This week, the healthcare reform debate churned on behind the scenes as the economic crisis and treasury secretary Geithner's latest bank rescue plan dominated the news cycle. Meanwhile Democrats weighed various strategies to advance healthcare reform even without a filibuster-proof majority in the senate. Drug policy made headlines this week. Attorney General Eric Holder expanded upon the administration's new found tolerance towards states that permit medical marijuana. The morning after pill will soon be available over-the-counter to 17-year-olds nationwide, thanks to a ruling by a New York federal judge.
I am going to steal some of what "greatwhitebuffalo" wrote over at Dkos, which got very little attention, and add some current updates.
This is the story of medical marijuana, the law of unintended consequences and the astonishing obtuseness on the part of physicians who in acquiring godlike authority over life and death seem to have lost touch with their own basic humanity.
It's a heck of a story. Got time to make a difference? Read on.
Meet Seattle musician Timothy Garon. Check out his video. He's really good.
In France, there is an army of patrols (as they are called) constantly employed to secure their fiscal regulations against the inroads of the dealers in contraband trade... The arbitrary and vexatious powers with which the patrols are necessarily armed, would be intolerable in a free country.
Today, "contraband trade" would be illicit substances including cannabis. To create laws that call for the confiscation of property, mandatory minimum sentences, the power to put to death for the use and possession of cannabis is "intolerable in a free country."
The Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment (HR 5672) would have blocked the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from harassing ill and elderly patients who use marijuana medically to treat their conditions. It failed by a vote of 163 to 259, June 28, 2006.
Congressman David Obey (D-WI) told the White House, the Congress, the Justice Department and the DEA to butt out of meddling in citizens' medical affairs.
Congressman Obey asked: "When is this Congress going to recognize that individuals in their private lives have a right to manage their problems as they see fit without the permission of the big guy in the White House or the big guy in the Justice Department or any of the Lilliputians on this Congressional floor?"
jeromearmstrong Our Polarized and Money-Driven Congress: Created Over 25 Years By Republicans (and Quickly Imitated by Democrats http://bit.ly/ewXlXI #bblue
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