Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jun 2010
Source: Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)
Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/Mf7JhJ3G
Copyright: 2010 Columbia Daily Tribune
Contact: [email protected]
Author: Eddie Adelstein
Note: Eddie Adelstein, associate professor of pathology at the
University of Missouri, is Boone County’s deputy medical examiner.

PRESCRIPTIONS SCARIER THAN ‘DEVIL WEED’

I remember hearing 62 years ago that Robert Mitchum had been caught
with a joint of marijuana in his suitcase, was arrested and his
acting career ended. I remember thinking, “He’s done for, now — that
devil weed has entered his brain, and it is all over for him.” Such
was the power of public disinformation. In people of my generation,
those concepts still hold true for many.

Every morning, we review the cases that come before the medical
examiner’s office. During the past few years, more and more deaths
are related to prescription drugs, often taken with legal
prescriptions for opiates. In 2009, drug overdoses reportedly
exceeded automobile deaths in 15 states. Some studies indicated
deaths from ingesting multiple prescription drugs is up by 60
percent. This is partially fueled by the ever-increasing volume of
advertisements for prescription drugs on television. Serotonin
selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) are epidemic. You know them as
drugs such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil. The costs to health care are enormous.

[snip]

In the 25 years I have been a medical examiner, however, I have
neither seen nor heard of a death caused by marijuana. Given the
choice of being placed in a room of either marijuana smokers or
alcoholics, I would choose the marijuana smokers. Except for
lethargy, there are few side effects of this drug.

[snip]

Often, the older generation that demands punishment for marijuana has
never actually used this natural herbal drug. They believe the old
stories about “devil weed.” If they actually smoked marijuana, they
would be surprised because the first time, almost nothing happens. If
they try it again, they might notice a feeling of relaxation, of
overlooking the small annoyances of life and of a small increase in
appetite. They would notice that, unlike with alcohol, they have
greater tolerance for their fellow man and tend to be more careful
about their activities, such as driving. The next day, they are
often relaxed and somewhat apathetic to carrying out tasks. Humans
become more sensitive to marijuana, rather than developing a
resistance, as with some mind-altering drugs. I would never advocate
any drug, but this one has fewer side effects than most.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n496.a03.html

Pubdate: Fri, 25 Jun 2010
Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
Copyright: 2010 Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Contact: http://www.star-telegram.com/submit-a-letter/
Website: http://www.star-telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/162
Author: Leonard Pitts

THE NEW JIM CROW BY MICHELLE ALEXANDER, A MUST READ

“You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the
blacks.

The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not
appearing to.” — Richard Nixon as quoted by H.R. Haldeman, supporting
a get-tough-on drugs strategy.

“They give black people time like it’s lunch down there. You go down
there looking for justice, that’s what you find: just us.” — Richard
Pryor.

Michelle Alexander was an ACLU attorney in Oakland, preparing a racial
profiling lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol. The ACLU had
put out a request for anyone who had been profiled to get in touch.
One day, in walked this black man.

He was maybe 19 and toted a thick sheaf of papers, what Alexander
calls an “incredibly detailed” accounting of at least a dozen police
stops over a nine-month period, with dates, places and officers’
names. This was, she thought, a “dream plaintiff.”

But it turned out he had a record, a drug felony — and she told him
she couldn’t use him; the state’s attorney would eat him alive. He
insisted he was innocent, said police had planted drugs and beaten
him. But she was no longer listening. Finally, enraged, he snatched
the papers back and started shredding them.

“You’re no better than the police,” he cried. “You’re doing what they
did to me!” The conviction meant he couldn’t work or go to school, had
to live with his grandmother. Did Alexander know how that felt? And
she wanted a dream plaintiff? “Just go to my neighborhood,” he said.
“See if you can find one black man my age they haven’t gotten to already.”

She saw him again a couple of months later. He gave her a potted plant
from his grandmother’s porch — he couldn’t afford flowers — and
apologized. A few months after that, a scandal broke: Oakland police
officers accused of planting drugs and beating up innocent victims.
One of the officers involved was the one named by that young man.

“It was,” says Alexander now, more than 10 years later, “the beginning
of me asking some hard questions of myself as a civil rights lawyer.
What is actually going on in his neighborhood? How is it that
they’ve already gotten to all the young African-American men in his
neighborhood? I began questioning my own assumptions about how the
criminal justice system works.”

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n489/a05.html