Norm Stamper
Retired Seattle police chief, member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition


Norm Stamper-Retired Seattle police chief, member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
March 28, 2009 | 05:57 PM (EST)


Marijuana No Laughing Matter, Mr. President



The president's busy. He's got important things to do, like rescuing the economy, saving jobs and mortgages and industries. But we ought not to let him off the hook for his frivolous dismissal of a widely popular question he faced in Thursday's Online Town Hall.

At the top of the televised event, the president announced that of the 3.5 million votes on the thousands of questions received in advance, one topic "ranked fairly high." It was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and encourage job creation. He responded: "The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy." He then asked rhetorically what the question says about "the online audience."

Get it? His in-the-flesh audience got it, chuckling politely at the allusion to a Stoner Nation plugged in to the "internets."

The problem for Mr. Obama is that marijuana reform was at or near the top of the list of all questions in three major categories: budget, health care reform, green jobs and energy. Our leader doesn't seem to understand that millions of his interlocutor-constituents are actually quite serious about the issue.

Which is not to say that drugs, particularly pot, doesn't offer up a rich if predictable vein of humor. Cheech and Chong's vintage "Dave's not here!" routine is still a side-splitter. As Larry the Cable Guy would say, "I don't care who you are, that's funny right there."

But there's nothing comical about tens of millions of Americans being busted, frightened out of their wits, losing their jobs, their student loans, their public housing, their families, their freedom...

And show me the humor in a dying cancer patient who's denied legal access to a drug known to relieve pain and suffering.

Having just returned from Minnesota whose state lawmakers are entertaining a conservative, highly restrictive medical marijuana law, I can tell you what's not funny to Joni Whiting.

Ms. Whiting told the House's Public Safety Policy and Oversight Committee of her 26-year-old daughter Stephanie's two-year battle with facial melanoma that surfaced during the young woman's third pregnancy. The packed hearing room was dead quiet as Ms. Whiting spoke of Stephanie's face being cut off "one inch at a time, until there was nothing left to cut." She spoke of her daughter's severe nausea, her "continuous and uncontrollable pain."

Stephanie moved back to her family's home and "bravely began to make plans for the ending of her life." The tumors continued to grow, invading the inside and outside of her mouth, as well as her throat and chest. Nausea was a constant companion. Zofran and (significantly) Marinol, the synthetic pill version of THC, did nothing to abate the symptoms. Stephanie began wasting away. She lost all hope of relief.

Joni's other children approached their mother, begged her to let their sister use marijuana. But Ms. Whiting, a Vietnam veteran whose youngest son recently returned from 18 months in Iraq, was a law-abiding woman. And she was afraid of the authorities. There was no way she would allow the illicit substance in her house. As she held her ground, her grownup kids removed Stephanie from the family home.

Three days later, wracked by guilt, Joni welcomed her daughter back. "I called a number of family members and friends...and asked if they knew of anywhere we could purchase marijuana. The next morning someone had placed a package of it on our doorstep. I have never known whom to thank for it but I remain grateful beyond belief." The marijuana restored Stephanie's appetite. It allowed her to eat three meals a day, and to keep the food down. She regained energy and, in the words of her mother, "looked better than I had seen her in months."

Stephanie survived another 89 days, celebrating both Thanksgiving and Christmas with her family.

Shortly after the holidays, Stephanie's pain became "so severe that when she asked my husband and me to lie down on both sides of her and hold her, she couldn't stand the pain of us touching her body."

Stephanie died on January 14, 2003 in the room she grew up in, holding her mother's hand. A mother who, as she told the legislative committee, would "have no problem going to jail for acquiring medical marijuana for my suffering child."

Following Joni Whiting's presentation, it was all I could do to hold it together during my own testimony. Such was the power of this one woman's story. And of the sadness and rage roiling inside me as I reflected on the countless other Stephanies who are made to suffer not only the ravages of terminal illness and intractable pain but the callousness and narrow-mindedness of their leaders.

When I finished my testimony, a local police chief, a member of the committee, angrily accused me of disrespecting the police officers in the room--who'd shown up in force, in uniform, to oppose medical marijuana. Wearing a bright yellow tie with the lettering "Police Line, Do Not Cross," the chief charged me with placing more stock in the opinions of doctors than of Minnesota's cops. Guilty, as charged. Who are we, I asked him, to substitute our judgment for that of medical professionals and their patients? Who are we, for that matter, to deny the will of the people.

There's much value in humor, even during times of pain and tragedy. So long as the joke is not at the expense of the suffering.

It's been a bad couple of weeks for the president. His Leno comment about the Special Olympics while self-deprecating and not malicious was certainly tone deaf, followed soon after by his casting gratuitous aspersions at serious advocates of marijuana reform.

But Barack Obama is a decent and honorable man, compassionate and wise. I can't believe he would do anything other than what Joni Whiting did if, God forbid, he faced similar choices within his own family. I can't believe he doesn't realize the political value of taking a more reasoned, courageous stand on drug policy reform in general. Or of at least providing honest, thoughtful answers on the issue.

Perhaps we should show him what's in it for him? Perhaps we should make certain that in every future "town hall" the president is reassured of the seriousness of the legions of voters working to end cruel and ineffective drug laws.

Git-er-done!

I laugh at you stinky pot heads and your failure to turn this country into a drug playground.You know if you got a brother in the white house and he is against pot you got a snowballs chance in hell of getting that one passed!

To the drug free Americans who still have their morals intact.

The issue is not about morality, it's about freedom and liberties. We can legally abuse (in many cases) a product that requires weeks of fermentation (alcohol) or a product that is laced with other chemicals, preservatives, and harmful agents (cigarettes) yet we cannot cut from a plant in the ground and smoke. That is simply the government violating the liberties of others. Smoking pot harms far less people than alcohol and cigarettes by it's nature as it is largely free of many of the carcinogens that are added to cigarettes. The effects of smoking pot are also similar to alcohol.

While I can understand the personal moral argument (i.e. abusing our bodies is against god's will, etc), at the same time, alcohol and cigarettes are no less a violation of that principle.

Not to mention the economic possibilities and repercussions that come from criminalization but I think that goes to another topic.

Considering it is illegal in nearly every state and country in the world.I guess you think you are somehow smarter than all the people who make these decisions including the president?

Thank you. Pot heads is the reason many of us turned to other drugs. Pot became not enough. Everyone I know that used to smoke pot; all turned to harder drugs. Like it or not...that is the truth.
Pot is a drug used to achieve euphoria. Life is better without it.

Kat

I personally understand your points to an extent; but why trade one bad thing for another? A drug is a drug..alcohol is a drug...Most mix pot and alcohol together...why make it legal for more and more people to use and abuse pot and head out on our streets and highways to cause even more problems than it already does?

Kat

Medical is one thing.....

Kat

normally i wouldnt bother but here goes ..maybe a chance to enlighten .....

..you see people what it is ..a pothead will get his pot no matter what ..thats how he rolls (pun intended)but he would much rather see the revenue go back to his country rather than some foreign country,and the people they are gonna sell it on the corners because they couldnt or wouldnt get a job and these are facts so no matter what you do people are going to smoke pot..

..now where the money goes is up to the government their choice is either to legalize it... or continue to spend money trying to stop it which, they wont succeed and continue to watch the profits go to another country ,,now no one is saying not to have any controls over it similar to alcohol ...not to mention the jobs it would create

..you cant stop the use of pot but you can decide on where the profits go..and thats the bottom line...cause stone cold said so

..so who is smart

)

I heard him say that. I thought he was being funny. He was joking around.

Who's a stinky pothead? I work at walmart, I was lucky they didn't want a sample of my DNA as a condition of employment. Oh and for the record, George Washington I guess was one of those stinky potheads, huh?

Amsterdam ring a bell? How about Vancouver, where they've cut the violence associated with the harder stuff, by providing a place to get the stuff needed to use drugs. For christs sake, how many billions do we waste a year in DEA, Arrests, Prosecutions and incarcerations? For what, because some guy, who liked to get high and watch old Tom and Jerry episodes got caught buying a plant?

Get real.

Here are some interesting facts:



Annual Causes of Death in the United States

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30


Gateway Drug?

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/43


Addictive Properties of Popular Drugs

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/28

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/pdf/economic_costs98.pdf

The economic cost of drug abuse.

I wish I thought that legalizing pot would stop the way pot is sold but it will not. It will still be under ground and will still be bought from dealers. The cost will be even higher than it is now.
Pot wars will begin. I can see it now...drug lords raiding government grown fields,destroying them all to take back their customers.
Truth is; legalizing pot will do nothing but help the recreactional user stay high without fear from the local law. Til they can't afford it anymore. With the price of living being so high...I cannot even fatham being able to partake in pot. It is very expensive...not like it was a long time ago. Cheap and easy to get.

Another thing...who wants their info known by all that they smoke pot? Businesses will know by checking for your license or signatures for the purchases of said legal pot. Governemnts will know for sure.
Schools will have access to it. Loan officials will have access. Does a school really want you there knowing you smoke pot? Will a bank want to loan money to a known druggie?

Kat

Kat,

Good point. I hadn't thought about that before. Will companies still require employees to do urine checks if it was legal?

<=========== stinky pot head (who is laughing at you for saying something so stoopid)

Pardon me for this...but......stinky EX pothead laughing at you for still being so s....d "you know the word".

Kat

What does Obama's color have to do with this?

I think it's funny how most of the non-smokers are so against marijuana reform laws. In all honesty...nobody can judge the cause and effect of a drug unless they've tried it first hand. You can't just assume it's evil from what you hear on the news and from what other opposed non smokers tell you. Contrary to what most people believe, marijuana users are not "bad" people. They don't slow down society, they aren't a problem for employers, they don't steal, rape, murder, etc... 99.9% of the smokers I know sit on the couch and watch tv or play video games while stoned. While the alcoholic next door is beating his wife and kids. I have NEVER seen anyone want to be violent from smoking weed. I see it all the time from drinking alcohol.

It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal choice and freedom.


I'm not gay, but I'm all for gay rights (another war on personal choice and freedom).

Did you miss sumpin? I am an ex pot smoker. Over twenty years dude. I have just a little insight on this subject.

Oh and winx..it wasn't nothing about his color. It was because so many think a brother "black" smokes pot nonstop. If a brother doesn't want it there...so on and so on. Get it?

Kat

Ok. My bad. I edited it to "most" instead of "all".

There are some rare cases where weed caused someone to get into harder drugs and mess up their life...but it mainly starts with the "legal" gateway drugs (tobacco and alcohol).