Really Bad OpEds

bullet image Scott Morgan calls this “the worst anti-marijuana editorial I’ve seen in awhile” and I’d have to agree. This is from Dustan Call, News Editor of The Clarion Online, a first amendment publication of Citrus College, Glendora, Calif.

My opposition to the legalization of marijuana for recreational use is not about politics, proven facts, or calculated data. It is about morals.

At least he’s up front about it. Morals, not facts, are driving his opposition.

Those that say there is nothing wrong with non-medical marijuana, let alone legalizing it for recreational use, in my mind have low morals.

Morals play a critical role in the strength of our nation. Morals prevent us from allowing fanatical and harmful practices to becoming acceptable or non-punishable under law; practices such as molestation, abortion, slavery, underage drinking, child abuse, communism, and torture.

While legalizing marijuana may not be on the same level as murder or sexual crimes, that does not lessen the wrongfulness or the immorality of the issue. […]

Morals are what set the United States of America apart from governments of countries such as China, South Korea, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and many others. Allowing such a disregard for morals will be the downfall of our nation.

I assure you that unfathomed repercussions would occur as a result of legalizing marijuana. It will take us one step closer to becoming like the countries that we are working so hard to prevent from causing harm to the world.

I usually enjoy taking these apart, but there’s hardly anything here worth dismantling. It’s gibberish. Of course, there’s the obvious fact that he doesn’t know North from South Korea, and the question of whether it was legalizing marijuana that made countries like China, Cuba, Iran, and Sudan so immoral in his view.

I guess what I would like to ask him is, “What is more likely to send us down the path of China, Cuba, Iran, and Sudan? Participating in torture, extraordinary rendition, secret trials, and spying on citizens, OR legalizing marijuana for recreational use?”

By the way, Dustan lets us know where he developed his unique views. In D.A.R.E.

bullet image Armstrong Williams gets all bent out of shape when he learns that some children have been given marijuana to treat severe ADHD. [Which, by the way, has been very effective.]

California doping our youths

I was horrified to read recently that it is increasingly common in California to treat children diagnosed with Attention- Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) with marijuana. […]
Truly, this is horrifying. ADHD is described as a neurological disorder that prevents children from focusing on a specific task. In essence, people with ADHD have difficulty with self-regulation and self-motivation, owing to problems with distractibility, organization and prioritization.

Notably, these are the same functions that are most impaired by marijuana use. Get it? Pot actually exacerbates the problems with attention, memory and concentration that you want a treatment for ADHD to alleviate.

Here, Armstrong clearly shows why he is a talk-show host and not a doctor or scientist or someone who actually… knows things. As Bruce Mirken notes, “we know that the brains of ADHD patients don’t work like those of normal people — which is why stimulants like Ritalin have a calming effect, the exact opposite of their effect on most of us. ”

Armstrong then goes on for paragraph after paragraph to denounce the idea of drugging kids with ADHD given that it’s a questionable diagnosis, and that parents should be disciplining their children rather then medicating them, and on and on, all referring to marijuana.

Where has he been the past 20 years? We’ve been doping kids with ADHD with lots of drugs — much more dangerous ones than marijuana — and some have died from them. If we can replace one of these with marijuana effectively, then it’s a net gain.

And yes, we need to study this more, but in the meantime, N of 1 trials are perfectly acceptable with a relatively safe drug like marijuana.

[Thanks, Logan]
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26 Responses to Really Bad OpEds

  1. kaptinemo says:

    In re: Mr. Call;

    “But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound. Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their souls not only honey is lacking. And when they call themselves ‘the good and just,’ forget not, that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but- power! – Friedrich Nietzsche (Thomas Common translation)

    Every time I hear one of these would-be morals proctors, I can’t help but look down at their feet and see fist-sized chunks of clay trailing behind them. They’re the sort who’d burn you at the stake to save you…or throw you in a cold, wet, stinking cell and allow you to go through opiate withdrawal while hectoring you about your ‘sins’. Yet, when their own ‘morals’ are examined, you invariably see just what ol’ Fred Nietzsche said you would.

    How far would Humanity have gone if we didn’t have to drag this sort along, kicking, screaming and trying to gouge your eyes out? How much History would not have been written in the blood of their victims?

    It’s enough to make you want to consider eugenics…

  2. Barth Bottoms says:

    I’m so glad the moral police are here to tell me how to live and what to put in my body. Why I couldn’t function without them! Thank you busy body do gooders for your indispensable service to humanity. (snarkasm)

  3. Voletear says:

    The article ( http://www.theclariononline.com/legalization-of-marijuana-is-immoral-1.2117295 ) has a poll on whether pot should be legalized. “Yes” is currently edging out a slight lead at 97% to 3%!

  4. claygooding says:

    So it is more moral to create a government bureaucracy with a mandate from congress to lie and mislead the American public as necessary to keep marijuana illegal.
    It is more moral to lock people up for non-violent victimless crimes than to legalize a gift from nature that grows anywhere and is impossible too eradicate Morals cannot be dictated,mandated or forced on anyone.
    It is more moral too continue the prohibition and keep the drug dealers selling drugs too our children instead of using retailers that check ID’s.It is more moral too keep sending billions of dollars too Mexico and sustaining a war that has killed thousands of innocents,killed by the cartels and the federal troops.
    I don’t think the editor of the morality piece knows what morals are.

  5. Servetus says:

    Dustan Call’s editorial is a prime example of why most prohibs avoid the moral argument in favor of red herring tactics that make false and misleading claims of a drug’s detriments to mental and physical health. Given the diversity of morals, morality for the sake of morality simply doesn’t appeal. There needs to be a legitimate reason for a moral to exist for it to become an effective means of social control.

  6. DdC says:

    Pete’s kinky fetish, posting wingnut gibberish. I’d much rather see a few paragraphs from Montel Williams than this unkle tom whacko Armstrong. Speed is the drug of fascists. Hitler raving over the fatherland or Rush countering his oxy binges. The Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines, cops and doctors, nurses, models on diets and mothers needing a pick me up. Kids for ADD and many blue collars working two shifts. Hippies told ya, speed kills. Now for news fit to print.

    Ganja Gourmet Becomes First Marijuana Restaurant to Open
    A new restaurant on Broadway in downtown Denver claims it is the first of its kind… anywhere. Ganja Gourmet serves food items laced with marijuana. And not just brownies. This place has all kinds of different dishes made with pot sprinkled in.

    No Negotiations With Terrorists Ed Rosenthal
    We have been indoctrinated into the philosophy of “Don’t negotiate with terrorists.” I see some value in that approach. But let’s not just apply it to physical terrorists who threaten physical violence, but to political terrorists as well.

    Cops Are Prohibition Pushers Jeremiah Vandermeer
    The Vancouver Police department is working overtime – not fighting crime, unfortunately – but doing their best to make sure Bill C-15 becomes Canadian law.

  7. Jon Doe says:

    I loved how he lumped “communism” in with “child abuse” and “slavery” and other such obvious evils. Now, I know most modern freedom-worshiping folks don’t have much love for the ideology, but it should be remembered that pre-Marxist communist thought was mostly Christian, going back to the very first community of believers mentioned in the canonical Bible’s Book of Acts. Hell, even ye ol’ fabled Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony where pretty damn communistic and they’re held in the popular imagination to be the spiritual/religious forefathers of the Republic.

    I guess the Cold War ideological struggle still lives on twenty years later in an America HUGELY indebted to Communist China.

  8. DdC says:

    Self appointed moralists, when will we learn?

    The prohibitionists/modern nazi’s from hell, have no qualms about seeing UFO’s, believing virgin births or that Boosh Jr was the second cumming. Blind faith in Fox propagandists while burying themselves in deniel over Ganja and even Hemp. Its one thing when teabog ditzo’s swig a Lone Star and does goofy shit. I hear the worship smoke stacks. But when tax paid employees do it, I think that is not representing me or my tax dollar. Fire the Swine!

    “Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”
    “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
    ~ Harry J. Anslinger – America’s 1st Drug Czar

    “Marijuana leads to homosexuality … and therefore to AIDS.”
    ~ Carlton Turner – Former Drug Czar (Reagan)

    “Casual drug users should be taken out and shot.”
    ~ Daryl DARE Gates – Former LAPD Chief

    “While in this condition [high on marijuana] they become raving maniacs and are liable to kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons, using the most savage methods of cruelty without, as said before, any sense of moral responsibility. . . . If this drug is indulged in to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict.”
    ~ Emily Murphy – Canadian Prohibitionist (1923)

    “I want a Goddamn strong statement on marijuana, I mean one that just tears the ass out of them. You know, it’s a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish.”
    ~ Richard M. Nixon – Former President

    Jewish Leaders Testify for Medical Marijuana By Lee Chottiner, Executive Editor
    CN Source: Jewish Chronicle December 10, 2009 Pennsylvania
    Ruth Damsker still remembers how her husband, Jeffrey, a physician, was terminally ill with an aggressive form of brain cancer. He tried several therapies to find relief — all without success. Finally, his physician suggested an alternative treatment: marijuana. “He thought it would be helpful, but obviously my husband was uncomfortable experimenting with it because he knew it was illegal,” Damsker recalled. “It really saddened me that he was unable to have an alternative therapy that would at least make him feel more comfortable.”

  9. ezrydn says:

    Imagine the money his parents are wasting on a college education! The writer not only does not know what morals are but also has no idea what a college education is supposed to supply you with. A Shill By Any Other Name…

  10. just me says:

    Humm… I take it this guy doesnt know pharm meds for ADD is a form of methamphetemine(METH)?

    Yes I too am glad the moralist police are here to save us all! (sarcasm)

  11. these douche bags find it “immoral” to titillate oneself, and choose to go as far as killing you to prevent you from “harming” yourself.

    i remember reading “thou shalt not kill” — but strangely enough i can’t find similar language in their sacred writ saying “thou shalt not spark up”

  12. eodney williams says:

    on the part about under age drinkers,,there are 2 kinds of drinkers, underage drinkers and those that used to be underage drinkers,,ha ha

  13. allan420 says:

    check the 3rd tablet there brian…it’s right in there w/ thou shalt not smile inappropriately, nor shalt thou dance with glee…

    But this is it… this is the last gasp, at least for cannabis prohibition. They cannot help but appear silly and asinine because… well… they are silly and asinine – they have no logic, their foundation is a history of falsehoods and they operate from a factual wasteland. They also have the ears of the guys with guns, but that won’t last.

    One of the key processes in professional cleaning is agitation of the soiled area… ahem… thus to clean the stain of the anti-cannabis jihadists we must agitate, continuously. A little soap to wash their lying mouths out would help too!

  14. Cliff says:

    Whenever someone is so concerned about the habits of others, I imagine that they are trying very hard to cover up thier own moral failings and projecting them on others. Is he so weak that he can’t resist the urge to take a big bong rip, he needs the big moral hand of government to hold him back?

    Mr. Call’s fractured rantings are so disjointed and full of absolute fail I don’t have the time or space to pick his argument apart. It does make me wonder if he will be the next radical moralist to be found dead of autoerotic asphyxiation while wearing a rubber wetsuit with a dildo up his butt. At the very least being caught with a wide stance in the bathroom stall, toe tapping and reaching under the stall for some anonymous ghey sex. NTTAWWT

    BTW, where are the moralists talking about the crime that has been committed against everyone of us in the form of an $800 billion handout to the banksters? Where’s the outrage about the theft of our country? This guy needs to wake up to the crime occuring on Wall Street to see the real damage being done to this country by moral hazards created by greed and opportunistic criminal minds of the corporate whores, banksters and the pin striped bandits.

  15. aussidawg says:

    “This guy needs to wake up to the crime occuring on Wall Street to see the real damage being done to this country by moral hazards created by greed and opportunistic criminal minds of the corporate whores, banksters and the pin striped bandits.”

    Not to mention the molestation by priests, slavery by corporate America (using third world laborers), child abuse by those who believe that sparing the rod spoils the child, and last but not least torture by our government (as supported overwhelmingly by conservatives with “family values.”)

  16. ezrydn says:

    He’s already admitted that he speaks solely from the standpoint of DARE. I guess, when he graduates, he’ll try to be a member of DARE (Dummys Are Recruited Easily).

  17. allan420 says:

    Drugs Are Really Expensive

  18. Bruce says:

    Mmmusst hhave mmore.
    More COPS
    Constables Offering Prohibited Substances
    More DARE heroes
    Drug Addicts Revitalizing Economy
    More MADD
    Money And Daily Doobie
    More Oyoo Iee aah o yay
    too much

  19. Bailey says:

    I think he’ll find Iran, China, Sudan, and “many others” actually have morals police! Maybe Mr. Call will do an editorial in favor of that.

    I agree its good to let prohibs vent, nothing like a poll and comments section light up editorial interest. I say let Mr. Call keep bringing his morally depraved views into the paper, more views for him and laughs for us.

  20. DavesNotHere says:

    “Not to mention the molestation by priests, slavery by corporate America (using third world laborers), child abuse by those who believe that sparing the rod spoils the child, and last but not least torture by our government (as supported overwhelmingly by conservatives with “family values.”)”

    Don’t forget the liberal government union thugs, progressive patronage bureaucrat army, and Chicago way police tactical forces. Fannie and Freddie are liberal government creations, not typical big business, and they were more responsible than the likes of AIG. Dont forget ACORN suing every small bank in sight to force them to put racial quotas in their lending practices and give crappy loans out like candy.

    In defense of family value conservatives, at least they torture foreigners. Chicago Democrat liberal union thugs torture Americans, get false confessions, and then stick them on death row. The “progressive social justice” crowd overwhelmingly want a police state forced on us.

    The Republican Illinois Governor had to empty death row after more than half of them were acquitted when it was learned the Chicago liberal cops beat a false confession out of them. Chief Burge was in charge then while Daley was the State’s Attorney when it happened. Torture of American citizens right here in Chicago under complete Democrat control, but we don’t hear about that from the Obama folks because Obama has endorsed the politicians that let the torture happen on their watch (Daley).

    Liberal/conservative, it doesn’t matter when it comes to government power. They both want government power because they believe they will use it right, yet they never have and never will.

    Taking pot shots at conservatives is counterproductive when the liberals are obviously even worse.

  21. BruceM says:

    If pot is a “gateway drug” to harder drugs like cocaine and amphetamines (which is crap), you’d think The Children Protectors would prefer children to be given pot instead of amphetamines to treat conditions like ADHD. Children are literally being treated with methamphetamine (brand name Desoxyn) and they don’t have any “save the children” outrage over that.

    What morons.

  22. Nick Zentor says:

    Just for the record, I’d like to add my vote to the idea of using cannabis to treat ADHD. I have no doubt that cannabis helps me keep my mind focused on the task I am doing and complete it. Without cannabis, I am constantly distracted by every little thing, but when i use cannabis, I simply disregard most distractions and stick to what I am doing.

    This includes everything I consider to have value, so my work is at the top of the list. I would like to add, also, that my own theory about this effect is that cannabis begins by relieving my anxiety, which gets so bad it becomes painful at times, and without the anxiety and pain, it is much easier to concentrate on what i am doing and complete.

    I wonder, do these kids also suffer from anxiety? I know when i was a kid, I suffered from anxiety without even realizing it because my mom told me it was normal. Anxiety and pain can be very distracting.

  23. DdC says:

    GOP Chickenhawk Deadbeats sticking Taxpayers with the bill
    http://tinyurl.com/GOPervertedDeadbeatScum

  24. Hope says:

    ADHD

    The drugs they prescribe cause the child to lose his appetite and that effects his growth. I don’t like to see that.

    I raised two children, brilliant children, that would have qualified as needing “chemical adjustment” by some of these people.

    One of them, the boy, in fact did bring a lot of such comments about his behavior my way. He was difficult, but certainly not intolerable. Well, sometimes, very hard to deal with… but not enough to even want to drug him.

    I’m so glad I didn’t do it. I found it very disturbing to see and I started seeing it a long time ago. Thirty years or so ago.

    If there really is a need to help a child with such an “Adjustment”… and I don’t doubt at all that there is, I just think children are diagnosed as such, far, far, too often, if there’s a need, I’d so much rather see them get to try the cannabis herb to see if it would help, before they’re introduced to harsher, harder, and much more dangerous pharmaceuticals.

    From what I’ve seen, I think the stimulant type drugs stun children somehow.

    Cannabis, on the other hand, might calm them, gently, not stunned, and help them enjoy food and calmer things more, and of course, incline them to be more thoughtful, and not so imbecilic.

    But there’s those weird, crazy, insane prohibitionists that forbid common sense in these matters.

    What? What? What?

    It’s taboo. A dreadful taboo.

    Thinking it, suggesting it, the very idea is an insanity provoking taboo among those who somehow “know” something the rest of us can’t see in these matters. It’s a trick by those dreadful druggies, they think, and if you even consider different ideas… then you’d be like a druggie. One of them. Those “Others”. Those bad people. Those despicable, worthless, horrible druggies.

    *sigh*

    Reasoning with, what seem to me, even slightly insane people is difficult. To say the least.

    The way they want to treat people over whether they use these substances or not, seems more than a little bizarre and is so out of line.

  25. claygooding says:

    I’ve always favored Drug Free America,only with my dyslexia,I see Free Drug America. The only way to stop all markets completely for all drugs. Of course,that is not what your government wants or big business.
    The only reason left for our government to continue prohibiting marijuana,since a majority of Americans now favor legalization and they keep telling everyone we are a “democracy”,is to protect someones money,whether it is a bureacratic empire,protecting it’s outrageous budget,or our congress protecting their lobbies interests,or both.

    Be sure and send all your elected representatives the poll,just in case they miss it.

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