More DuPont (reefer) madness

[snooch]

So I was doing some more reading on Dr Robert DuPont, former US drug czar and was astounded to read an interview with him which described his policy evolution when it comes to cannabis. When he first started with Nixon he was the head if NIDA and was pro-decriminilisation of cannabis, arguing any problems with it should be a health issue and not a criminal one.

 

That was, until he received a letter from Ron and Marsha "Keith" Schuchard - two middle class American teachers who held a party for their 13-year old daughter, who they claimed had become "moody, indifferent and just wanted to hang out with her friends." At this party, the teens had alcohol and cannabis. As a result, these two parents blamed the cannabis for the apparent change in their daughter, and started a campaign (and eventually founded a group called National Families in Action) opposing all things cannabis.

 

Read their story here: http://www.nationalfamilies.org/publicatio...t_say_wait.html

 

So taken with their story, DuPont decided that "She's right and I'm wrong," and that "She also made very clear that support for decriminalization was seen as being pro-pot, and that that had a very negative influence." So he changed his stance and became pro-prohibition, even going as far as saying, when he left as drug czar, that cannabis was in many ways the worst of all illegal drugs.

 

By his own admission he: "had to walk away from all of the scientific experts that I had some respect for, although over the years, I must say, diminished respect."

 

Read the full interview with DuPont here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sh...ews/dupont.html

 

So here you have the head of NIDA who has decided to turn his back on science (remember his interview from Foreign Correspondent when he dismissed medicinal use of cannabis as "not science"?....hmmmm....) and instead based an entire drug policy on the story of two parents who, while on hands and knees after a party swept aside alcohol bottles and found some roaches on the ground and who without any solid evidence decided that any and all "problems" their teenager had were due solely to cannabis. (And once again it comes back to the responsibility factor - much easier for the parents to blame something other than looking at themselves - for a start why weren't they supervising the party properly??!! meh)

 

Notwithstanding that DuPont's policy probably was influenced by other factors, am I the only one who finds it frightening that, at least publicly, he "credits" his change in attitude to anecdotal stories with so many holes in them it's not funny? And how frightening it is the influence people can obtain mainly through fear, and the lies they can peddle as a result? (one of parents wrote a book: "Parents, Peers, and Pot, a vitriolic attack on the drug culture that claimed pot did everything from causing "enlarged breasts" among adolescent boys to destroying the immune system. It was the biggest best seller in NIDA history, with more than a million copies printed.")