Tue, Mar 29, Dr. Oz show asks "Medical Marijuana: Is it Time to Make it Legal?" (click image for promo video, available to Mar 30, 2011)

On Tuesday’s edition of The Dr. Oz Show NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre appears along with Montel Williams and Dr. Donald Abrams, as well as an audience loaded with NORML activists from around the Tri-State area.

The show, “Medical Marijuana: Is it Time to Make it Legal?” also brings in former ONDCP staffer Andrea Barthwell (now a consultant for a firm she created called EMGlobal Public Health) and audience members from a heroin rehab center to examine the issue of medical marijuana.

Because, after all, medical marijuana could lead to heroin addiction (*face palm*).

Click the image to visit the Dr. Oz website and watch the promotional video – you’ll hear St. Pierre telling Barthwell “you’re wrong!” and you” hear Williams respond with righteous indignation in support of medical marijuana.  (That video will be gone by Wednesday.)  Check the Dr. Oz website or your local listings to find if and when the Dr. Oz show airs in your area.

I do believe at the end of this interview I hear ardent prohibitionist Dr. Andrea Barthwell, former deputy drug czar, making the case for legalizing marijuana, taxing it, and offering up public health campaigns about it.

Good job, Aaron, and I know how the time constraints are on live national TV, but will somebody, please, anybody, when the prohibitionist says that the taxes on tobacco and alcohol don’t begin to cover the social costs, instead of going with the “marijuana is safer than alcohol and tobacco route”, which is undeniably true, swing it back to the economic argument and say:

“22 million Americans are smoking pot already and we’re taking in zero revenue to cover any social costs, which, since marijuana is safer than alcohol and tobacco, will be much lower. And since the greatest costs from marijuana are from policing people for it and dealing with the crime and violence of a black market, we’ll do much better than break-even on the deal.”

This is the latest press release from the (Non-Alcoholic, Non-Phamaceutical, Non-Tobacco) Drug Free America Foundation:

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The arrest of the Connecticut Vice President of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws for violent threats against State Senator Toni Boucher has brought to light more incidents of verbal abuse, physical intimidation and harassment by other drug legalization activists.

Dr. Andrea Barthwell, a prominent treatment professional, recently spoke of her experiences. “They are not above using misinformation, intimidation, and retribution to advance their goals. As a long time advocate for the prevention and treatment of drug abuse, I have been harassed and threatened in person and on blogs by people and groups who support the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) agenda,” said Barthwell.

That’s Andrea Barthwell, former Deputy Drug Czar under George W. Bush.  Speaking of misinformation, she once said, “If there were compelling scientific and medical data supporting marijuana’s medical benefits that would be one thing, but the data is not there. The claim of one individual who has used marijuana does not medical data make.”  As a long time advocate for providing marijuana to the sick and dying people who gain relief from it, I have been harassed by Barthwell when she said, “The people who are advancing marijuana as a medicine are perpetuating a cruel hoax that exploits our compassion for the sick. They are using patients’ pain and suffering in an attempt to change America’s drug control policy. Marijuana is a crude plant product that most definitely is not a medicine.”

I’m still waiting for the medicinal marijuana patient to tell me to stop “using” them and repeal Oregon’s medical marijuana law, Andrea.  By the way, Andrea now works for a pharmaceutical company that takes marijuana in “crude plant product” form and makes a spray out of it for medicinal properties (check out Pete Guither’s excellent post on the subject).  The manufacturer touts that the product is a “whole plant extract” that contains all the compounds found in “crude plant product”.  You know, the one that Andrea says “is most definitely not a medicine.”

Roger Morgan, Californians for Drug Free Schools, recalls being cyber stalked by a drug legalization supporter. “My emails were hacked, some files were damaged and erased and obscene emails were sent to colleagues under my name. I was threatened over a telephone relay system by the same individual. This person was traced back to the drug legalization movement. I know many other colleagues who have also been cyber stalked and it’s really a very menacing and costly act,” said Morgan.

That’s Roger Morgan, who believes that states should mandate that their public schools institute universal drug testing of students.  “Even if politically sensitive, the results from universal, non-punitive random drug testing for all students would be so astounding in terms of saved lives, dollars and creation of productive young people that in short order all parents and taxpayers would demand this protection.”

I’m still waiting for Roger to read the District Court’s decision in Tannahill v. Lockney Independent School District, where random, suspicionless drug-testing of all students was considered unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court has only upheld drug-testing for student athletes (Vernonia School District v. Acton) and kids in extra-curriculars (Board of Education of Pottawatomie County v. Earls).  Because, after all, if a kid does have a drug problem, we want to make sure he doesn’t get involved in other, healthier activities involving more responsible adult supervision.  Better that we make him a social outcast to punish him for his drug use.  That’ll get him off the drugs, or at least on to the alcohol we can’t really test for.

Calvina Fay, Executive Director of Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF) concludes, “Advocates for legalizing drugs are known for attempting to silence their critics. We have been subject to all forms of threats and harassment by the pro-drug lobby. Drug legalization is a controversial topic, but we must keep the debate respectful. That the other side is resorting to strong-arm lobbying tactics tells me they don’t have the facts to back up their assertions. They are desperate to win by any means, legal or otherwise.”

That’s Calvina Fay, the woman who wrote, in the most respectful tone possible, about medical marijuana in New Jersey, “Please ensure that your legislators are not misled — it is much more compassionate to ensure sick people are not being exploited by those who just want to make a quick buck peddling snake oil.”  Last year at a world forum on drugs, Calvina respectfully said, “Much of that movement is funded by a name that many of you know – George Soros, a convicted criminal who has publicly labeled himself as an atheist and yet has claimed that he is God… His philosophy is to destroy societies that he does not like and then recreate them using his “open society” model. He destroys by creating chaos. And what better way to create chaos in society than to have a drug-addicted population that dominates.”

Other Calvina Fay moments of respect with facts to back up her assertions:

• “…these advocates have pushed the envelope too far when they began espousing that it is the “human right” of individuals to use drugs and endanger not only their own lives but the lives of others. With rights, come responsibilities and that is something that drug users know or care very little about.”
• “The sad thing is that people smoking pot probably do feel better even if they are not getting better but they could also feel better by smoking crack cocaine or injecting heroin. Will these be the next drugs to legalize as so-called medicine?”
• “The drug legalization movement certainly has more money than we do but, we are on the right side.”

Now, once again, let me point out that the vast majority of folks in marijuana law reform are peaceful, respectful, intelligent adults who behave with the utmost in decorum.  But when a tiny few Americans who’ve had a war declared on them for 39 years, who’ve endured incarceration, loss of property and home, who’ve been frozen out of their career or schooling, who’ve lost custody of a child, who’ve seen a loved one gunned down by a police officer, who’ve returned from the horrors of war and been branded criminals for trying to self-medicate their PTSD; who’ve been lied to repeatedly and obviously by people like Andrea, Roger, and Calvina, when they snap and send a nasty email, yell at a speech, or shove someone, it’s not that hard to understand.  I don’t endorse it, but I understand it.  Honestly, I think the fact that Americans haven’t responded with more violence against a war declared on them testifies to what a good and decent people we truly are.