reelection of the politicians, etc., depends on keeping some modicum of the public’s trust.

After Watergate, a cliché emerged in Washington that summed up the real lesson of the scandal: “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up.”

Now even those with no vested interest in the drug war are complicit in the cover up. How could they ever explain this massive fraud that has cost so many lives and caused so much suffering, not only in America, but also around the world.

Perhaps those who are the most guilty – as accomplices after the fact – are those who profess to speak for patients, especially those with AIDS in the poorest countries.

For the poorest of the poor, about whom everyone claims to care, a separate “medical marijuana” system is simply unworkable. The medical marijuana loophole is problematic enough in developed countries, but it would be impossible for those who will never be able to see a doctor.

For them, only the complete legalization of cannabis in all its forms will make it affordable, because they can grow it themselves, and it will be too cheap to be worth stealing for the black market - a major problem for American patients.

So medical marijuana has to be suppressed – at all costs, and the DEA has to lie to young Americans in order to make them also complicit in the persecution of the sick and dying. Speak out, or join in the killing.


Richard Cowan is the former National Director of NORML and currently the publisher of MarijuanaNews.com. Email him at Cowan@MarijuanaNews.com