Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Illiterate Voices Our good friends at Educating Voices are at it again. These are the folks (led by Judy Kreamer of Naperville, Illinois) who helped Andrea Barthwell lie about sponsorships for the Illinois Marijuana Lectures. Earlier today, they had a "scoop" at their website. In bold font and in two places they proclaimed that: "Federation Of State Medical Boards Opposes the Smoking of Marijuana For Medicinal Applications - Unless Approved By the U.S. Food and Drug Administration." (Screen shot of that page earlier today - pdf) A couple of suggestions to Judy when it comes to promoting big "scoops." Generally, reporting the publicly available results (pdf) of a delegation that happened over a month ago isn't a "scoop." A scoop preferably should have some correct information (especially a month after the fact) and should in particular not get the facts exactly wrong. Educating Voices now has a "clarification" up at their site. Here's the actual resolution as voted on at the Federation of State Medical Boards: Resolution 05-1, offered by the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, reads as follows: Resolved, that the Federation of State Medical Boards oppose the smoking of marijuana for medicinal applications unless approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration; and be it further Resolved, that the Federation of State Medical Boards create a special ad hoc committee to review and analyze the use of marijuana for medical purposes; and be it further Resolved, that the committee develop recommendations for use by state medical boards in developing rules and policies to regulate the medical use of marijuana. The Reference Committee heard testimony from Director Walters of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy about the adverse effects of drug abuse and utilization of marijuana for recreational purposes and about its policy on the utilization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. [...] ACTION: 384 - Resolution 05-1, Use of Marijuana, NOT ADOPTED Yeah, that part about it not being adopted, in bold and underlined -- you can see how Judy missed that. I love the fact that the Federation chose not to adopt it despite the visit (at taxpayer expense) of Judy's friend John Walters to spread more lies. So basically, we have a resolution put forth by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts (isn't that the state that thinks that the discovery of fossils in the ground are a hoax?) that is soundly rejected -- but Illiterate Voices proclaims a victory. Then, when they got caught, they promoted the Kansas resolution (voted on back in February) as their new "Scoop." One more note: Further down on that "Scoop" page, check out the headline on the article about the Raich decision: The U.S. Supreme Court Bans Use Of Medical Marijuana Gee, I didn't know the Supreme Court could do that, did you? Of course, the Supreme Court did no such thing, but that doesn't stop Illiterate Voices! Their website states that "The EVI Board Members have a total of over 300 years of experience and expertise in drug prevention." Perhaps they should try for a G.E.D. [Big thanks to Krissy at MPP] 8:05:44 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

The mess of the drug war Loretta at US Marijuana Party blog has pieces of a horrific story involving the trial of a man accused of killing three cops in the process of a drug bust. There have been charges that the bust happened because payments to the police officers for protection had stopped, and there are conflicting stories as to the shootings. With the limited information available to me, I'm not about to begin to defend or excuse actions of anybody involved. All I know for sure -- if it wasn't for the drug war, this wouldn't have happened. 8:03:22 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Lollipops and Liquid Pot Last One Speaks has a couple of items to check out: Sativex goes retail in Canada -- That's right, the liquid form of marijuana called Sativex® is now available by prescription in Canada. Next stop, the U.S. (as soon as they can convince everyone that the plant is bad, but the liquid form of the plant is good). Don't they have something better to do? talks about the hemp flavored lollipops that are getting a ton of free publicity through lawmakers trying to outlaw them. There's another article on this here, with some bizarre notions. "We should not have these out and available for kids to acquire these kinds of tastes. I'm concerned it could be a stepping stone to smoking marijuana," Mr. Spade [D-Tipton] said. Yeah, that's right. People smoke pot for the taste. Lenawee County Sheriff Larry Richardson agrees. "I'm all for it," he said. "Kids tell me it tastes like the real stuff. I definitely think we should put controls on it." So how do kids know it tastes like the real stuff? Of course, Last One Speaks has it right: It's perfectly legal, it doesn't get you high and frankly it doesn't sound like it would necessarily even taste that good. In fact, if these leglislators didn't make such a big deal about it, most kids probably wouldn't even notice they were on the shelf and would opt out for the Sweet Tarts instead. 7:50:25 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []