Wednesday, June 08, 2005
You Are Not Allowed to Feel Better ... Got It?
According to John Walters, the Supreme Court got it right on medical marijuana. His argument comes down, essentially, to saying that medical marijuana doesn't work, and should be illegal, even if it does make some people "feel better," a phrase which Mr. Walter puts, condescendingly, inside quotes. As though feeling better when one is sick is somehow no big deal and a vaguely tawdry aspiration.
Mr. Walters is the nation's "Drug Czar," a hideously ugly title that any American should be ashamed to hold. In this role, Mr. Walters co-ordinates -- or something -- the government's $35 billion anti-drug effort. Plainly, this crusade is not working and, so, according to Mr. Walters's own logic ought to be put out of its misery.
This, of course, will not happen. Mr. Walters will continue to spend lavishly to make citizens behave the way he -- and a few thousand agents and bureaucrats -- believe they ought to. This is not surprising. It is what people who nurse governmental aspirations do ... they rule. And they believe that because they rule, they know best. "We have a responsibility as a civilized society to ensure that the medicine Americans receive from their doctors is effective, safe, and free from the pro-drug politics that are being promoted in American under the guise of medicine."
No room for individual choice, here. Mr. Walters and the government -- this is the "we" he is talking about -- have the responsibility. You? Well, you have the duty to do as they say. And if you don't, they will put you in jail. ...
...You would think a man with $35 billion to spend would have more important things on his agenda than doing an end-zone dance over the bodies of a few cancer patients looking for a little relief from the side-effects of chemo. What did Mark Tucci, who lives down the road from me, ever do to Mr. Walters to make him gleeful that Tucci now cannot legally use a drug that makes him "feel better." Tucci has MS and says of medial marijuana, "It is by far the most benign thing I've pumped into my body. It just gets rid of a lot of pain. It makes my life bearable."
Not so fast there, Tucci. Your government has a better idea and if you know what's good for you...