A HUMAN-MADE PROBLEM IN THE U.S. THAT DISCRIMINATES, CONFUSES, STEREOTYPES
AND HURTS THE YOUNG AND OLD EVERYDAY!

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.

The first rotten 'bug' is that the federal government continues to
incorrectly categorize 'marijuana'(cannabis) alongside heroin, representing
it as so dangerous as to be medically useless and personally and socially
very destructive - dangerously and seductively and uncompromisingly so! And
then, by keeping tobacco and alcohol off the entire schedule (bugaboos2 and
3), the false implication is that alcohol and tobacco are not as dangerous
as marijuana!

This confuses EACH NEW GENERATION OF KIDS GROWING UP INTO ADULTHOOD. The
problem is not our kids. The problem is the double-talk of the federal
government in its seriously flawed scheduling of substances and all laws
(federal and state and local)and attitudes and actions that 'trickle down'
from that. (Moreover, this 'confused ' scheduling may lead to increased
black market activities...)

To the best of my understanding, the constitution does not even authorize
the federal government to make such a scheduling - at least not as the
permanent, long-term public health authority in this regard. Our country's
framers left such public health responsibilities to the states... The
current federal stranglehold on the scheduling of dangerous substances
represents the fourth bugaboo - especially when interstate commerce is not
involved!

Given the lack of consensus around the federal government's scheduling of
substances and the illegitimacy of the federal government remaining the one
and only authority here, and given the opportunity (if simply the political
clarity and will) to empower each state to derive their own scheduling, we
could have 50 empirical experiments underway. At present we have one flawed
scheduling, to which the feds retrying to make everyone walk lock step -
even if it takes (LITERALLY) terrorist tactics (among other tactics) to try
to accomplish.

Has this subject been something worthy of your interests, abilities and
resources?

It certainly is relevant to present-day public health and civil rights and
government funding issues. I think there are many different tragic stories
impacting Americans every day that spin off of this central problem.

If these multiple stories were presented over a period of time, all of them
logically tied, each in their own way, to this central problem (that I
presented to you here), then you might provide further positive
contribution to positive movement in the minds of people and in the actions
of our leaders and in the laws of this land that could lead to a much
healthier America (and world) - less at war with itself. Civil rights could
better flourish for all Americans, freeing up many more Americans to
contribute openly and without inappropriate human-made roadblocks to our
diverse and vibrant society.

What do you think?

Norman Jentner, Ph.D.

Director of Public Health

Ohio Patient Network