Sources:
1. “Calif. Agrees to Cut Billions, Reaches Budget Deal,” MSNBC, 21 July 2009. LINK
2. “Marijuana Legalization: For First Time, Poll Finds Majority Support in California,” Drug War Chronicle, Issue #580, 10 April 2009. LINK
3. Dan Walters, “California Tax Board: Legal Pot Could Generate $1.4 Billion,” Sacramento Bee, 15 July 2009. LINK
In its wrangling with Jeremy Mayfield, NASCAR confuses having a positive drug test with actual impairment.* Stimulants are used to assist in driving. (Coffee anyone?) If Mayfield does use methamphetamine, it is clear that he does so in a responsible manner.** Unfortunately, in the War on Drugs that is irrelevant.
* The Drug Czar recently made the same error when he raised alarms about the percentage of drivers testing positive for marijuana (LINK). He did not bother to note that marijuana’s psychoactive effects only last hours while trace amounts can stay in the system for a month.
** For testimony about Mayfield’s work ethic from his manager, a former police officer, go to this LINK.
Sources:
1. “Air Force Rushes to Defend Amphetamine Use,” 18 Jan. 2003, TheAge.com.au. LINK
2. Terry Blount, “Mayfield Running Out of Good Will,” ESPN.com, 15 July 2009. LINK
An assistant to Egil Krogh, a member of President Richard Nixon’s administration imprisoned in the Watergate scandal, explained, “If we hyped the drug problem into a national crisis, we knew that Congress would give us anything we asked for.” (Epstein, p. 140)
Nixon’s statistical deceit regarding heroin addict numbers is explained in Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America. (pp. 174-177) When Nixon later wanted to show his War on Drugs was working the addict population was magically sliced by 25%.
The cartooned quotes are from Dan Baum’s Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure. (pp. 13 & 21) Baum took the “blacks” quote from the diary of Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman.
Nixon’s generous use of drugs – prescribed and not prescribed (Dilantin) – and alcohol is detailed in Anthony Summers’ The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon.
Sources:
1. Robert Arthur, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (2008).
2. Dan Baum, Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure (1996).
3. Edward Jay Epstein, Agency of Fear: Opiates and Political Power in America (1977).
4. Anthony Summers, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (2000).
The biochemist, Alexander Shulgin, first reported MDMA’s beneficial effects in a journal article in 1978. MDMA, or ecstasy, creates empathy in its users and has exhibited great potential as a psychotherapy tool. Shulgin himself enjoyed using it to loosen up and relate to others at social gatherings.
Despite the fact psychologists and psychiatrists championed its value in therapy, when young adults started using it as a club drug in the 1980s the DEA made it a Schedule I Drug. This classification is supposed to be restricted to drugs with high abuse potential and no acceptable medical uses. [MDMA has no addiction potential. (Gahlinger, p. 338)] A DEA pharmacologist has admitted the DEA wasn’t even aware psychiatrists were using MDMA for treatment. In other words, they did not bother to research the drug before deciding to throw adults in prison for its possession.
The mass media proceeded to jump on the “all recreational drugs are evil” bandwagon by portraying ecstasy as a drug that leads kids to crazy casual sex and death. MDMA causes empathy not increased libido. The fallacy of it being a sex drug is obvious for many men as Cooder notes in the above cartoon. For the gross exagerration of its deadliness see the previous post, “Deadly Nuts: If Peanuts Were Portrayed Like E.”
As Jacob Sullum wrote in Saying Yes, “Like LSD, [MDMA] became illegal because too many people started to enjoy it.” (Sullum, p. 171)
To preempt MDMA destroys your brain comments, here is a link to Shulgin’s response and a 2006 journal article link disproving the brain damage theories.
Request for Positive Drug Stories
If you have a positive drug story that is either unique, humorous, or interesting; and are willing to have it told through illustrations please contact me at rob@suburra.com. Anonymity is respected.
Sources:
1. Paul Gahlinger, Illegal Drugs (2001).
2. Jacob Sullum, Saying Yes (2003).
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