Search Results: drug czar (94)

Russian Federal Narcotics Service director Viktor Ivanov.

In Russia, marijuana smokes you! Or, apparently that’s what Russian officials want the Russian public to believe. According to Russian Federal Narcotics Control Service chief Viktor Ivanov, marijuana users are 60 times more likely to be heroin users than non-marijuana users. In addition to becoming junkies, pot smokers end up depressed and schizophrenic in later life.
Not that the former KGB officer backed up those statistics with any actual documentation or anything like that.

President Barack Obama made waves in an interview with the New Yorker magazine a couple weeks ago, in which he finally stated the plain and simple truth that no American president up until now has had the guts to tell, that marijuana use is no more dangerous than alcohol use. Pro-cannabis advocates took the statement as a cautious grain of optimism, while the DEA and sheriffs across the country crapped their cages.
The question though, whether or not marijuana is just as safe as alcohol, is an important one, as it casts a very real shadow of doubt over the retention of cannabis on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. In a House Oversight Committee hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill, the White House’s Deputy Drug Czar was grilled on this very same topic, and like the president, he finally gave in to reality.

WhiteHouse.gov
Deputy Drug Czar Michael Botticelli

Reason
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske: “Calling it medicine sends a terrible message”

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske — required by law to lie about the medical efficacy of cannabis — has, unsurprisingly, attacked the herb again in a speech in San Francisco.

“Calling it medicine sends a terrible message” to American youth, according to the Czar, reports Chris Roberts at NBC Bay Area. Gil seems unfamiliar with or indifferent to the fact that the U.S. federal government itself has been providing free medical marijuana to a handful of patients for 30 years under the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program.
Gil could also use a refresher course on the thousands of scientific studies which show marijuana’s medical effectiveness. Oh well; I guess Science “sends a terrible message” to youth, as well.

Opposing Views
Drug Czar Gil Kerlkikowske adamantly refuses to consider rational policy alternatives that don’t involve criminal penalties, according to the Marijuana Policy Project’s Morgan Fox

Marijuana Use Rises in 2011 While Alcohol and Prescription Drug Use Decline
 
In a press conference Monday morning, representatives from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced the release of the latest results of the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. As is their custom, the federal officials used the event — and the survey itself — as an opportunity to decry the use of marijuana in the United States and focused on perceived risk as a driving factor for increased use.
Marijuana use has slightly increased in the past year, while alcohol use has declined.

AllGov

A petition which aimed to persuade the Obama Administration to allow military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder to use medical marijuana was rejected by the White House.

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), wrote last month that marijuana is not a “benign drug,” and does not meet standards for safe or effective medicine, reports Patricia Kime at USA Today. (Apparently, “real” medicines are supposed to kill people in droves — you know, like all the poisons Big Pharma is peddling. Pot doesn’t do that.)
It’s particularly ironic, in a crazy-making sort of way, for the Drug Czar to answer any questions about legalizing marijuana for any purpose, since he is bound by law to oppose marijuana legalization. But if Kerli was feeling any of the irony, he didn’t let on; he was a good robot, mouthing meaningless platitudes on a dead stage.

Injustice In Seattle
White House Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske claims that hemp products contain THC.

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has a response(ish) to a petition sent to the White House supporting the legalization of hemp. In his “response,” Gil reveals either a stunning ignorance about hemp, or a shocking propensity to tell a whopper.
By Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
America’s farmers deserve our Nation’s help and support to ensure rural America’s prosperity and vitality. Federal law prohibits human consumption, distribution, and possession of Schedule I controlled substances. Hemp and marijuana are part of the same species of cannabis plant. While most of the THC in cannabis plants is concentrated in the marijuana, all parts of the plant, including hemp, can contain THC, a Schedule I controlled substance. The Administration will continue looking for innovative ways to support farmers across the country while balancing the need to protect public health and safety.
The amounts of THC found in industrial hemp — even in the flowers — are so minute as to be meaningless, since the trichomes contain a preponderance of CBD instead. But the amounts of THC found in hemp fiber are so low as to be undetectable — that’s why hemp fiber products are legal in the United States.

TopNews
Gil Kerlikowske would love for you to believe the War On Drugs is a huge success. Can’t you just do that for Gil today? Come on now, can’t you?

​Message from NYers: No More Drug War
Drug War = Mass Incarceration, Racial Disparities and Overdose Epidemic
White House Drug Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske and New York County DA Cyrus R. Vance Jr. will visit Washington Heights in New York City on Thursday, September 22, to discuss their supposed “progress” in fighting the War On Drugs.
 
A group of New Yorkers will be greeting the Drug Czar and DA with the message: No More Drug War. When Kerlikowske came into office, he announced that he was ending the War On Drugs. This turned out to be little more than a rhetorical sleight-of-hand, however – astronomical rates of drug arrests and incarceration have not changed.

LIFE
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske claimed on Thursday that the regulation of alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs has not worked, so regulation of marijuana could not be expected to work, either

​The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) on Thursday announced the latest results of the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. As is their annual custom, the federal officials used the event — and the survey itself — as an opportunity to decry the use of marijuana in the United States.

“What we saw today was just more of the same stale old rhetoric and exaggerations about marijuana use,” said Morgan Fox, communications manager for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). “The analysis SAMHSA included with the National Survey on Drug Use and Health seeks to blame what they claim is a significant increase in teen marijuana use on relaxed perceptions of harm, caused by the ongoing discussion of marijuana reform, particularly medical marijuana.

Photo: Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske wouldn’t meet with a group of former law enforcement officers who were concerned about the bad effects of the War On Drugs. Instead, he sent a staffer to take their report.

Cops Hand-Deliver Report To Drug Czar’s Office While Czar Refuses To Meet

In conjunction with this week’s 40th anniversary of President Nixon declaring “War On Drugs,” a group of police, judges and jailers who support legalization released a report Tuesday showing how the Obama Administration is ramping up a war it disingenuously claims that it ended two years ago.
Following the report’s release at a press conference Tuesday morning, the pro-legalization law enforcement officers attempted to hand-deliver a copy to Obama Administration Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, the former Seattle chief of police who claimed he ended the War On Drugs two years ago.
Instead of making time to listen to the concerns of fellow law enforcers who have dedicated their careers to protecting public safety, the Drug Czar simply sent a staffer to the lobby to receive a copy of the cops’ report.
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