Ben Morris at MPP points out that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has updated their information to reflect new policy from the American Medical Association, while at the same time actually leaving out that new policy.
Check out their new quote:
The American Medical Association: “To help facilitate scientific research and the development of cannabionoid-based medicines, the AMA adopted (a) new policy … This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product.â€
Note that, as presented, it’s a nonsensical statement, because the policy itself is missing. The next words that would be in place of the ellipse in that statement are: “urging the federal government to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance.” (also note that the ONDCP misspelled “cannabinoid”)
The thing is, the AMA isn’t endorsing medical marijuana — they’re just saying we should review marijuana’s status. But apparently that’s too much for the Drug Czar’s office, while at the same time the qualifying parts of the AMA statement were too rich to pass up.
…
Why is it that the ONDCP takes this approach to all their lying? I mean, they lie all the time, but they constantly use this game of being “technically” true (like some 6-year-old), when in fact, all that needs to qualify as a lie is the intent to deceive.
I mean, if they’re going to do this, why don’t they simply make up a quote from the AMA?
pete, i just read your “about you” section (i play piano too) followed some links, and actually read straight through the declaration of independence for the first time.
It is ironic how many of the things that the king did that the government is doing now. ok it’s not quite as bad, but still…
Thou shalt not bear false witness. (Government lies and propaganda)
Thou shalt not covet they neighbors’ possession. (Forfeiture laws to a T.)
Thou shalt not steal. (The whole drug war is theft of individual rights and freedom, but taxes to pay for it suffices.)
I am always heartened to see when religious groups come together to endorse ending the drug war, and use legitimate religious reasons for doing so.
Should we be standing outside these drug warriors churches on Sunday mornings with signs naming them and their breaking of the ten commandments? You know, like the anti-abortion crowd?
But seriously, NO ONE likes admitting they are wrong. That is a huge hold-up to our efforts. Ego, or lack thereof and over-compensation. And to fill that ego, they must control and punish other human beings doing things they don’t want them to do. Its mostly arbitrary what they want to control and punish, but its everywhere in our laws usually under the guise of helping.
Not purchasing health insurance from a big corporation is about to become as illegal as possessing cannabis in some parts of the US. Don’t do drugs, for your own good, or we’ll lock you up. Buy health insurance (not pay for treatment), for your own good, or we’ll lock you up. Of course they lie and say its for the children, and our future, and it won’t cost us anything and will save money, and lie after lie after lie, exactly like the drug war. Exact same disrespect for human liberty.
Inertia: the property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force.
Needless to say, human actions are subject to the same property. How much of what anyone does in the course of a single day is habit-sired inertia?
That means that government agencies and the policies they administer have inertia, too. The ONDCP’s a perfect example. It has been merrily trundling along, lying through its’ teeth every single day of its’ existence, because it has never been caused to change course. It has an ‘inertia’ of its’ own.
So, of course, with the ONDCP never having been seriously challenged in such a way that its’ organizational survival was at stake, it would continue to feel safe in disseminating lies.
Or it had, until recently. With more public interest being expressed in MMJ laws (and, even more amazing, in ending cannabis prohibition, outright!), and that interest being echoed by organizations like the AMA, (whose members have suffered at the hands of the DEA, for the fact remains that the DEA has horned in on the AMA’s turf) which are now committing heresy by challenging DrugWarrior orthodoxy that cannabis has no medicinal uses, and are thus striking a blow at the very foundation of drug prohibition, that inertia is being slowed.
The day is coming when those lies will be challenged effectively, in a venue where those disseminating those lies will be held legally accountable, and thus creating the above-mentioned threat to the organization’s raison d’être. That could (and should!) happen the next time an ONDCP wonk is forced to give sworn testimony to Congress.
The ONDCP has enjoyed a very comfortable inertia for a very long time, and so it’s felt safe in continuing to lie. But that will maintain only for as long as it is allowed to lie with impunity. Place them under oath, and hold them accountable for their daily trespasses upon the truth, and the lying will cease soon enough…
If the drug war is 10% of the iceberg, what is the other 90%? How will chopping off the exposed 10% effect the remaining 90%? Will we chop that 90% down 10% at a time? As we chop off each of these 10% what will be the effect upon our government , on us?
It seems to me lies is ALL our government is about. The more we expose , the more we find , the uglier it gets.
“If the drug war is 10% of the iceberg, what is the other 90%?”
Good question. And the answer is even uglier than many care to imagine.
A few years back, a man named Rodney Stich published a book titled Defrauding America.
It is literally too big a book to be handled by a mere few paragraphs of description, so I won’t bother. But suffice it to say, Mr. Stich lays out most of the interconnections between government agencies, corporations, drug cartels, etc. and shows just how corrupt our institutions have become thanks to these unholy alliances. And he voluminously footnotes his allegations. To say it’s eye opening is to engage in gross understatement.
An iceberg has its’ ‘fault lines’, its’ ‘cleavage’, wherein if you hit it just right, it will crack apart in short order, causing the remaining pieces to melt even faster. The filthy dirty iceberg represented by drug prohibition and its’ attendant corruption has a vulnerability, and that is proving to be the economy.
That vulnerability is smack on the main fault line, which is why it is defended so heavily by the supposed forces of justice. Crack that one sharply, and watch the rest break up into more malleable pieces. We have only to plant the shaped charges of truth at those spots, wire them up, get the hell off it, and then shout “Fire in the hole!” as we hit the detonator.
Oh, and make sure you bring some plastic sheeting and wear raingear like they used to at Gallagher shows, as that iceberg is nothing but pure 100% frozen slime, and you wouldn’t want to get that splashed on you…
As the UN crime czar has stated that the only reason our world banking system did not turn belly up in 2008,was because of drug money,the one commodity that will always be in demand,when we remove the cartels marijuana money from the mix,what will the effects be? Will it cause the failure of the world banking systems?
With the US back in charge of the opium trade in Afghanistan,they are back up too speed and producing even more opium than before the Taliban shut it down. Which is the real reason we are there,to control the opium crop.
When we had control of the valley where 80% of the worlds opium is produced,and our government allowed the opium crop to be sold on the black market,instead of purchasing it and burning it right there,it showed every American and everyone else in the world that removing drugs from the market is not why we have a
War on Drugs. It should stand as the clearest message possible that our government is making money from the drug market.
Gil misspelled cannabinoids because of one simple reason: he has no dictionary!
Clay, arguably the real reason for being there was oil pipeline building; opium is a side benefit. And as to the banks, well, they’ve been the major ‘pushers’ of ‘fractional banking’ and it’s greatest beneficiaries. Remove the drug money from the equation and they go down, big time, as they have nothing in their vaults but fiat currency. And that has value only for as long as the supply of it isn’t inflated by printing too much of it with nothing to back it…which it most certainly has been.
I have a co-worker, an older man, who’s done more globe-trotting than I did, and he told me once of living in a flat in then-West Berlin where the walls had been plastered with 1920’s era Deutschmarks because the ruinous inflation of Weimar-era Germany had rendered wallpaper more valuable. I fear the dollar may meet the same fate, where toilet paper and nose-wipes would have more utility.
And with regards to all the obvious contradictions of government pronouncements against illicit drugs, ‘allies’ being involved in the drug trade, the banking cartels surviving the havoc that they created only because of that trade, the fact that the poppy fields were off-limits for eradication, etc….it’s like the glue that was holding the phony masks in place over the real faces of what’s been going on for decades is finally breaking down, and the masks are slipping, and those who were unaware that there were masks at all are starting to realize what many reformers knew all along.
I’m seeing more and more on politically ‘progressive’ sites a growing realization that this Administration is little more than a continuance of the last one, with a few – very few – bones tossed to those ‘progressives’. A lot of them are mad as Hell about what’s happening right now with health care reform being stymied by ‘their’ pols. They’re waking up to the fact that, just like the old Who song, they’ve met the new boss, and he’s indistinguishable from the old one. The same players are at work…only now the masks of those players are slipping. The Internet is largely to blame for that.
And so, when I point out those inconsistencies regarding the drug laws, when previously I was essentially told to STFU, now I am getting more in the way of responses acknowledging something’s terribly wrong when the ‘change’ they wanted looks an awful lot like the polices they thought their votes signaled the wanted an end to.
A storm is brewing out at sea, and it won’t take long before it reaches landfall, a storm that will force ‘progressives’ to take a good, hard look at what they want to accomplish, and how they want to accomplish it. The present methods are not working because the people they sent to Congress have already been suborned.
It’s time for a radical house cleaning, and that would mean a windfall opportunity to review all present policies, in light of the fact that we can’t afford about 80% of them…like the DrugWar.
Whaaoo… I want some cannabionoid!