Several Congresspeople get together one election year and decide that
your morning coffee is now illegal, and that anyone disseminating
information on how to brew coffee will spend their next 10 years in
prison. Sound like something from a George Orwell novel?

Like coffee, marijuana has no documented fatalities, but there is
currently a bill in Congress which, if passed, would make it a felony
to distribute literature about marijuana, or any controlled substance
for that matter.

Formally called the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, the bill
is technically aimed at meth labs, which, according to the co-sponsors
of the bill, Senators Orrin Hatch (UT) and Dianne Feinstein (CA), are
a growing environmental hazard. But the bill is not aimed at drugs per
se - it's aimed at "information pertaining to the manufacture or use"
of drugs. It would make it illegal, for example, for a college
professor to discuss how drugs are produced in other countries. It
would also make it a crime for a researcher to study one of
marijuana's proven therapeutic uses.

Regardless of one's opinion of meth, marijuana, or even coffee, the
distribution of information on anything, be it legal or illegal, is a
freedom guaranteed to us by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
In practice, some topics end up closely regulated by governemnt, like
pornography or cigarette ads, which have strict guidelines on how they
can be presented in public. But the bill currently circulating in
Congress doesn't seek to regulate drug-related discourse - it aims to
ban it completely.

In Germany in the 1930's, books were routinely burned that were deemed
politically incorrect. We've certainly come a long way since Hitler's
Germany, but Hatch and Feinstein's bill may take us a step back
towards that era. It could set a precedence for government to ban
information on any unapproved topic - perhaps certain forms of music
or art. Or perhaps the ban will extend to other unhealthy pastimes,
like tobacco or alcohol. Don't doubt it. The FDA recently banned
several books on Stevia, an herb sometimes used as a sugar-subsitute,
despite any convincing evidence of its danger.

Congress can do some pretty virtuous things in an election year, but
don't be fooled by this one. The Methamphetamine Anti-proliferation
Act confiscates two of our basic Constitutional rights - the right to
free speech and the right to a free press. While no one likes the
problem of drug use in our country, banning information is not the way
to solve the problem. Today it may be drug literature, tomorrow it
could be your morning newspaper. ................

Best of luck, Rev.Blake