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In January, in his State of the Union address, President Bush credited recent declines in illegal drug use among teenagers to random drug testing. He then proposed $23 million go to schools opting to use what national drug czar John Walters touts a ‘silver bullet’ and Mayor Alan Autry has vigorously supported.

I was in Fresno for the ONDCP summit on student drug testing, along with other parents, because I hoped there would be room in these gatherings for real discussion, even debate, about this well-meaning but wrongheaded approach to drug abuse prevention. As a research scientist and drug educator, I believe these proposals are based on false premises and hollow promises.

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly two years since state Rep. Kenneth Carano promised a group of medical cannabis patients that he would introduce a compassionate-use bill in Ohio.

Though it’s not uncommon for politicians to promise one thing and then do absolutely nothing, generally people don’t suffer too much when that happens. But when the people are sick, and dying, and the only relief they get is from an outlawed herbal medicine, waiting too long can mean death, or worse than death, a living agonizing hell of constant never-ending pain and suffering.

I guess that’s the kind of stuff those college students and alumni feel when they can’t consume alcohol at or during sporting events. Maybe that’s why Mr. Carano snubbed Ohio patients - again ( that’s twice in two years, Mr. Carano ) and introduced a bill to legalize alcoholic tailgating parties, rather than keeping his word to a few chronic and terminal patients.

CARSON CITY, NEVADA - The Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana filed an initiative with the Nevada Secretary of State’s office that strictly regulates marijuana and imposes penalties on those who deliver marijuana to minors.

‘We’re filing this initiative because current marijuana laws don’t work,’ said CRCM Communications Director Jennifer Knight. ‘The 2004 Marijuana Initiative will reduce teenage marijuana use by strictly regulating marijuana.’ The initiative would:

* Allow adults to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and use it in private.
* Increase penalties for delivering marijuana to a minor.
* Increase penalties for vehicular homicide while under the influence of marijuana.
* Strictly regulate marijuana.
* Tax the sale of marijuana and dedicate revenue to drug and alcohol treatment and education.

Nearly everyone at this year’s Hempfest, regardless of their political persuasion, will agree that our country’s draconian drug laws should be dramatically liberalized.

The Libertarian Party believes that you own your body, and the fruits of your labor. The activists of the Libertarian Party have always been at the forefront of true legalization and/or decriminalization (Libertarians usually say re-legalization) efforts all over the country.

We don’t advocate these re-legalization activities because we are pot smokers (although many of us may be).And it is not necessarily because of the many practical reasons that you are surely aware of: the relative harmlessness of marijuana, the high cost of court trials and incarceration, or the possible medicinal and industrial uses of hemp, etc.

Hi, I am Adam. I am a pretty average United States teenager. I live in a nice suburban town with a new high school. New neighborhoods popping up around every corner. I have made a good reputation for myself playing music with all of the high school programs. I am getting ready to go to the Berkley College of Music in Boston. Hopefully my financial aid goes through because Berkley College is one of the top music schools in the world and tuition is around $30,000 a year. But I have faith in the system because it seems to be working for everyone else that is about to graduate with me.

So things are going great, I’ve worked hard for twelve years and it’s the end of my senior year. My prom date was just announced prom queen and I am about to start my new life.

The Higher Education Act was passed into law over three decades ago by Lyndon Johnson and it authorized federal dollars to be spent on Pell grants, Perkins Loans and Work-Study Programs. Every four years Congress is asked to review the Act and make adjustments as needed. A recent amendment has many students, as well as professors and other academics, questioning the intentions of Congress and their attempts to look tough on drugs.

Passed into law during a late night, closed-door session of the House Education & Work Force Committee, the 1998 Higher Education Act drug provision denies federal aid to any student that has been convicted of a drug-related offense.

Drafted by Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), the provision has resulted in over 150,000 students losing or being denied their federal financial aid. The controversial law was the catalyst for founding members of the growing student movement, Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP).

Presidential politics. War. Terror. Oil and energy. Economics and environment. In the world today, there are so many uncertainties and so many threats to our country and way of life that one might wonder why Drug War politics should be an issue at all. And to the average American, it might make sense that our current situation mandates a steadfast vigilance against drugs, drug pushers, and drug users. For of course, these things are a scourge to society according to the inundation of anti-drug propaganda America has seen throughout the past couple years. For example, drugs fund terrorism. This is another heavy revelation when taken in addition to the already ‘well-known’ fact that drugs are a major factor in inner-city crime, and a huge burden to the American tax-payer, who of course must foot the bill for the addicts’ jail time (and to a lesser extent, their rehabilitation).

Today I listen to more news of homicides in the USA... And I look again at the enormous budget of ‘The War on Drugs.’ I look at the re-burgeoning federal deficits under military spending now to ‘fight the war on terrorism.’ And I see again and again that medically ill people (many of them in wheelchairs) continue to be arrested - and their lives, or very health, seriously disrupted forsmoking cannabis (‘marijuana’). And I see children buying drugs - very dangerous drugs- on the street after having been exposed, directly or indirectly, to marijuana smoking and learning that, contrary to the government’s warnings, those people have not typically been caught in the grips of a values-compromising and a life-compromising trap. ‘If it’s not true that marijuana is so bad, it’s probably also not true about heroin or cocaine or oxycontin!’ [-Infamous last words of too many, I am afraid!]

There are at least four flies in the ‘public health ointment’ offered by the federal government, despite increasingly Herculean budgets and even willingness to resort to terrorist activities against American citizens, to unsuccessfully address ‘the drug problem’ in this country.

NORML needs your help convincing Congress to reject a pair of bills that would criminally punish marijuana smokers for ‘drugged driving’ simply if inactive marijuana metabolites are detected in their bodily fluids - even if the individual is neither under the influence nor impaired to drive.

H.R. 3907, sponsored by Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV), demands that state legislatures amend their DUID (driving under the influence of drugs) to enact mandatory minimum penalties for anyone convicted of driving under the influence of illegal drugs. Under the proposal, states have until 2006 to pass and enforce DUID laws ‘approved by the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,’ or lose portions of their federal highway funding.

Smoking marijuana has led me to many of my favorite out-of-doors places. My first hiking and smoking experiences were necessary to avoid parental supervision. The folks were far more likely to encourage me and my friends to get outside and play in the woods, than they were to encourage us to smoke a fatty. So we did a little of both, heading out to the woods, parks, nearby streams and rivers. Walking and talking with friends, smoking out, we couldn’t help but interact, notice and be overwhelmed by the natural surroundings. We had escaped to the woods to avoid detection, but ended up staying for long periods simply because there was so much to check out and it really was a worthwhile trip. I’ve spent, what seemed like, lifetimes starring into the canopy of windblown trees, searching for fish in the clear holes of a stream, stoned, struck still and silent, listening to the mad beating of my heart and the rushes of wind in the branches, leaves and grasses. I’ve had moments of revelation, marveled at the immensity of my surroundings feeling variously out of place and other times enveloped by nature.

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