I'm against legalization of marijuana. Decriminalization and legalization are different, to my mind.

Instead of talking about legalization of drugs, I'd like to see the entire discussion be rethought from the beginning. We now know a lot more about addiction than we did before - public policy needs to catch up with that knowledge. Recreational drug use is problematic, and is a public health threat, but jailing people for it is not a reasonable first response.

Here's my dream public policy: lower the drinking age to 15, so that kids can learn how to drink responsibly at home with their families, if that's what's going to happen. Stiffen penalties for driving while impaired. Expand addiction treatment facilities. Empower families to assume assets of an addict in case of repeated addiction issues. Raise taxes on all vice drugs (including cigarettes) AND narcotic legal drugs - taxes to go directly to public health fund. Provide for additional supplemental insurance for vice users, mandated if ever entangled in legal system for vice use.

More to the point of the topic - the benefit of a Gupta at the post is that he's a high visibility professional who has the ability to champion personal responsibility on health care matters. Obama has said that government policy commitment needs to be matched by personal responsibility commitment - and the hire of a Surgeon General who can champion THAT aspect of our health care system fix demonstrates that he really does mean it.

My take here: http://obamaproject.windonwater.net/2009/01/sanjay-gupta-for-surgeon-general-how-awesome-would-that-be/

QT

>>More to the point of the topic - the benefit of a Gupta at the post is that he's a high visibility professional who has the ability to champion personal responsibility on health care matters.

"Personal responsibility" is my favorite lunatic libertarian pass phrase.

Just because "lunatic libertarians" sometimes overextend the concept doesn't mean that the concept is wrong.

Don't know if you read my blog post on Gupta, but in there I celebrated C. Everett Koop's championing of the latex condom. Using a condom is an example of personal responsibility, and the surgeon general needs to champion that as part of any reasonable health care initiatives.

QT

EXACTLY! He appears to be an opportunist, prepared to say anything, and morph into anything for the sake of the sociopathy that is the corporate world. I DON'T LIKE HIM.

I'm sure he's just fine with GMO's too. Monsanto and Big Pharma looooooooove him.

Lee,

First, Thank you for not posting something that drives me mad.

Second, with the logic Gupta uses against marijuana many other things should be illegal. Here are just a few to piss everyone off:

Krystal Burger
Beer
Wine
Blue Cheese
Maker's Mark
Cigarettes

Finally, the war on drugs has been an epic fail. The prison industrial complex is such a huge waste of government money and should be one of the first things Obama trims in trying to balance the budget.

"Didn't you ever wonder why getting high is a crime, yeah a crime." "Marijuana, the government wants to test me when I pee."(Awesome Phish song)

no one calls it dope anymore.

how about harm reduction no prosecution for simple possession and start refering to it as the noble herb!

QT - The premise of your argument is incorrect. Marijuana is not an addictive drug and therefore should not be classed with either cigarettes or alcohol or the narcotic legal drugs.
And as to its use being a health threat? In what way? There are many medical benefits to pot, including the quelling of nausea. Are those benefits, and the pleasure people get from smoking pot outweighed by the vast number of people overwhelming our public health system (such as it is) with pot related illnesses? I don't think so.

While I think Marijuana should be legalized, I think if you ask your own Dr. about this, they would agree with Gupta. 99% of all doctors would probably say the same thing--

Hey QT,

Raise taxes on all vice drugs including cigarettes? We already pay three bucks in taxes on a pack of cigarettes. Why not just tax us thirty bucks a pack? Then you'll guarantee job security for your local mafia.

They raised cigarette taxes here in Sweden in the late 90s. It may have made some people stop smoking, but the main effect it had was making cigarette smuggling across the Baltic from countries like Poland so lucrative (and with far less harsh penalties than drug smuggling) that it took about a year for the Russian mob to move in on this action. They dropped the taxes back down after about a year, but the Russian mob are still here. Thanks for that, lawmakers.

Draconic restrictions on recreational drugs only lead to a vast and powerful criminal movement springing up to cater to that need. Prohibition basically made the Mafia in the US and I'd wager that a majority of US crimes are in one way or another drug-related. Plus the fact that the US currently has a larger proportion of its population incarcerated than any nation in history, including any and all dictatorships you care to name.

So exactly how is not decriminalizing marijuana - a pretty mild recreational drug however you slice it - a bad idea? Don't get me wrong, personally I loathe the stuff and I generally can't stand people who are high, but I prefer to be more pragmatic than personal in my political views.

Harry J. Anslinger! If you don't know Harry, then you don't know jack about cannabis prohibition.

To hold views based on propaganda instead of science is not the symptom of a mature governemnt or society.