The huffing about puffing: problems facing medical marijuana use

Since President Richard Nixon declared an “all-out offensive” to curb the use of illegal drugs in the United States, the War on Drugs has mostly failed. Even though drug busts seem to be getting bigger each year, few today would agree that drug use is “America’s public enemy No. 1,” a statement Nixon made in 1971.

However, vilification of even the most harmless drugs, including marijuana, was quite effective and has lead to marijuana also being withheld from medical uses that would benefit patients. It also has made an objective debate about legalization almost impossible.

While many states have passed laws that make marijuana accessible to those carrying a prescription, the federal government continues to stonewall, stubbornly sticking to its story: Pot is bad. Period.

The New York Times reported Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration had issued a statement saying “no sound scientific studies” supported the medical use of marijuana. It is hard to fathom how the FDA can make statements like this while patients in California as well as other countries such as Canada and the Netherlands give daily proof that it improves their standard of living.

It is even harder to understand why the U.S. government would be so adamant about withholding drugs even from terminally ill patients. After all, even the most cold-hearted person should wonder why it is acceptable to literally nuke a cancer patient’s body, but prescribing a plant that would readily grow in most gardens and has been used for thousands of years is deemed illegal.

The reason behind this decision has to do with how drugs are classified in most countries. In the United States, the Controlled Substance Act classifies all drugs in one of five groups, ranging from Schedule I to Schedule V. “Abuse” of Schedule I drugs - meaning illegal use - is penalized worse than those in the other groups. Schedule I includes not only hard drugs such as heroin that are addictive often even after their first use, but puzzlingly also marijuana, a substance that has no proven properties that cause physical addiction.
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Elite special forces unit set up in UK

An elite force has been set to strengthen counter-terrorism and support special forces, Defence Secretary John Reid has confirmed.

The Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) based in Wales, will be drawn from Royal Marines, Parachute Regiment and the RAF Regiment. BBC

This, of course, is not to be confused with Torchwood.

From world leader to rogue nation

In the days immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, the world overwhelmingly stood with the United States. The French newspaper Le Monde even wrote on Sept. 12, “Today we are all Americans,” to express a sentiment felt throughout the world: If America’s freedom was being attacked, so was the freedom of anyone in the world, and the world needed to stand united in support.

This sentiment went far beyond a few words. NATO members agreed to recognize the terrorist attacks as an act of war that, per its charter, would warrant a response from all its members - an unprecedented action. No one was forcing foreign nationals to side with the U.S. call to take out the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, yet many offered military or humanitarian support.

Since then, the international goodwill has been squandered through President George W. Bush’s pet projects. The years before the World Trade Center towers were leveled in an explosion of kerosene and hate seem like memories from a past life. But unquestioning support of American ideals now seems unlikely to occur if - god forbid - another attack of this scale should occur.

The reason for this is a dramatic change in U.S. foreign policy that harkens back to times most Europeans hoped had ended. A vendetta to take down America’s enemies quickly followed, and justice went out the window just as quickly. (The mere existence of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, not to mention secret CIA-operated prisons worldwide, are a sad testaments to this new goal.)
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Citizen for sale!

Capitalism has long been a cornerstone of the “American Dream.” A system based on the flow of money that gives everyone the same chance to own that house in the suburbs, picket fences and all, which Americans secretly crave - or so they are told. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that unchecked capitalism can be quite detrimental to society, as it is beginning to seriously hamper that “pursuit of happiness” it was said to bring.

Historically, America has proven it will not budge when it comes to protecting its right to capitalism. The United States spent trillions of dollars and quite a share of human lives in its battle against communism during the Cold War era. U.S. officials justified the expenses similarly to how they now frantically try to justify the expanding cost of the war in Iraq: America needs to fight for freedom throughout the world.

But the opposite is true. An increasing number of Americans are in debt, especially students. Financial aid is being cut while tuition is rising, leading to record numbers of students in debt, a large amount of which is credit card debt.
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Bush on Iran

President Bush in a press conference this afternoon:

The doctrine of prevention is to work together to prevent the Iranians from having a nuclear weapon. I know — I know here in Washington prevention means force. It doesn’t mean force, necessarily. In this case, it means diplomacy. And by the way, I read the articles in the newspapers this weekend. It was just wild speculation, by the way. What you’re reading is wild speculation, which is — it’s kind of a — happens quite frequently here in the nation’s capital. White House

It’s a non-denial. He is not saying that the article in the New Yorker (Required reading straight from Seymour Hersh here) everyone is quoting is wrong, he is just saying it’s speculation.

But good to know the president is reading newspapers.

Secretary of state will not cure ills caused by president

At first I thought I was seeing an early April Fools’ joke - after all, admitting mistakes is the last thing I expect a member of President George W. Bush’s Cabinet to do. But the headline on the BBC’s Web site, “Rice admits multiple Iraq errors,” was not meant to be funny, even though everything even remotely touched by the war in Iraq is becoming more absurd by the day.

As part of a trip to England, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a speech in Blackburn. She said, “I know we’ve made tactical errors - thousands of them, I’m sure,” in regard to Iraq, but also said that on the whole the U.S. government had made “the right strategic decisions.”

The trip was off to a bad start when it became public Rice would not be visiting a local mosque as planned because of protests in the area.

But even with spin, such a hurdle can be taken. Rice simply called the demonstrators that chanted “Condoleezza Rice go home” an example of free speech. Obviously it was, but it’s also hard to deny that if her speech had been held in the United States, such protestors would have been forced to stand in a “free speech zone” (Bush-speak for “out of sight”).

It was soon after her speech in Blackburn that the trip became even more absurd. The press conference following Rice’s speech included some rather peculiar talking points, a list that may as well be distributed as an example of what’s wrong with U.S. foreign policy.
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Supporting Rice could get you killed, in the UK

The Bush administration is desperately trying to spin Condoleezza Rice’s trip to the UK as a sucess. One reason they claim this is the meeting Rice had with notable British muslim community leaders. There’s just one tiny thing that isn’t mentioned when the Bush gang is fawning over how sbviously the US is loved in those circles:

Although the names of the 21 Muslim leaders had been made public, several of them requested that their names not be published or broadcast, for fear of repercussions. Five who agreed to be interviewed clearly feared they might be viewed as traitors. The New York Times

Kinda makes you wonder how bad things must be if even people in your closest allies communities don’t want to be seen in public with you, doesn’t it?