All I ask is for you, Tecoyah, and others is to consider factors in this area that occurred before Bush. The SG office has been a political tool. Take the "war on drugs" as an example.
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In 1993, when U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, the nation’s top doc, tried to warn the country of the health hazards posed by The WOD, she was sacked by the President. Today, Barry McCaffrey, a retired U.S. Army general with credentials more aligned with The WOD, is America’s so-called “drug czar.” (I find it interesting that the word “czar” derives from the ancient Roman word “Caesar,” meaning dictatorial ruler. Don’t you?)
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http://alternativesmagazine.com/11/cahill1.html
When the SG did not tow the company line the SG gets fired. Political?
Look at the history of making drug illegal in this country and politics are all over it, including supporting views of the SG at various times.
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Anslinger's first major campaign was to criminalize the drug commonly known at the time as hemp. But Anslinger renamed it "marijuana" to associate it with Mexican laborers who, like the Chinese before them, were unwelcome competitors for scarce jobs in the Depression. Anslinger claimed that marijuana "can arouse in blacks and Hispanics a state of menacing fury or homicidal attack. During this period, addicts have perpetrated some of the most bizarre and fantastic offenses and sex crimes know to police annals."
Anslinger linked marijuana with jazz and persecuted many black musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Louis Armstrong was also arrested on drug charges, and Anslinger made sure his name was smeared in the press. In Congress, the drug czar testified that "coloreds with big lips lure white women with jazz and marijuana".
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Where is any evidence of any SG setting the record straight during any administration since, other than the one who got fired. Political?
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08212004.html
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A report released in March of 1999 by the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, the end result of two years of government-funded research, concluded that marijuana has beneficial medical effects, ranging from pain reduction, particularly for cancer patients, to nausea reduction and appetite stimulation, in certain circumstances. The report strongly recommended moving marijuana to the status of a schedule II drug, available for prescription by doctors. It also stated that many of the drug's supposed ill affects are false or unsubstantiated by scientific evidence. Among these are:
* the supposed anti-motivational or anti-social affects of the drug;
* that legalizing medical marijuana will increase overall use of the drug;
* that the drug more addictive than other drugs available for prescription;
* that its side affects are more harmful than those of other drugs;
* that marijuana serves as a gateway drug;
* that marijuana causes brain damage;
* that marijuana causes fertility problems; and
* that marijuana shortens life expectancy.
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http://alternativesmagazine.com/11/cahill1.html
What SG has championed the cause of presenting objective information on this subject? Why not? Politics?
I say politics, politics, politics.
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Originally Posted by willravel
This is a very libertarian view. Would you also like to see heroin and cocaine legalized?
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Yes, for adults
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Maybe we should disassemble the FDA to allow poisons in all food and drug products, so long as they say that they're poison.
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I am not an anarchist, there is a role for government in regulating industry.
No. Never had never will. I have never done illegal drugs either. But I think people should have the choice. Just like I make the choice to ride my motorcycle, which some think is crazy, you should be able to choose your risks.