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The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue #80 -- February 26, 1999
A Publication of the Drug Reform Coordination Network
-------- PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE --------
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This issue can be also be read on our web site at
<http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html>. Check out the DRCNN
weekly radio segment at <http://www.drcnet.org/drcnn/>.
PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the
contents of The Week Online is hereby granted. We ask that
any use of these materials include proper credit and, where
appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If
your publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet
requests checks payable to the organization. If your
publication does not pay for materials, you are free to use
the materials gratis. In all cases, we request notification
for our records, including physical copies where material
has appeared in print. Contact: Drug Reform Coordination
Network, 2000 P St., NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036,
(202) 293-8340 (voice), (202) 293-8344 (fax), e-mail
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you.
Articles of a purely educational nature in The Week Online
appear courtesy of the DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise
noted.
ERRATA: Last week, we incorrectly listed the Mothers in
Prison, Children in Crisis rally as taking place on Friday,
May 9. The correct date is Friday, May 7. See
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/079.html#rally for the rest of the
information. Please pass this correction along to anyplace
your forwarded the original article.
NOTE: In issue #77, we provided an 800 number for the
American Bar Association, to order copies of their report on
the ineffectivess of increased penalties on drug use
(ht
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue #80 -- February 26, 1999
A Publication of the Drug Reform Coordination Network
-------- PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE --------
(To sign off this list, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the
line "signoff drc-natl" in the body of the message, or
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. To subscribe to
this list, visit <http://www.drcnet.org/signup.html>.)
This issue can be also be read on our web site at
<http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html>. Check out the DRCNN
weekly radio segment at <http://www.drcnet.org/drcnn/>.
PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the
contents of The Week Online is hereby granted. We ask that
any use of these materials include proper credit and, where
appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If
your publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet
requests checks payable to the organization. If your
publication does not pay for materials, you are free to use
the materials gratis. In all cases, we request notification
for our records, including physical copies where material
has appeared in print. Contact: Drug Reform Coordination
Network, 2000 P St., NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036,
(202) 293-8340 (voice), (202) 293-8344 (fax), e-mail
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you.
Articles of a purely educational nature in The Week Online
appear courtesy of the DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise
noted.
ERRATA: Last week, we incorrectly listed the Mothers in
Prison, Children in Crisis rally as taking place on Friday,
May 9. The correct date is Friday, May 7. See
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/079.html#rally for the rest of the
information. Please pass this correction along to anyplace
your forwarded the original article.
NOTE: In issue #77, we provided an 800 number for the
American Bar Association, to order copies of their report on
the ineffectivess of increased penalties on drug use
(http://www.drcnet.org/wol/077.html#abastudy). If you've
had trouble getting through on the 800 number, try their
direct number at (312) 988-5000. Also check out the ABA's
report on the federalization of crime (article at
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/079.html#abareport).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. UN Drug Control Board Laments Reform, Urges Member
Nations to Tow the Drug War Line
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#incb
2. Iran Says Executing Drug Smugglers "Unsuitable Solution"
-- but US Legislators Want to Try It Here
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#iran
3. DEA Chief Constantine Rips US Drug War Efforts,
Bemoans Mexican Situation
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#constantine
4. Jesse "The Governor" Ventura on the Drug War
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#ventura
5. Sen. McCain Seeks Radical Cutbacks in Methadone
Maintenance
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#mccain
6. California Officials Comment on Medical Marijuana
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#calmedmj
7. South Carolina Mulls Making Sale of Urine a Felony
Offense
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#southcarolina
8. American Farm Bureau Reverses Position on Hemp at
Convention
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#afb
9. Canada: Terminally Ill Man Will Continue to Smoke
Marijuana Despite Conviction
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#canada
10. Author of "Drug Crazy" Lecturing in Dallas, March 2nd
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#drugcrazy
11. EDITORIAL: Mr. Ventura Comes To Washington
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/080.html#editorial
================
1. UN Drug Control Board Laments Reform, Urges Member
Nations to Tow the Drug War Line
Efforts in some countries to lessen the impact of punitive
drug policies came under fire in the annual report from the
International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) released at the
UN this week. The report, an overview of UN member states'
attempts to implement UN drug control conventions, warns
against harm reduction initiatives that threaten to
undermine the prohibitionist policies outlined in the
conventions.
The report stresses the board's concern "over the possible
proliferation of heroin experiments" such as the clinical
trial soon to be underway in the Netherlands, which will
test the feasibility of providing co-prescribed heroin and
methadone to hard-core addicts. The board was more critical
of Switzerland, which voted in 1997 to continue its own
heroin maintenance program after a three year experiment and
a national referendum. Referring back to its 1997 report,
the board reiterated its earlier concerns about the Swiss
government's positive evaluation of its own heroin program,
which the INCB said led to "misinterpretations and hasty
conclusions by some politicians and the media in several
European countries."
Similarly, the report expresses the INCB's suspicion of harm
reduction strategies such as safe-injection rooms, which
some governments have explicitly or tacitly supported as a
way to reduce the disease and public disorder associated
with hard drug use. Ultimately, the INCB "urges those
States to consider carefully all the implications of such
'shooting galleries,' including the legal implications, the
congregation of addicts, the facilitation of illicit
trafficking, the message that the existence of such places
may send to the general public and the impact on the general
perception of drug abuse." The report does not elaborate on
what it believes such a message to be.
Although other sections of the report note the high
incidence of AIDS and HIV among injection drug users in the
United States, Canada, Ukraine, Estonia, and many other
countries, it makes no mention of needle exchange.
The report is curiously silent on many countries' efforts to
scale back prosecution of the drug war. In mentioning
Belgium's decision to make prosecution for minor marijuana
offenses the "lowest judicial priority," it comments only
that, "It is unfortunate that the directive has been widely
misinterpreted as a move towards the decriminalization and
legalization of cannabis." Similar reforms on the way in
Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and other countries are not
discussed in the report.
The board was more strident in its dismay over the passage
of medical marijuana initiatives in several US states. "The
Board trusts that the United States Government will
vigorously enforce its federal law... in states that,
pursuant to referendums, have authorized the use of
cannabis, contrary to the federal law prohibiting the
medical and non-medical use of cannabis" reads one section.
In another section, widely publicized in US news accounts,
the board "renews its call for additional scientific
research" on medical marijuana, insisting that "such
decisions should have a sound medical and scientific basis
and should not be made in accordance with referendums
organized by interest groups."
But some of those interest groups say the INCB is merely
stonewalling. DRCNet spoke with Dave Fratello, a spokesman
for Americans for Medical Rights, the California-based group
that has sponsored many of the US medical marijuana
initiatives. "The UN is taking a position very much like
the one the US government has taken, which is that we
shouldn't do anything about medical marijuana until some
unforeseen time many years down the road when all the
science has come in," he said. "What we're seeing from
around the country where people are willing to vote yes on
medical marijuana initiatives, and our Attorney General here
in California is trying to make Prop. 215 work, is that you
don't have to wait for that science. The science has
already been done in many regards. And the cases of
individual patients that have been so well publicized to
date demonstrate that there's no justification for keeping
laws on the books that criminalize these patients.
Especially when you've got a situation where it could go on
for ten or fifteen years, who knows how long just for the
research to be done -- and we're talking in many cases about
terminally ill patients."
Ethan Nadelmann, director of the New York-based drug policy
research institute the Lindesmith Center, agreed.
"Remember," he said, "just as we say that Washington, DC is
the last place that we're going to see change in the United
States, the UN is one of the last places we're going to see
change internationally. The UN systems are among the most
rigid and ossified -- not all of them, not UNAIDS or UNDP --
but the UN Drug Control Program and the INCB, these are
organizations where there is no benefit for anyone in these
organizations to advocate for reform."
Nadelmann questioned the scientific legitimacy of the board,
and said the INCB itself tends to operate as a political,
rather than a scientific body. "It's an organization which
is always looking for the supposed legalizer behind any harm
reduction innovation," he said. "In many respects it seems
like a sort of creaky, old Politburo of international drug
control."
Asked for his reaction to implications in the report
questioning the legitimacy of the Swiss heroin experiment,
Nadelmann scoffed. "The Swiss did their best to do a
legitimate scientific study, and it was one that was
inevitably constrained by political circumstances, one in
which research designs were adopted to political constraints
-- imposed not by reformers, but by those who were opposed
to the experiment in the first place."
Still, Nadelmann said he was pleased to see that the INCB
report was forced to acknowledge at least some of the
international movements toward drug reform. "They sense the
smell of reform in the air," he said, "whether it's in the
United States with the passage of the ballot initiatives and
referendums last November, or the current developments in
Europe -- especially in Germany, but also in places like
France and Belgium and Switzerland and other countries. So
it's nice to see that the INCB is actually awakening to the
fact that there are serious calls for change out there."
While it may be awakening to signs of change, the INCB shows
no signs that it will give up its attachment to punitive
drug prohibition any time soon. Despite numerous mentions
throughout the report of purer, cheaper drugs more widely
available than ever, despite its acknowledgment that even
the United States, with some of the harshest policies in the
world, has done little to ameliorate the condition of hard-
core drug addiction, the report insists that "History has
shown that national and international control of drugs has
proved to be an efficient tool for reducing the development
of drug dependence and is therefore the choice to be made."
Maybe next year.
(The INCB report is available online at
<http://www.incb.org>. The Lindesmith Center web site can
be found at <http://www.lindesmith.org>.)
================
2. Iran Says Executing Drug Smugglers "Unsuitable Solution"
-- but US Legislators Want to Try It Here
Last Wednesday (2/18), a top aid to Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami told Iran's official news agency (IRNA)
that that nation's ten year old policy of publicly executing
drug smugglers has not and will not achieve its intent of
stopping or even slowing the drug trade. Iran has executed
more than 2,000 people for drug offenses, many of them
publicly, over the past decade.
"Executing drug smugglers is not a suitable way to fight
drugs and our 10-year experience shows that this has not
been a solution" the aid said.
Iran's strict code mandated death to anyone caught in
possession of 30 grams of heroin or 11 lbs. of opium.
Perhaps Iran's experience might be enough to deter US
legislators from re-introducing the Drug Importer Death
Penalty Act of 1997. The bill, which called for a mandatory
death penalty for anyone convicted for a second trafficking
offense, was sponsored by then-speaker Newt Gingrich and
attracted a list of 37 co-sponsors, 36 Republicans and 1
Democrat. Though the Act does not specify weight limits, it
would be violated whenever someone was caught importing an
amount "equal to 100 doses" of any controlled substance.
Such a calculation would impose death for a far smaller
amount of heroin than did the failed Iranian law.
In fact, by that standard it would take the importation of
only a small amount (likely well under 2 oz.) of marijuana
to violate the act. First-time offenders under the Act
would receive a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Calls
placed to the offices of several of the original co-sponsors
of the Importer Death Penalty Act by The Week Online were
not returned. A Democratic staffer who declined to be
identified told The Week Online that although there was no
indication as to whether or not the bill would be re-
introduced in this session, "It really wouldn't surprise me.
Politicians introduce all kinds of crazy legislation, and,
if they're willing to work at it, they can get a lot of it
passed."
================
3. DEA Chief Constantine Rips US Drug War Efforts, Bemoans
Mexican Situation
With decisions on the certification of 30 drug producing
nations upcoming, rumors of Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey's
imminent departure, the arrival in town of New York Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani to testify before the house subcommittee on
criminal justice, candid statements by Minnesota Governor
Jesse Ventura, who was attending the annual Governors'
Conference, and efforts by the Republican party to gain
political traction in the wake of impeachment, Washington
has been abuzz this week with talk of the drug war.
The voice that cut through the chatter, however, belonged to
DEA Director Thomas Constantine, who, in separate
appearances, claimed that the United States lacks the
"political will" to win the drug war, and that Mexican drug
cartels had become so sophisticated and well armed as to be
the single greatest threat to American security.
"I know one drug mafia in Mexico alone that makes $2 billion
every single year selling cocaine and methamphetamine in the
United States" Constantine told USA Today, "and it has
better technical equipment and countersurveillance equipment
and armored cars than we do."
It is not uncommon, in Washington, to hear the heads of
federal agencies decry the status quo in which the claimed
inadequacy of their budget -- in the DEA's case $1.4 billion
per year with a force of approximately 8,000 -- is implied
as the reason for an apparent lack of success in fulfilling
its mission. It must have been jarring to the
administration, however, when on Wednesday, Constantine
testified before the Senate Caucus on International
Narcotics Control to lay the wood to the drug trafficking
situation in Mexico, a nation that the administration
clearly would like to certify despite strong congressional
opposition.
Speaking of Mexican drug traffickers, Constantine told the
caucus, "They literally run transportation and financial
empires, and an insight into how they conduct their day-to-
day business leads even the casual observer to the
conclusion that the United States is facing a threat of
unprecedented proportions and gravity."
Constantine said that the corruption in Mexico is "unlike
anything I've ever seen."
If Constantine's words grated on the Clinton Administration,
they were no more pleasing to the ears of Mexican officials.
Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Labastida told reporters
that Constantine's remarks "reflect a vision in which the
good are on one side and the bad on the other. I deeply
lament what he said."
Certification recommendations by the President are due in
Congress on March 1.
================
4. Jesse "The Governor" Ventura on the Drug War
Jesse Ventura, in Washington this week for the annual
governor's meeting, came off the top rope and planted a
forearm shiver right in the chops of the political
establishment. While Ventura's candidacy was largely
ignored, and his election treated as a joke by the
Washington establishment, Ventura declared his victory "a
wake-up call" to the two major parties.
After the Governors' meeting, Ventura spoke at the National
Press Club and appeared on Meet The Press and CNN. On CNN,
Ventura was asked by host Wolf Blitzer what he meant by the
statement that, "If someone takes LSD in the privacy of his
or her own home, that should be no one's business." Ventura
responded by saying that "to me, in the privacy of your own
home, that has nothing to do with the government. If you're
stupid, and you want to make stupid decisions, and those
stupid decisions don't endanger anyone else, then it's none
of the government's business. And I don't think the
founders of our country had anything like that in mind, that
government would intervene in the privacy of your own home."
"He had a great time in DC, he really did" a spokesperson
for the governor told The Week Online. As to efforts that
his administration might undertake to foster a greater
understanding of Ventura's drug policy views among
Minnesotans and beyond, those plans are on hold. "As soon
as we got in, there was the state budget process, which
really took a lot of everyone's time and energy, and now the
legislature is in session, and so we haven't really had the
time to think all that long-term" his aid said. "It's been
a very busy couple of months for everyone."
================
5. Sen. McCain Seeks Radical Cutbacks in Methadone
Maintenance
- Scott Ehlers, Drug Policy Foundation, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) introduced S. 423, the "Addiction
Free Treatment Act," on February 11, which would
significantly reduce the number of methadone patients and
the amount of time patients would be allowed to be
maintained on methadone. According to Sen. McCain,
methadone maintenance is "Orwellian," and "disgusting and
immoral," and must be stopped to restore the humanity of the
enslaved addict.
The bill would require: (1) Medicaid payments for methadone
and Levo-Alpha Acetyl-Methadol (LAAM) treatment to be
terminated after a maximum of six months; (2) clinics to
conduct random and frequent comprehensive drug testing; and
(3) the termination of a patient's treatment if he/she
tested positive for illicit drugs. Federal funds
administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration would also be subject to the same
restrictions.
In addition to these new federal restrictions, S. 423 would
require the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct a
study within three years to determine: (1) the methods and
effectiveness of non-pharmacological, as well as methadone-
to-abstinence rehabilitation programs. The Center for
Substance Abuse Treatment would be required to submit annual
reports for five years on the effectiveness of non-
pharmacological and methadone-to-abstinence treatment.
Sen. McCain's bill is very similar to a plan promoted last
year by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, which would
have required methadone patients at city hospitals to be
abstinent within 90 days. At the end of five months, only
21 of the 2100 patients were methadone-free, and five of
those had relapsed into heroin use. In January of this year
the mayor abandoned his plan, saying it was "maybe somewhat
unrealistic."
Doctors, patients, and patient advocates have derided the
McCain bill, and are surprised that he would introduce it
after Giuliani's proposal failed so miserably. Dr. Marc
Shinderman, medical director of the Center for Addictive
Problems in Chicago, mused: "It appears that Giuliani's
perfected technique of identifying a stigmatized group and
attacking it has become contagious to Republicans outside of
New York. McCain is either painfully ignorant of the facts
regarding the value of methadone maintenance treatment or is
politically motivated to attack it in spite of the
overwhelming evidence of its efficacy."
He added, "The Institute of Medicine's 1998 Consensus Report
on Heroin Addiction called methadone maintenance the 'gold
standard' in the treatment of heroin dependence. The
abstinence-based treatment advocated by McCain was found to
result in relapse rates of 90 percent."
Patient advocates are equally upset by the bill. Beth
Francisco of the Advocates for Recovery Through Medicine,
found the bill to be "horrible," and believed it would
result in less people entering methadone treatment, more
people relapsing into heroin use, and more diversion of
methadone into the black market for persons kicked out of
programs. Joycelyn Woods of the National Alliance of
Methadone Advocates noted that "the wording of McCain's bill
is demeaning and he is obviously operating from a position
of bias and misunderstanding. I'm surprised that a senator
would be this ignorant about this issue."
S. 423 had no co-sponsors at press time and was referred to
the Senate Finance Committee.
================
6. California Officials Comment on Medical Marijuana
An op-ed by California state senator John Vasconcellos (D-
San Jose) in the Los Angeles Times this Thursday (2/25/99)
blasted the federal government's opposition to voter-
approved medical marijuana initiatives in several states,
including California's Prop. 215. Vasconcellos asked, "What
kind of a government carries on a crusade against the will
of its voters, favors pain and even death for some of its
people?"
According to the San Jose Mercury News, Vasconcellos is
reintroducing a bill to establish a medical marijuana
research program at the University of California, and is co-
chairing, with Santa Clara County District Attorney George
Kennedy, a 20-person task force formulating recommendations
to Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Prop. 215
implementation. Both Vasconcellos and Lockyer, formerly
Senate President, have energetically advocated availability
of medical marijuana to patients.
The Mercury also reported that Lockyer told reporters,
following his first State of the Public Safety address, "It
always amazes me that doctors can prescribe morphine but not
marijuana," and stated that Lockyer and attorneys general
from other west coast states with medical marijuana laws are
planning to meet with federal officials to discuss the
reclassification of marijuana as a prescription medicine.
A spokesperson for Lockyer, however, told the Week Online
that reporters had mistook Lockyer's trip to Washington as
being connected with the medical marijuana issue, and that
while Lockyer is visiting Washington late next month, for
the meeting of the National Association of Attorneys
General, there are "no plans, no meetings, no agenda" in the
works for meetings on the medical marijuana issue. When
asked if Lockyer had plans underway for how to advance the
medical marijuana issue after the task force's report is
released, the spokesperson answered that there is not. He
also said that there has been informal communication between
Attorneys General offices in states with voter-approved
medical marijuana laws, but no formal committees like
California's task force.
================
7. South Carolina Mulls Making Sale of Urine a Felony
Offense
(reprinted from the NORML Weekly News, http://www.norml.org)
February 25, 1999, Columbia, SC: Legislation proposed by
Sen. David Thomas (R-Greenville) seeks to crack down on
individuals who attempt to skirt a drug test by using
someone else's urine. General Bill 277 makes "selling or
purchasing urine with intent to defraud a drug screening
test a felony" punishable by up to five years in jail.
Kenneth Curtis, owner of Privacy Protection Services, a
Marietta-based company that markets urine substitution kits,
surmises that the measure is in response to the ability of
products like his to thwart a urine test.
"Lawmakers are trying to shoot the messenger here," he said.
"This situation is an example of law enforcement
encroachment into what is now mostly a private sector
testing business. People should be concerned about
government officials that would support over stepping into
private sector testing." Thomas argues that his legislation
is necessary because "the safety of the public is at stake
here." His measure awaits action by the Senate Judiciary
Committee.
================
8. American Farm Bureau Reverses Position on Hemp at
Convention
- Marc Brandl, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Delegates at this year's American Farm Bureau Federation
(AFBF) convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico withdrew
language approved last year opposing research and domestic
cultivation of industrial hemp. The issue of industrial
hemp has been a contentious one for the Farm Bureau over the
past three years. In 1996, delegates endorsed a resolution
to, "encourage research into the viability and economic
potential of industrial hemp production in the United
States... includ[ing] planting test plots." This language
was replaced in 1998 by a vote of 198 to 168 after Missouri
Farm Bureau president Charles Kruse brought up concerns from
law enforcement that hemp and marijuana were
indistinguishable.
The American Farm Bureau now takes no position in regards
industrial hemp. According to a legislative aid with the
AFBF in Washington, DC, "The Bureau will not take a position
either way on any federal legislation involving hemp, but
this in no way precludes state chapters from lobbying
elected officials either for or against [hemp]."
================
9. Canada: Terminally Ill Man Will Continue to Smoke
Marijuana Despite Conviction
A Nova Scotia man with an inoperable brain tumor was
convicted of marijuana cultivation this week, but he has
vowed to continue smoking because, he said, "its the only
thing that controls the headaches." Mark Crossley, a 38-
year-old married father of three, suffers from seizures,
headaches, and mood-swings, and has been unable to work for
two years, his lawyer, Brian English, told the Halifax
Herald this week. Crossley was sentenced to four months
house arrest and three years probation, as well as 120 hours
of community service. As he left the courtroom after his
sentencing, Crossley reportedly turned back toward the judge
and prosecutor and shouted, "You can't make decisions about
my health. I'm the one that's sick, not you."
================
10. Author of "Drug Crazy" Lecturing in Dallas, March 2nd
Mike Gray, author of the book Drug Crazy: How We Got Into
This Mess and How We Can Get Out, will speak as part of the
Science and Health Policy Lecture Series of the Department
of Pharmacology and Program in Ethics in Science and
Medicine of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center. The presentation is on Monday, March 2nd, noon, in
Lecture Hall D1.502, South Campus. UTSW is on Harry Hines
Boulevard next to Parkland Hospital. For further
information, call (214) 648-2622, fax (214) 648-8694, or
send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Be sure to verify
the event with the department before taking a trip out.
================
11. EDITORIAL: Mr. Ventura Comes To Washington
Adam J. Smith, DRCNet Associate Director, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fifty governors came to Washington last week to meet and to
greet, to discuss common issues and to powwow with the
president. The annual meeting of the Governor's Association
is also an opportunity for those with their eye on national
office to get cozy with the national press, and to have
their names and their words and, if their lucky, their
pictures run in national publications.
But despite the presence of both Bush boys, as well as
Governor Whitman of New Jersey and Governor Pataki of New
York, the man who stole the show, as well as the national
media spotlight, was a man whose candidacy was once
considered a joke, and whose election has been treated as
something of an anomaly: Governor Jesse Ventura of
Minnesota. Ventura displayed a sharp, if somewhat self-
effacing wit, a disdain for the ways of the inside-the-
beltway set, a manner that oozed honesty and a willingness
to state his beliefs without regard for poll numbers or
political correctness. After meeting with the governors,
Ventura made the rounds, including a speech at the National
Press Club and an appearance on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. By
the time Jesse "The Governor" Ventura got back on a plane to
return to the Gopher State, even the Washington insiders had
to know that The Governor is no joke.
Jesse Ventura beat overwhelming odds to win the election,
and he did it without ducking controversial issues. Even
so, the one issue that stands out is Ventura's stance on the
drug war.
"If someone wants to use marijuana or LSD in the privacy of
their own home, it ought to be none of the government's
business." Simple as that. The drug war has failed, says
Ventura, and besides, people have to be responsible for
making their own decisions in life, even if those decisions
turn out to be idiotic.
Ventura is not "in favor" of drugs, or "pro-drug" as the
drug war establishment insists on labeling reformers. "I
don't condone the use or abuse of drugs" he told Blitzer,
"but I also understand privacy." Which, as has been borne
out by recent (and not so recent) events, differentiates him
from many in the nation's capitol.
The American people are starting to come to terms with this
issue. Over the past two election cycles, drug policy
reform ballot questions have been approved time and time
again. And yet, in Washington the overwhelming response has
been to try to figure out ways to thwart the will of the
voters, and to introduce harsher and harsher measures in a
vain attempt to find the level of violence and terror
necessary to make prohibition work.
It is a truism in Washington that you can never go wrong by
getting "tough," and that the American people will always
support an escalation of the drug war "to protect the
children." But Jesse Ventura, ex-professional wrestler, ex-
Navy SEAL, the big guy with the 22-inch arms at the
Governor's conference who was not supposed to be smart
enough, or savvy enough, is taking on the truism. He is
speaking the truth, and he has gotten himself elected by
counting on the voters to understand and respond.
Jesse Ventura blew into Washington last week and stole the
national stage with straight talk instead of political
platitudes and an unflinching confidence that the American
people could tell the difference. His performance, or
rather his refusal to put on a performance, captured the
imagination of the jaded Washington Press corps, so used to
the meaningless blather and stock cliches of politicians.
Ventura is the only Governor in the land with the courage to
state the obvious, that the problem of substance abuse in
America will be solved neither by the nanny state, nor by
the police state. By speaking the truth, he has shown
himself to be neither joke nor politician but rather a man
who is trying to lead. The political establishment had
better take notice of Ventura and his message on the drug
war. The public already has.
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