Michael Hess

Michael Hess
Saturday, June 15th, 2002

BBSNews answers a letter that Bob Barr sent one of his constituents who posted it on the USENET.

Congressman Bob Barr (R-Georgia) has for a long time been challenged by his inability to distinguish between that which is true about medical marijuana and that which is not. This BBSNews commentary is a direct challenge to Bob Barr. I would be overjoyed to see just one of these folks directly answer the facts and science which so clearly show the failure of the prohibition of some recreational drugs. Barr's letter is in purple, my commentary is in dark green and links back to the news and facts are in blue (red after you visit them):

"Thank you for contacting me regarding the legalization of marijuana."

Thank you Bob Barr for sending this letter to your constituent so folks could get a good look at you.

"The drug legalization effort began years ago, but is now breaking into the mainstream. Drug legalizers are attempting to gain legitimacy by advancing the compassionate use of medicinal marijuana and other Schedule I narcotics. Millions of dollars have been funneled into a pro-pot public relations campaign funded by wealthy pro-legalizers such as billionaire George Soros. It is also promoted relentlessly by individuals with large public audiences, including a few talk radio hosts; and championed by a handful of public officials such as New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson."

Yes, millions of American are completely convinced the War on Some Drugs is a failure. Why do you suppose that is Bob? Could it be that folks are a wee bit more concerned about real violent crime and terrorism rather than the crusade against marijuana?

"However, one fact remains -- no matter how the legalization movement attempts to sell the issue, drug legalization will have a terrible impact on our nation."

It is inevitable that we will have regulation of all drugs Bob, recreational and otherwise. I guess you're not too familiar with black markets. They have this terrible side effect of violence. We learned this during Prohibition I. Al Capone was a terrorist in the true sense of the word. He had buildings watched, he had competition killed in ever imaginative ways, he blew up buildings and orchestrated the Saint Valentines Day Massacre. He did this because he was ruling distribution of the illegal drug of the day, alcohol. A deadly and addictive drug when abused. Quite nice and even healthy when used in moderation. More recent "Capones" were known as Escobar and Fuentes. With each breakup of the "kingpins" came a splintering of illicit drug distribution channels and at last government count they numbered in the hundreds. This is a national security risk in that these smuggling routes cannot be closed during Prohibition II, the sequel. Regulation must replace prohibition so recreational drug products can be tracked from source to destination. It is in the nation's best interest for security because decades of drug prohibition have simply spawned an extremely well funded and entrenched smuggling operation that readily adapts to every challenge, even the War on Terrorism has no effect.

Only repeal and regulation brought an end to the violence that always surrounds such black markets The repeal of Prohibition I brought about an end to deaths from adulterated product. Regulation brought quality control, bills of lading, taxes, medical studies of alcoholism and medicinal qualities of certain kinds of alcohol, zoning laws and restrictions, legal dispute resolution, age based restrictions designed to keep children from alcohol until they are adults, all things that are impossible with marijuana and other recreational drugs declared prohibited. As long as your dubious "war" runs unchecked by fact and reason and these drugs remain unregulated by the government the thugs will have control. The distribution of currently illicit drugs remains unchecked even as the borders are supposed to be sealed against terrorists and weapons of terror. The black market has control of 90% of the US drugs market.

"Whether any illegal narcotic is eventually legalized for medicinal purposes or otherwise, the practical outcome of legalization is to increase the amount of usage among all drugs."

The Youth Substance Use: State Estimates From the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse from SAMHSA suggests otherwise. Medical marijuana was legalized in California in 1996 and yet the latest NHSDA Survey shows "...Not only were there significant differences among persons in the patterns of initiation at the national level, there also were differences among persons in the patterns of initiation among States. For example, 14.5 percent of persons aged 20 to 25 in California reported never having used alcohol, cigarettes, or marijuana, while only 6.6 percent in Michigan reported no use of these substances." Michigan has some of the harshest drug laws in the country but apparently less completely "drug free" citizens than the decidely more liberal California. Which has also the dreaded medical marijuana to boot. The State Estimates report above goes on to say that tobacco and alcohol use precede marijuana use in a national pattern followed by 42 states. Maybe you should also prohibit tobacco and alcohol to prevent marijuana use? That "gateway" theory y'all were trying to sell for so long is coming back to bite you. Leaving tobacco and alcohol legal, the use of which leads to 546,000 deaths each year in the United States, and then arresting 734,000 marijuana consumers each year for using a medicinal plant which is not known for causing even one single death is poor public policy Bob. Going after the sick and dying is an abysmal public policy.

"In the world of illegal narcotics, supply drives demand. That is an outcome that has been apparent from the early days of drug enforcement. It is rather elemental: the result of having a lot of drugs available is more and more consumption. When consumption increases, abuse and addiction inevitably follow."

You could make good money painting barns with that wide of a brush, one stroke and everyone in the know is seeing red. The fact is Bob, the price of illegal drugs has been going down for years even as purity has gone up. There is no shortage of illegal drugs even as there is a war on terrorism. In fact, the Washington Post reported during December 2001 that "with the FBI and other agencies focusing almost singularly on guarding against terrorism, some drug trafficking experts estimate that as little as 10 percent of the manpower once devoted to interdicting drugs remains in place." More recently USA Today via Detroit News reported April 14th, 2002 that "authorities acknowledge that drug rings are figuring out how to avoid FBI, Customs, Coast Guard and other law enforcement agents who have shifted from anti-drug duties to what officials call a "goal-line defense" against terrorism. The smugglers' success is reflected in the availability and stable price of cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs. In Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles, dealers' prices for the drugs -- the surest measures of supply -- have not changed since Sept. 11, authorities say.

Currently Mr. Barr there is very little successful enforcement and there is every indication that the level of "enforcement" is not only going down but it has little bearing on either drug supply or price. In fact, Asa Hutchinson said in a memo on September 17th, 2001, "The Coast Guard seized a record 132,480 pounds of cocaine during fiscal year 2000, the previous record was set in 1999 at 111,689 pounds. The Coast Guard also seized 50,463 pounds of marijuana. The estimated street value of these seizures is more than $4.4 billion. Despite these record-setting seizures for the past two years, the Coast Guard’s drug seizure rate, defined as seizure totals measured as a percentage of total flow, fell in fiscal year 2000 due to an increased flow of drugs. Final fiscal year 2000 seizure and cocaine shipment data show a seizure rate of 10.6 percent. During fiscal year 2001, the Coast Guard seized 138,334 pounds of cocaine and 34,518 pounds of marijuana."

How long should a government policy with a ten percent success rate last? Even during the war on terrorism the highest ranking officials are testifying that not only did they fail to meet the goal of a 13% seizure rate by the US Coast Guard for 2000 but that they will also fail to meet the future goals. Rear Admiral Ross testified also on September 17th, 2001 that "...we face considerable challenges in meeting our 18 percent and 28 percent targets in 2002 and 2007 respectively. At current resource levels, combined with our significantly heightened homeland defense security posture, we will not meet seizure rate targets. We will continue to increase our effectiveness with interagency and international cooperation; however, given recent events this will not be enough."

It will never be enough. One can go through past decades of government documents and see this same pattern. Billions of dollars wasted year after year upon a strategy that gives about 10-15% percent results across the entire spectrum of law enforcement and DOD services. By contrast an equally dangerous, addictive and deadly drug, alcohol, can be tracked from source to customer. Indeed some beer has freshness dates, batch tracking and of course all have government warning labels. Something that is impossible to do under Prohibition II, the sequel.

"What this could mean for the United States can be seen in the drug liberalization experiment in Holland. In 1976, Holland liberalized its laws on marijuana usage. Since that time, Holland has acquired a reputation as the drug capital of Europe. The June 1998 Journal of Legal Medicine reported that statistics show between 1984 and 1992, marijuana use among males between the ages of 12 and 18 increased by 277 percent, shootings increased 40 percent, car thefts increased 62 percent, and hold-ups increased 69 percent."

I visited the Royal Netherlands Embassy Website to see what they had to say about such assertions and I must say your version appears to be highly suspect. The Netherlands has less prevalence in lifetime marijuana use among young people as of the late 1990's. 20 years of their pragmatism has earned them less drug use overall and a society which as of 1996 had a murder rate of 1.8 per 100,000 while the US rate was 8.22 per 100,000. Crime related deaths during 1994-95 were about 1/8th the US rate per 100,000 while the incarceration rate in the Netherlands in 1997 was just 73 per 100,000 compared to a whopping 645 per 100,000 population in the US. They apparently use their enforcement dollars well, they accomplished all this with $27 per capita expenditures in drug related enforcement while the US wasted $81 per capita in a scheme that has a 10-15% interdiction rate. Regulation and harm reduction is working well in Holland. Blanket Prohibition II is is wreaking needless havoc in the US. Especially towards our children and largely brought on by policies and attitudes you support.

"Great Britain experimented with softening its heroin laws from 1959 to 1968. The result was that Scotland Yard had to double its narcotics squad just to keep up with the ever-increasing drug related crimes. Addiction skyrocketed."

Heroin is about to go back on prescription in England. Just a few days ago it was announced that a new pilot project is being started in South London, heroin and cocaine will be "effectively decriminalized" and police resources will be directed towards the violent criminals with knives and hard drugs dealers. The police themselves are calling for heroin on prescription, The Guardian reported on December 9th, 2001 "Britain's top police officers have called for the mass prescription of heroin to addicts on the NHS in a move that will be seen as the decriminalisation of the drug. The officers believe this radical approach will break the link between addicts and property crime, and allow the police to concentrate on combating major drugs dealers and organised criminals."

"Switzerland's experimental "legalization zones" in Zurich started in the late 1980's and only lasted until 1995 because the violence within the "legalized zones" became too much for the Swiss police to handle. The number of drug users frequenting such areas mushroomed."

Again there seems to be a gap in your information. And surely you don't mean "Needle Park?" Bob, everyone knows that was a failure... The Swiss went on to vote in two referendums about heroin maintenance in 1997, a much different regime than an open air market and again in 1998 and overwhelmingly decided in favor of heroin prescription for those who are highly addicted. There has been heroin prescription for a number of addicts in Switzerland since 1998. Recently The Guardian reports "the Dutch government last week came out in favour of medical prescription of heroin, it also vowed to push for the substance to be registered as a medication, and for addicts to be treated like other patients. The government said it would work towards altering national legislation to make heroin legal and submit a proposal to the World Health Organisation (WHO), asking for it to be registered as a medicine."

"Legalization advocates claim that decriminalizing drugs will make drugs more available, and that people will no longer have to resort to unsavory means to acquire and pay for the substances. The fact is, increased drug abuse and increased crime go hand in hand. It makes no difference whether the user can purchase their drugs legally or not, they must still find a way to pay for them. And the way most drug addicts finance their habits is through crime.

What are "drugs" to you Bob? Why do you feel that all of them should be considered in the same way? When it goes your way that is. Tobacco cigarettes are one of the most addictive substances on the planet. Nicotine, was found about the time of you becoming a Congressman by then FDA head David Kessler as being an addictive drug, he was on the verge of announcing and later did announce that cigarettes were a "drug delivery device." What happened to that line of actual real thinking Bob? I do recall Sandra Day O'Connor opining that if nicotine was regulated by FDA then cigarettes would have to be outlawed under present law because cigarettes could not be shown as safe when used for their intended purpose. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin. Imagine if it was made illegal and the 62,000,000 current American addicts wanted their fix. Brazil and other South American countries would suddenly have a cash crop worth more than it's weight in gold. And American addicts who just happen to like cigarettes would then be criminals because tobacco products were made illegal. Suddenly a black market cigarette is the new crack rock. A short lived high. The smokers who consume more than a pack a day will be the first willing to buy on the black market. Two pack a day smokers will be in line down at the tobacco peddler and no doubt standing in line with them will be cops, doctors, CEO's, workmen, workwomen etc. Criminalizing regular people while bad and violent thugs and terrorists are still operating is bad public policy Bob.

"The following points, address some of the many other fallacies advanced by the drug legalization movement."

Drug Policy Reform advocates pretty much have only the truth as a bargaining chip Bob. You and others like you have succeeded in hoodwinking a large portion of the American public into thinking that a very tiny subset of "drugs" are bad, whilst a huge assortment of others drugs, such as Valium, Prozac, Viagra, Propecia, Ritalin and thousands of others including tobacco and alcohol are good. You have convinced them that even thinking about those few prohibited substances is a bad thing and heaven forbid should anyone actually acknowledge their moderate use. This is why drug policy reformers have to hold themselves accountable to a high level of truth and integrity. It is really the only power that will matter in the end. Those reformers that lie for personal gain are not to be trusted and will be swept aside whether they have the support of "billionaires" or not. At almost every single turn Bob your policy of War on Some Drugs has been fraught with failure and causes more harm than the actual drug use. We believe that war is not the answer towards human frailty. Your mileage may vary.

"Marijuana cigarettes are not medicine and serve no medicinal purpose."

The Institute of Medicine Report concluded in 1999 "Until a nonsmoked rapid-onset cannabinoid drug delivery system becomes available, we acknowledge that there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting. One possible approach is to treat patients as n-of-1 clinical trials (single-patient trials), in which patients are fully informed of their status as experimental subjects using a harmful drug delivery system and in which their condition is closely monitored and documented under medical supervision, thereby increasing the knowledge base of the risks and benefits of marijuana use under such conditions." Gee Mr. Barr, given that American adults can quite freely smoke tobacco which is known to cause hundreds of thousands of deaths each year and the fact that there is no known death from marijuana use alone in the entire world medical literature, patients who gain relief from smoked marijuana should be free from micromeddling politicians wanting to arrest and jail them.

"Medicines are developed from deriving specific, purified chemicals from raw materials. These chemicals are tested and proven to be effective in the treatment of specific diseases and then tested again for safety in that use and in specific doses."

Would you outlaw oranges because they contain Vitamin C and you can get Vitamin C tablets from a druggist? Did you know that some 60% of prescription drugs are prescribed "off label" for uses far and away from the original intended use? Have you heard about the booming multibillion dollar market in dietary supplements? These herbs and botanicals and other substances are believed to promote good health. In 1994 the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) was passed to give FDA guidelines about supplements: "Congress amended the FD&C Act to include several provisions that apply only to dietary supplements and dietary ingredients of dietary supplements. As a result of these provisions, dietary ingredients used in dietary supplements are no longer subject to the premarket safety evaluations required of other new food ingredients or for new uses of old food ingredients. They must, however, meet the requirements of other safety provisions." More recently DSHEA has come under scrutiny because of a GAO report which showed FDA had no way for tracking adverse incidents from the use of dietary supplements and more broadly, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). As a matter of fact, the hardline Center for Science in the Public Interest was calling for FDA registration of dietary supplement makers in February 2002 on the heels of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine. In minutes from the NIH that explains Complementary and Alternative Medicine: "CAM represents a diverse mix of health care practices outside the realm of conventional medicine that, for the most part, have not been validated by scientific methods... According to national estimates, 42 percent of Americans use one or more of these practices and spend more than $27 billion per year on them in the aggregate." Bob, are you also willing to call these people criminals because they use alternative medicine? Marijuana is simply another in a litany of alternative medicines. Although it is a famous herb because of it's 5000 year history of use and it's amazing safety record during that time.

"Scientists have already isolated the chemicals found in marijuana useful as medicine for specific illnesses associated with AIDS and cancer. Synthetic THC (the active ingredient in the marijuana plant) has been available for prescription to combat nausea and vomiting since 1985 (the drug marketed as "Marinol"). It is neither scientifically sound nor medically reasonable, to condone or promote burning marijuana leaves and pretend that it is a medical treatment. Burning leaves do not work as medicine because their smoke contains hundred of chemicals in doses that are completely unpredictable."

You really could be a great barn painter. Delta-9-THC, the most demonized "active" ingredient in marijuana has indeed been synthesized and suspended in sesame oil and marketed in Marinol gel caps. But that is not the open and shut of it. Those "hundreds of chemicals" you refer to act in synergism together and smoked delivery is currently the preferred method. Swallowing a pill while retching is hard Bob. Dr. Geoffrey Guy and GW Pharmaceuticals in England are making great strides in researching cannabis preparations, in January 2002 it was announced "Cannabis-based medicine has the potential to provide considerable advantages over current medications to cancer patients." Feel free to contact Lester Grinspoon, one of the invited peer reviewers of the aforementioned IOM report and he no doubt will tell you, vaporization of marijuana cannabinoids would be the preferred method of delivery by physicians. Unfortunately, your War on Some Drugs has made the possession of "drug" paraphrenalia an enhancement to the already made up crime of "drug" possession and it's almost impossible to get any real research done to end the smoking threat created by those very laws against paraphrenalia. Your laws are making marijuana more dangerous than it otherwise would be, which according to the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, is relatively harmless. One would assume this emphasis on smoked marijuana is because Congress is well aware that the LD-50 (the amount of a drug consumed within fifteen minutes required to induce death in 50 out of 100 people) of whole marijuana is somewhere in the range of 1500 pounds ingested during fifteen minutes. Removing the last real risk, that from smoking, would render any real criticism by the federal government irrelevant given whole non smoked marijuana's high safety.

"It is not compassionate to give someone who is gravely ill a drug that works to prevent his or her recovery."

It is not compassionate to arrest, jail, harass and persecute sick people because of your crusade against what is in effect, a safe and effective medicinal herb. Anybody who can grow a tomato can grow a marijuana plant. The policies you support are contrary to science, compassion, good sense and democracy itself.

"People diagnosed with cancer and AIDS are instructed to immediately stop smoking tobacco. Marijuana cigarettes are twice as carcinogenic as tobacco, containing 421 separate chemicals. The chemicals in marijuana cigarettes damage the immune system the very system weakened by cancer and attacked by the AIDS virus. It is not compassionate to advocate a harmful and deadly activity under the pretense that it is a medical treatment."

I cannot find any cancers or cancer deaths due to marijuana alone at all. I must assume you are mistaken given that I have found leads back to all your other rhetoric. Here's what the state of the science really is: The CDC says 430,000 Americans die each year from tobacco related disease. There are no credible reports of marijuana deaths from chronic use or overdose in the entire world medical literature. Your assertion about AIDS patients also does not stand up after scrutiny. A NIH research grant funded "study by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco has found that patients with HIV infection taking protease inhibitors do not experience short-term adverse virologic effects from using cannabinoids."

"The National Institute of Health in NIH PUB 98-4036 states: People with HIV and others whose immune system is impaired should avoid marijuana use."

The Institute of Medicine study that was designed to answer these questions did so in March 1999. Their conclusions differ significantly from your assertions. They found that "although the chronic effects of cannabinoids on the immune system have not been studied, based on acute exposure studies in experimental animals it appears that THC concentrations that modulate immunological responses are higher than those required for psycho-activity." In other words "immune effects of doses of cannabinoids higher than those ever experienced by humans should be interpreted with caution."

"A World Health Organization study concluded: "Cannabis, when smoked, is at least twice as carcinogenic as tobacco. Marijuana causes carcinoma of the lungs, larynx, mouth and esophagus as well as other chronic pulmonary diseases. These carcinomas appear earlier than cancers that are purely the result of tobacco smoking. Cannabis increases the risk of death in people with heart disease. Furthermore, cannabis is at least 10 times as potent as it was 20 years ago.""

On the other hand, the New Scientist published what really happened with that report. "According to a document leaked to New Scientist, the analysis concludes not only that the amount of dope smoked worldwide does less harm to public health than drink and cigarettes, but that the same is likely to hold true even if people consumed dope on the same scale as these legal substances." Also, your marijuana potency claim is specious. Marijuana has not gone through some magical botanical mutation, strains of marijuana with high potency have long been known as anyone familiar with marijuana 20 or even 30 years ago can attest. Panama Red, Aculpulco Gold, Oaxacan, Hawaiian Kona or Maui Wowi all are hallowed names to connoisseurs and all were quite potent. Better growing techniques have indeed led to marijuana at the street level to be slightly more potent on average. "According to University of Mississippi analyses, the THC content of commercial-grade marijuana has slowly risen over the years from an average of 3.71 percent in 1985 to an average of 5.57 percent in 1998. These analyses also show a corresponding rise in sinsemilla THC content from 7.28 percent in 1985 to 12.32 percent in 1998." Your claim that currently available marijuana is "10 times as potent" or at least 37% THC for commercial marijuana or even 72% for sinsemilla is clearly false.

"Drug legalization would result in increased crime, not less."

EPILOGUE

It is shameful that some politicians will still continue to mislead and outright lie about the use of medical marijuana and indeed the War on Some Drugs in general when the facts are so generally available due to the advent of the internet. It is quite clear from the above analysis that a ten percent "success" rate in the drug war is simply reflecting years of mismanagement and adherence to a false premise. The most glaring fallacy being the myth of a "drug free America." Not only is such a thing impossible it is truly undesired by the vast majority of the American people. Americans use a variety of recreational drugs, both legal and illegal, on a regular basis. The wide popularity and use of coffee, tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy, Viagra etc. attest to this fact. Dietary supplements are a staple in American life, who has not heard of the supposed benefits of St. John's Wort or Ginseng? Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is alive and well as amply shown above. Let us use the objective science that is available as a guide and discard these silly political meanderings that have little basis in fact and that are actually contrary to democracy itself.

Far more troubling though is that some politicians seem willing to even sacrifice national security to keep the War on Some Drugs, which is primarily a war against marijuana, alive. Medical marijuana patients are being arrested and terrorized in California by federal agents who should be guarding against real crime and terrorism even as all federal authorities are telling us that it is "inevitable" that terrorists will strike at any moment. They tell us that another horrible and deadly terrorist act is a foregone conclusion. If such a threat is actually real why on earth is the force and fury of the federal government directed at the users of medical marijuana?