The latest ignorant and fact-free screed comes from Connecticut State Senator Toni Boucher: “Fake Pot” — A New Threat to Children and Parents.
I began work on halting efforts to expand marijuana use after emotional appeals for help from mothers and fathers who had found their young children dead from drug overdoses after years of marijuana use.
Clearly, those mothers and fathers have been betrayed by giving their trust to their senator. Marijuana did not cause those deaths. Those deaths have come about because Toni Boucher and other elected officials have continually put the distribution and safety of illicit drugs in the hands of criminals through banning them, rather than saving lives by regulating these drugs.
She knows her responsibility:
As elected officials and advocates for a health and safety of our constituents, we are entrusted to help improve the lives of the people we represent, not place them in harms way.
And yet, it is through banning drugs that she puts their lives in harms way.
Additionally, by continuing the push to ban marijuana, it is the politicians who have created a market for fake pot, it is the politicians who have created a reason to shift to other drugs, and it is the politicians who have put marijuana sales in the same category and distribution network as heroin and cocaine.
Toni Boucher has blood on her hands. And she attempts to clean up that blood either with willful ignorance, or outright lies.
According to medical experts, however, one marijuana cigarette is even more lethal than a cigarette, 4-5 times more.
You don’t serve your constituents by lying to them and making them less safe.
It is truly a tragedy when a state senator seemingly takes advantage of a selection of the most gregarious lies gathered and put in one folder, under a probable title; ‘Fear Mongering to Stop Legal Marijuana’, to throw, as a public service at a shrinking ignorant population.
A number of the canards the …honourable Antonietta “Toni” Boucher flung at her audience would be realized by google-ing up a single person’s name: Irvin Rosenfeld. He suffers from a rare form of bone cancer, and not only been kept alive by government-supplied marijuana but flourishes as a reputable stockbroker by the help of ingesting 10 to 12 joints a day.
This year will mark the 30th year he has been doing so with a past consumption of approximately 120,000 joints.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/man-sets-marijuana-record-smokes-115000-joints-provided/story?id=9159281
(I tried to drop this message on that site to no avail).
One Marijuana cig is more lethal than one tobbacco cig no way jos’e your;e lying there medical evidence to the contrary its a natural and yes I’d rather smoke it than synthetic spice stuff but the illegality is whats driving everyone to synthetics.
Now wake up folks its not Maryjane that’s the problem its the synthetic meds antidepressants,synthetic,hormone sand certain plastics the list is endless and pesticides in food an toxins in ours soils and air that are far more dangerous and making everyone one sick everywhere.
Cancer is epidemic in this society and no its not Cannabis causing it if grown in reasonably good soil with natural nutrients it has shown to reduce tumors, these idiots need to read Susann Somers whose alerting folks to dangerous of our toxic society. Look at Dr. Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw who have PHdS. and have been doing research into anti-aging medicine for about 30 years they also their research shows Marijuana is safe and should be legal. instead these people are bed with and listening to experts who are poising our kids with synthetic garbage and making there kids sicker and yes I know some folks need to take some of that stuff on occasion I’m not anti-regular medicine I just think we nee to clean up our environment eat organically when you I do no a bit more that’s all.
Durk and Sandy sell supplements and have a life extension magazine yes there a hundreds of intelligent doctors and scientists like I’d like to see them up on Capitol hill with there expertise talk about cannabis of course they will never be called upon because the benefits of cannabis info could fill the whole capitol building with sheaves of paper in defense and the DEA WILL HAVE NON- OF THAT.IN FACT IF they could arrest and find a way to shut up those docs from speaking out believe they would. damn I just wish for one day I did not have to be so cynical.anyway these are my two cents worth for today.
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The easiest way to defang the smoking argument is to point out that smoking isn’t required to gain the benefits of cannabis.
I’m sure that if someone chose to smoke oatmeal that there would be a similar risk profile. So should we make oatmeal illegal because smoking it causes cancer?
Substitute wheat, rice, oak leaves, belly button lint whatever, smoking it isn’t likely conducive to health.
If they need to keep the act of smoking cannabis illegal I’m fine with that concession. Then again, I quit smoking cannabis in 2006. I highly recommend it to all of my fellow potheads. It’s a pain in the ass at first, nowadays I can’t figure out why people still do that. It used to be the cheapest delivery method but vaping has taken even that advantage.
Oh yeah, let’s not forget vaporizing is proven safe in a peer reviewed study published last year.
If they want to play, what say we give them a game?
The smoking “problem” is a red herring and should be treated as such when arguing with a prohib.
But I’ve recently encountered a situation where even a doctor admited that they won’t sign off on patients who smoke but would sign off if the patient vapes or eats. They are really (and understandable) uncomfortable with the smoking aspect of the equation.
“Marijuana causes cancer!”
“No, smoking certain substances causes cancer. Marijuana helps manage it.”
There’s still COPD, bullous lung disease and emphysema none of which are any fun at all. While cannabis is the one substance that if the smoking of which were to be shown to not cause these problems it wouldn’t shock me, heck, wouldn’t even mildly surprise me, I still think there’s no reason to take a chance with the wide variety of choice in vaporizers available nowadays. Get that rubber band off of your wallet and cough up the dough (npi). Not using these things is antithetical to a truly frugal lifestyle. I have heard that people are using e-cigarettes for cannabis, it turns out they’re itty bitty vapes. Quite naturally the FDA is seeking to make them illegal, we sure wouldn’t want to have nicotine addicts that didn’t get sick and die horrid, expensive deaths, now would we?
I`m so sick of stupid politicians I smoke cannabis to stop from puking.
ROFLMAO! Consider that stolen, err I mean seized. Hmm, maybe appropriated? Oh never mind, sometimes I’m going to use that line in the future.
It (the site) took Malcolm and my comments…
Darkcycle- There’s nothing wrong with the site’s comment section. The Senator Toni Boucher rightfully is being made to eat crow from all directions. Because of a high end editing program (AVID) on my 6 year old computer, if I upgrade with certain plug-ins, I lose it forever. Haven’t been able to leave comments at Drug War Chronicles, LA Times, Baltimore Sun etc for about a year now. It’s just about come to as soon as Pete upgrades his site again – I go mute.
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A new laptop costs about $400. Use it for the new sites, the old one for whatever it is that your holding onto, that part’s beyond my ken.
Glaring omission to Irvin Rosenfeld’s Class A drug intake:
Previous to the NIDA’s Compassionate IND (Investigational New Drug) program, Irvin Rosenfeld smoked the same daily amount for 11 years.
So children, you can all go outside into the real world now, but Antonietta, you must write the following one hundred times;
“Irvin Rosenfeld has survived bone cancer by smoking 160,000 joints of marijuana.â€
only 10 comments on that article so far and so far 0 have sided with the prohibitionists. albeit 5 of them are malcolm tearing it up with pesky facts and common sense
CommonScience: New netbooks start at about two hundred fifty. Check your area, here we ave a company called “Re-PC”, they take in old out of date computers and put in new guts, refurbish them and sell them cheap. They also finance, and donate when it’s appropriate. You may have something similar in your area. There’s the public library if nothing else, no need to go dark.
Well I contributed my bit. Nice to see malcom kyle finding a use for some of the references I’ve posted here about caffeine psychosis!
Yeah Bravo Malcom for your comments to Atoniettia.
ANd concerning Irvin Rosenfield there are hundreds of Irvin Rosenfields male and female out there were it if they had immunity and were on government program and not in fear of arrest and prosecution could also have just has compelling stories about there medical use of Cannabis and the normal productive lives they led.and have books about there lives also.
Of course people say his story not common they say cannabis is dangerous because young minds are exposed and gateway theory blah blah blah. because others are not allowed to freely state there’s I’m sure this would change more minds.
It seem that Spice and other such synthetics plus the shooting of congresswoman yes they in media are still out their blaming cannabis for her shooting it has ramped up prohibitionists arsenal of scapegoating,lies,paranoia and new restrictive laws to protect the children Hello lady the children always find ways around whatever restrictions you throw at them our society is extremely adaptive and yes very entrepreneurial.
I don’t suppose pointing out that synthetic cannabis and synthetic cocaine are just the latest bastard progeny of prohibition will impress any one.
I don’t suppose that pointing out that these newly spawned red headed step children come in about 700 different formularies so the thought of making them illegal without a sea change in how our laws are written is laughable. Hey, let’s write the new law….anything that makes people high is illegal, except for drinking alcohol of course. Screw the people who enjoy making model airplanes, they can use wheat paste.
I suppose it won’t matter that the popularity of these particular substances prove that people would rather obey the law than to break it, even to the point of taking a synthetic version of a totally non-toxic natural substance which seems to have some serious health risks.
No, I’m not a happy camper tonight. Thanks for noticing.
I really love the SAMHSA statistics about State by State “treatment” statistics. You know, the ones they made a big deal about with California registering a 117% increase in cannabis in “treatment” victims between 1998 and 2008? Why 1998 and 2008? California legalized medical cannabis in late 1996, isn’t that the logical starting point? They have the 2009 statistics up as well. Don’t forget that New York has half the population of California and during this time frame had the “Rockefeller” draconian penalties in effect.
In 1996 California had 172,277 total in “treatment” for all categories.
New York State had 230,003
In 2009 California had 180,104 total in “treatment”
New York had 313,271
In 1996 California had 69,092 in “treatment” for opioid addiction.
New York State had 36,127
In 2009 California had 36,489 in “treatment” for opioid addiction.
New York had 76,478.
So how come we don’t get to say that medical cannabis lowers the rate of opioid addiction? Damn near cuts in half if you look at the numbers with the right attitude.
In 1996 California had 48,565 for drinking alcohol or drinking alcohol + something else.
New York State had 120,400.
In 2009 California had 42,857 for the combined categories.
New York State had 141,532
In 1996 California had 17,497 in “treatment” for cocaine.
New York State had 44,550.
In 2009 California had 15,134 in “treatment” for cocaine
New York State had 37,897
wow, finally an improvement for NY in one category. Still more than 4x the rate cocaine “treatment” to general population in NY than CA.
In 1996 California had 11,971 in “treatment” for cannabis.
New York State had 21,347
In 2009, California had 34,126 in “treatment” for cannabis.
New York State had 51,405
Well yes it does seem that the percentage increase was higher than New York’s. The rate of in “treatment” to the general population was just a tad higher than California with New York coming in at 0.27% in “treatment” and California at… damn, it made my calculator exponentiate, god I hate it when that happens. 8.908526315789474e-04 whatever that means. I’d rather figure out Chinese hieroglyphics than decipher advanced math. I think anything beyond 12×12 is advanced math.
Figure it out yourself, 34,126/38,000,000
Any way you look at it it’s a tiny percentage.
Do I have to include the meth #s? CA really blew chunks on that stat. 22,739 in 1996 to 49,239 in 2009. New York State had a 213.22% increase in their in “treatment” methamphetamine cohort from 257 in 1996 to 805 in 2009. Can’t we play that percentage game too?
One of the ironclad rules of successfully lying with statistics is when the number base is small use percentages, and when the number base is large use whole numbers. I learned that back when I was trading stocks, it’s a very well followed rule by those who promote stock swindles. It’s one major reason why Bernie got away with his thing so long and so large, because he didn’t follow that rule.
I’m even more confused about why they used 98-08 numbers, that 1996 to 2009 cannabis percentage increase in California was pushing 200%. Then again the total # in 2009 was down 1441 from 2008. Hmm, the total # in “treatment” in California fell from 201,973 in 2008 to 180,104, a drop of 10.827%.
38 million people live in California, give or take a few million unregistered Mexicans.
19 million in New York. They might have a few unregistered residents there too, though likely a more diverse ethnic base.
Sure looks to me like Prop 215 was very good for addiction rates in California overall. It wouldn’t even be arguable except for that meth fiasco. On the other hand, there’s 44.285% more people in “treatment” for meth than cannabis in California. The last stat I saw said that 100 million Americans have tried cannabis, and less than 4 million have tried meth.
Mark Twain was a prophet.
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ny96.htm
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ny09.htm
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ca96.htm
http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ca09.htm
Hmm, now I wonder how Connecticut did. You can look up the CT stats, just change ca09 to ct09 in the urls above. Hmm. an increase of 111% of the # in “treatment” for cannabis between 1996 and 2009. The lady Senator should be so proud of that. Well CT definitely did much better than NY on total in “treatment”. Man it must suck to be a druggie in NY.
Boucher in French translates to butcher in English.
Stupid bitch or willfull ignorance? The science is there, the studies are there. Did she not get the memo? Has she been under a rock for the last 40 years? I think not…its willful ignorance because her ‘constituents’ ,aka lobbyists, want her to.
This fake pot thing. Kids went to it because it was legal. What has changed, its now illegal. So, now not only is it not regulated for purity , possesing it can land you in jail and ruin your life. YAY ! We do such a good job of keeping it off the streets we dont have to worry about ruining teens lives ….not .
They say they are protecting people…who…tell me who?
All I see is billions wasted, drugdealers and cartels enriched and regular folked lives ruined by the very law that is supposed to help them.
This world is sick. Diconnecting from it is looking better everyday.
Duncan, you’re going to give yourself a headache.
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Propagandists spreading their gossip while pseudo pacifists are appeasing their lies and generally aiding and abeting the enemy. They lie to profit maintaining this dysfunction.
Harkin to Lie
The (F)Utility of DAWN
Experts Look at the Drug Abuse Warning Network
In a Week Online newsbrief last week (drcnet.org ), DRCNet quickly surveyed the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) report on the latest statistics from DAWN (the Drug Abuse Warning Network) and promised a deeper look this week. Here we deliver. drcnet.org/251
Last week, SAMHSA’s news release announcing the numbers emphasized an increase in marijuana-related emergency room visits, raising eyebrows and causing consternation to drug reformers while providing ammunition for drug czar John Walters to fire another salvo in his crusade. “Marijuana-related medical emergencies are increasing at an alarming rate, exceeding even those for heroin. This report helps dispel the pervasive myth that marijuana is harmless,” Walters railed. “In reality, marijuana is a dangerous drug, and adults and youth alike should be aware of the serious consequences that can come from smoking it.”
Provoked by Walters’ propaganda move, DRCNet asked Dr. David Duncan, a clinical associate professor at the Brown University School of Medicine and private research consultant, just what the marijuana figures indicated. “They tell us very little,” he replied. “Does a marijuana ‘mention’ mean that marijuana played a vital role or was it ancillary? No one knows because DAWN was not set up to collect that data,” he said.
“Mr. Walters and many, many others have used this data in the wrong way,” Duncan continued. “DAWN was never set up to collect enough information to tell you useful things about problems coming into the emergency room. When someone uses DAWN numbers to try to tell you how dangerous a drug is, it’s just not set up for that.”
Duncan also questioned DAWN’s 30,000 marijuana-only “unexpected reaction or overdose” reports. He scoffed at the very notion of a marijuana overdose. “Marijuana overdose just doesn’t happen, as the term is normally used in medicine,” he said. “What I expect is being labeled an overdose is really an unexpected reaction. You can get very stoned or paranoid or have psychedelic effects with very large doses, but that is not an overdose in the normal sense of the term.”
A cannabis overdose is theoretically possible, Duncan conceded, but a practical impossibility. “The estimate is that a 150-pound man would have to eat five pounds of hashish,” he said. “What that means is that you can’t eat enough to produce a life-threatening overdose.”
Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage
There is currently a very intelligent discussion happening over on Patch:
http://newcanaan.patch.com/articles/fake-pot-a-new-threat-to-children-and-parents
Toni Boucher’s claims about the dangers of marijuana have been thoroughly debunked, and most of her statements have been shown to be either lies or else completely intellectually dishonest.
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