MarijuanaNews.com : Bennett, Limbaugh, and the Blindness of the Prohibitionist Paradigm.

Posted October 6, 2003

Analysis by Richard Cowan
From 1998 see
The
Tragic Blindness of Prohibitionism
And Counterproductive Nature of Marijuana Prohibition Shown In Glasgow

and
Science,
Democracy, Ideology and the Prohibitionist Police State. Marijuana Use Doesn’t
Hurt “Thinking Skills” But Prohibition Does. Analysis by Richard Cowan

The story about Rush Limbaugh’s alleged large-scale purchases of prescription
pain-relievers has not yet generated the same level of media coverage as did his
allegedly racist remarks about an African-American football player. That should
also tell us something. (Just think how big the story would have been if he had
been caught with a “dime bag” of marijuana!)

However, if and when the story
develops, I am not optimistic about the American people learning anything from
it. In that regard, it is very similar to the stories about William
(Bet-A-Million) Bennett’s heavy gambling.

The reason for missing the point on
both stories is summed up in Einstein’s comment, “It is the theory which decides what we can observe.” That
is as true in politics as it is in physics. When the Bennett story broke, all of
the debate was about whether or not he was a hypocrite, and when it was found
that he had never called for jailing other gamblers, the story died.

The
fact that Bennett is grossly obese, a heavy drinker, and was on nicotine
maintenance when was Drug Czar, never seemed to register with anyone. But of
course he is a hypocrite, a mean-spirited liar, and a complete fraud. So what
else is new?

See
Bennett
and Cuomo of The Partnership for A Marijuana-Free America
Claim They Don’t Have Enough Money To Tell The Truth About Alcohol.
But They Have Plenty To Lie About Marijuana.

The substantive point that no one addressed should have been about “gambling addiction.”
It is a surprisingly large problem. A
2001 problem gambling prevalence study, conducted by the Responsible Gambling
Council and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, found that about 3.8 per
cent of Ontario adults — 340,000 individuals — have gambling problems. Of
these, at least 63,000 people can be considered to have “severe”
problems. That would suggest that almost two million Americans may have severe
gambling problems. That is far more people than have illegal “drug
problems.”

Of
course, there is one key difference. Gambling addicts like Bennett, who seemed
to have gone on binges, don’t snort dice or smoke poker chips. There is no
“substance” involved.

“Gambling
addiction,” like “internet addiction”, etc., is really just a form of
obsessive/compulsive behavior. These “addicts” often behave very much like
people who are addicted to substances. They may lie and steal to support their
habits, and deny having a problem, just like alcoholics. Interestingly, when
prohibitionists describe the withdrawal symptoms of “marijuana addicts” they
describe symptoms like those shown by “television addicts” – mild
discomfort.
See
Is
Marijuana Addictive?
Perhaps Less So Than The Internet.
Analysis By Richard Cowan

and
Walters Tells a New Lie. Oh
Happy Day! People Need Treatment If They Are Sent to Treatment, By Definition.
And How Do They Treat “Marijuana Addicts?” We Couldn’t Make This Up, But
They Did.

The point is that many different activities can become the focus of
obsessive/compulsive behavior, and when the story about Bennett surfaced that
would have been an excellent opportunity to discuss the phenomenon, but we could
not, because we are so “addicted” to “drug addiction.”

From 1998 see
Loud
Music As Addictive As Drugs, Study Says — Eh? What Did You Say?

There are enormous vested interests in legal
gambling, especially including governments, but there is an even more powerful
vested interest in keeping the focus on substances. A substance can be seized.
Its possession can be proven. It is the perfect excuse for police power. The
graft opportunities are international in scope. There is a huge government
promoted rehab racket built on “drug addiction.”

To suggest that much of the problem is really behavioral, just a “habit” out
of control would be a threat to chemical determinism that is also the basis for
selling huge quantities of pharmaceuticals to control peoples’ moods.

Lou Dobbs, the prohibitionist liar,
recently wrote, “From 1998 to 2002, sales of antidepressants increased 73 percent to more
than $12 billion, and sales of analeptics ( drugs that stimulate the central
nervous system, such as Ritalin and Adderall ) increased 167 percent, according
to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information and consulting firm.”
See
Lou
Dobbs Plays Arthur Andersen to The Drug War’s Enron. A Week of Prohibitionist
Propaganda And 91% Of His “Pseudosophisticate” Viewers Still Vote for
Decrim.

Speaking of huge quantities of
pharmaceuticals – Rush Limbaugh’s former housekeeper claims he bought 11,900
“pain pills” from her, and there are several important points that tend to
be overlooked here.

First,
Limbaugh makes over $1 million per month, so his habit did not seem to hurt his
earning power. Whatever one may think of him, he is very clever.

Second,
being very rich, he could afford to stockpile his drugs, unlike the typical
street addict whose life is chaotic because it is centered on getting the next
fix.

Third,
there has been no indication that Limbaugh has a chronic pain problem, but the
drugs he was buying were the sort that are badly needed, but often very hard to
get by people with serious medical problems.
See

What
Is More Important, Prohibition Or The Patients? The Death of Cheryl Miller
Should Remind Us All To Demand A Change In Priorities. Should Pain Be A Crime?

On
the other hand, they are popular with opiate addicts in rural areas where
“street drugs” – other than meth – are often hard to find. They are also
popular with people like Limbaugh, who often convince themselves that anything
that originated with a drug company isn’t really a drug.

In
fact, the misuse of pharmaceuticals is a much bigger problem that the misuse of
illegal drugs. In 1998 the UK Home Office statistical bulletin
reported that, from 1990 to 1995, 1,602 deaths were directly related to
benzodiazepines, including 683 suicides. In the same period, 218 deaths were
linked to heroin, and 483 to methadone.
See
UK
Law Lord Calls Cannabis Prohibition Stupid. His Lordship Is Too Kind! Analysis
by Richard Cowan

Lou
Dobbs’ column quoted above may well have been inspired by his hero John
Walters. Unfortunately, the Bush/Ashcroft/Walters Administration has decided to
extend its war on the sick and dying beyond medical cannabis patients and their
doctors. On
September 29th Association of American Physicians & Surgeons held
a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to warn about
the consequences of this insanity.

Below is their press release.

DEA & DOJ war on doctors!
MEDIA ADVISORY
Association of American Physicians & Surgeons
The Voice for Private Physicians Since 1943
1601 N. Tucson Blvd Suite 9
Tucson AZ 85716
www.aapsonline.org

EVENT: Physician group announces support for drug doctors;
exposes prosecutors tactics & challenges DOJ & DEA to stop
physician witch hunt.

PARTICIPANTS: Association of American Physicians & Surgeons
American Pain Institute
Juneteenth Medical Commission
National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain
Pain Relief Network
CONTACT: Kathryn Serkes (AAPS) 202.333.3855 kaserkes@att.net

Administration Declares War on Doctors
Vows to Treat like Taliban
Doctors Fight Back

The Administration delivered on its threat to treat doctors ‘like the Taliban’
last Thursday when federal prosecutors indicted and imprisoned William Hurwitz,
M.D. of McLean, VA., for prescribing legal pain relief supervised and
approved by the Virginia Board of Medicine. Trial attorneys think doctors
should pay dearly for abuse of medication by patients after they leave the
doctors’ offices. But why is the Bush Administration jailing doctors for
the misdeeds of their patients?

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gene Rossi declared to a reporter that “our office
will try our best to root out [certain doctors] like the Taliban.

Stay tuned.” And earlier this month, the President pointed to
physician prosecutions as the example of how he wants to pursue terrorists.
As promised, the Bush Administration seized Dr. Hurwitz’s assets under drug
forfeiture laws, reserved for kingpins such as the Colombia cartel all
without any finding of guilt.

Then, in front of his two young children, about
twenty armed agents seized the good
doctor himself and imprisoned him without bail on the eve of Rosh
Hashanah.
(emphasis added)

This is a national disgrace doctors throughout the country are being targeted
by egregious law enforcement for helping patients manage crippling pain with
controlled, legal drugs. ‘Physicians are being threatened, impoverished,
delicensed, and imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of
relieving pain,’ says Kathryn Serkes of the Association of American Physicians
and Surgeons (AAPS), explaining why AAPS has decided to support Dr. Hurwitz, as
well asother doctors such as Cecil Knox, currently on trial in Roanoke, VA.
The ‘war on drugs’ has turned into a war on doctors
and lawful drugs and the patients who take them. Prosecutors make
careers out of high-publicity cases involving the hot ‘drug du jour’ such as
OxyContin. But this war is causing enormous collateral damage and deaths
from ‘friendly fire.’

Physicians have been drummed out of practice, sent to jail, and even been
driven to suicide in the face of these 21st century witch hunts.

The public wants prosecution of terrorists, not doctors who relieve pain.
Instead, the Department of Justice is using its inflated powers to encroach on
state jurisdiction and terrorize unarmed, honest professionals. If this
continues, not one doctor will be willing to prescribe the drugs that patients
so desperately need.

AGENDA: AAPS will expose the deceitful tactics employed by law enforcement
to snare doctors & prosecutors’ manipulation of the legal system to
frighten doctors and patients who might be willing to testify on behalf of the
wrongfully accused doctors; announce a national campaign to stop Rx drug abuse
& recommendations for legal remedies to protect doctors from overzealous
prosecutions. Patients will give first-hand accounts of the devastating
impact of this ‘war’ on their access to the drugs that enable them to
carry on their lives. Also available will be a partial list of other prosecuted
physicians.

NOTE: The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons is a non-partisan
professional association of physicians in all specialties, dedicated since 1943
to protection of the patient-physician relationship. AAPS
is dues supported, and accepts no government funding, or pharmaceutical or other
corporate underwriting.