Minister Al-X

A New Year In Times Square- The Same Old Stupid Drug War

Throngs of people will, as always, fill Times Square this New Year's Eve to watch the ball drop. This year, however, if these revilers were to let their gaze drift down and across the street they would find themselves staring at a curious banner exclaiming "Freedom is Drug Free!" If one of those curious revilers was to go up and get a closer look they would realize that the banner is part of an installation by the DEA titled Target America: Drug Traffickers, Terrorists and You, and exhibit which seems bent on trying to blame pot smoking New Yorkers for the 9-11 attacks. Yes, that's right, if you smoke a joint to celebrate this New Years than not only are you committing a victimless crime, but you are responsible for September 11th.

Besides the offense that New Yorkers might feel as the attack they personally lived through is used to intimidate them in the drug war debate, but as this year winds down the moral arguments that the government uses to justify the drug war sound more shallow than ever.

This whole Vioxx mess has made it is obvious that the government doesn't give two shits about your health so long as a major pharmaceutical company is selling the drug. The FDA whistleblower who testified that the FDA is “incapable of protecting America” estimated that Vioxx had helped to cause 27,785 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths since 1999. For those of you keeping score, that is roughly ten times the amount of people killed on September 11th. Two other things continue to really piss off in this whole debacle. First of all, the FDA didn't take Vioxx off the market, Merck withdrew it. Second of all, the FDA still hasn't removed other troubling drugs from the market, such as Celebrex and Bextra, even though they may pose the same threat to the health of the American public.

Remind me- what health risk does Marijuana pose?

In response to the Vioxx/FDA controversy, President Bush is doing what any great leader would- he's trying to limit the liability that drug makers face from putting drugs on the market that they know are dangerous. Obviously, I'm just waiting to hear about those opposed to "tort reform" are terrorists. Well, I guess I don't really have to wait, that's exactly the argument American Insurance Group Chairman Maurice Greenberg made this past February, when he said "It's almost like fighting the war on terrorists. I call the plaintiff's bar terrorists."

Meanwhile it has become ever more apparent that Congress is in the pockets of the big drug companies. We learned this week that retiring U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, who helped to author the new Medicare law (a boon to big drug companies at the expense of the American tax payer), would become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the largest lobbying firm representing the major pharmaceutical companies.


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In other drug war related news, the AARP has found that almost 3/4 of the seniors they polled support legalized marijuana. So who exactlly supports keeping medical Marijuana illegal?

posted by Anonymous @ 1:13 PM