It’s all how you report it

A couple days ago, I gave you a bunch of links about the drug policy conference held in El Paso last week. With the last minute dropouts of the Drug Czar and the Border Czar, the conference had turned into a predominately reform-minded group, including LEAP, SSDP, local officials, and others, with admittedly varied views on the degree of reform, with the exception of one DEA rep.

This article gave some sense of that…

More than two dozen drug experts, academics, border journalists and law enforcement officials gathered to compare notes for three days about drug policy, coming from Mexico, the United States and even Colombia.

Two seemingly unlikely advocates of radical change at the conference were Terry Nelson, a retired federal agent, and James Gray, a California state judge, both of whom once sent drug offenders to prison. […]

The conversation was more choir practice than robust debate, as a consensus emerged that the enforcement-driven policy isn’t working. […]

Over three days of discussion, one voice was heard loudly defending the present policy.

“Ultimately what we are talking about is the obligation of the state to protect its citizens,” said Anthony Placido, who leads the Drug Enforcement Administration’s intelligence program.

Now compare that to this UPI story on the conference.

DEA official says don’t end drug war

EL PASO, Texas, Sept. 28 (UPI) — A top U.S. narcotics official told a conference on the border drug war that aggressive law enforcement must remain part of strategy to curb drug trafficking.

Anthony Placido, head of intelligence for the DEA, said drugs by nature were “mind-altering substances that destroy human life and create violence” and needed to be fought vigorously.

Hmmm… kind of sounds like he was the only one there. Do they reference the more than two dozen others speaking at the conference?

There were also calls for decriminalization of some drugs by proponents who said drugs were too well entrenched in the United States and that the law of supply and demand was too strong to resist.

Ah, yes. Good job, UPI. You managed to completely reverse the story.

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21 Responses to It’s all how you report it

  1. wes says:

    hey man, dont forget marc emery went to jail awaiting extradition to the US yesterday. Very sad day indeed

  2. paul says:

    Don’t worry–newspapers have been checked into the intensive care ward and hooked up to the machine that goes ‘bing!’. Their rein is coming to an end.

    They can’t make money since the classified ads moved over to Craig’s List, and people really don’t want to read their propaganda. Let’s just hope the Federal government doesn’t throw money at them to delay their inevitable and well deserved demise.

  3. ezrydn says:

    Since the Drug Tzar has verified to the reform movement that none of the prohibs have valid dictionaries (his words), we know that prohibs have no understanding of the word “protect.”

    I can remember when UPI was a viable news source. However, todays so-called journalists are simply “rip and read/rip and paste” artists and no longer involved in the dissemination of correct reporting.

    Those of us who are older and were around when these agencies were really reporting find their current state very sad. There was a “golden age” when reporting the truth was first and foremost in the minds of news people. However, I see MSM has moved back to the “chattle” stage. Edward R. Morrow, with his ciggie at his side, would have a field day with this subject today. He was a good “underling” mouthpiece that everyone listened to.

  4. Dudeman says:

    I noticed several critical comments on that story yesterday afternoon; they were deleted by the evening. There’s a few new ones this morning… watch to see what happens to them.

  5. claygooding says:

    Our country has become a police state,every since our law enforcement changed from “Protect and Serve” too “Search and
    Seize”. When you consider that over 2/3 of the DEA budget is used for interdiction and providing false studies showing harmful effects from marijuana,anything else out of a top DEA
    would just cost him his 6 digit income.
    USA: 1 out of 3 contract cancer.
    India: 1 out of 10 contract cancer.
    USA:Prohibited marijuana in 1937,and cancer cases have continued to increase until it is at epidemic levels.
    India: has continuously used marijuana for centuries,as food,medicine and recreation.
    It will be very interesting if the stupid mistake our elected government made in 1937 is causing people that don’t use marijuana to get cancer.
    It isn’t scientific,but I only know of 1 old friend of more than 40 years,that has died of cancer. Many have passed because of other illness’s,but not cancer. I can’t remember any of the old tokers that ever had cancer,but that could be from a lack of info.
    At any rate,it would be awfully neglectful of our government not too investigate why their is such a large difference in those statistics.

  6. claygooding says:

    PS. What a health reform if cannibus does block cancer,think of the millions we would save in cancer treatments,and the millions the pharmaceutical companies would lose,because all they have is treatments,no cancer blocking medicines or cures.

  7. Steve says:

    I always tell my girlfriend that I will never get cancer because I smoke cannabis. She just rolls her eyes at me. Though, being slightly facetious, I agree with the above comment. I’d be interested in meeting someone who was a long time pot smoker who developed cancer.

  8. Servetus says:

    UPI is a news service that once catered to newspapers, but sold off much of that capacity to AP to become a minor supplemental news service on the Internet. Since 2000, it’s been owned by Sun Yung Moon’s Unification Church.

    Moon, of course, is a right wing nutbag, a theocratic version of Rupert Murdoch, and he’s just as destructive to the truth as Murdoch. Rev. Moon’s millions of dollars in political donations to the Republican Party have been used to buy protection for himself and his religious cult ever since he spent a year in federal prison for tax evasion.

    At one time UPI was a mainstay of journalism like AP, but the demise of newspapers clipped UPI’s nefarious wings. Besides owning UPI, Moon has spent billions subsidizing and publishing a fascist rag abomination of a newspaper called the Washington Times. Like the Scientologists, LaRouches and Mormons, there can be no expectation of journalistic integrity from the Moonie propagandists on the subject of drugs or drug laws.

  9. Hope says:

    Ah… the spin.

    That took skill.

  10. ezrydn says:

    Which site is dropping comments? mySA or UPI? I posted comments on both.

  11. Dudeman says:

    UPI dropped comments

  12. amyn says:

    hey anyone who has a problems with drugs call Narconon today.

  13. ezrydn says:

    Then I guess they won’t appreciate my “howling at the Moon” comment. LOL

  14. kaptinemo says:

    (Wolf’s grin) Maybe I shouldn’t, but I just can’t resist.

    Amyn…what if I have a problem with Narconon? Who should I call, then?

  15. allan420 says:

    Call Narcononandonandonandon! A support group with treatment available for Narconon junkies.

    Drugs are bad, mmmkay? But Prohibition really, REALLY sucks. Mmmkay?

  16. Osborne Perry Anderson says:

    @amyn:) Thanks, don’t think many of us would deny that drug abuse is bad & help should be abtained! But wonder whether ‘Narconan’ recognises alcohol to be a drug or does it also say ‘Drug & Alcohol’ treatment? Is Narconan a 12 step styled program that requires belief in an higher being greater than thyself? A system with a much higher failure and death rate compared to secular treatments that advocate personal responsibility vs. swapping vices? Does Narconan believe alcohol drug abuse is 2 beers a day or a total or 6 per week? Which would represent a huge percentage of Americans? What exactly does Narconan consider a drug and drug abuse? Thx for caring!

  17. Osborne Perry Anderson says:

    @kaptinemo:) The ‘Center For Inquiry’ (CFI) has information about alternative treatment programs that advocate personal responsibility over adopting an new, arguably more dangerous, vice. They also had a great article about a study of faith based AA that showed they had a very high failure and death rate within the 8 year study. Seems a reasoned man has more power over himself then someones ‘deity’… imagine! Not trying to ‘Kill the Buddha’ [though I always recommend it] just trying to save lives by providing choices… because I’m pro-choice on everything! B.S. Good news on the conference but I can hear our Drugged biCzarro from here… BLAH BLAH BLAH… I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THEM… BLAH BLAH BLAH… SOMEONE GIVE ME A BEER…BLAH BLAH BLAH… BEER IS NOT A DRUG… BLAH BLAH BLAH… AMEN!

  18. DdC says:

    It’s all how you report it

    Or don’t even bother to report it… Don’t even recognize Ganjawar PoW’s exist. Refugees flee from barbaric US authoritah, caging the sick and their health care providers. Canada ain’t so quick to take them in like the draft dodgers. Stands by mum, snatching them from their hospital beds to extradite to jails in the states. For treating their illness or growing some plants, proven less harmful than what is legal. Vast Right Wingnut Reefer Worriers, Mad with intentions, get more favorable press from the, ah, “liberal” media. Banning research, commercials and ONDCP gag orders might be a hint. Coincidence this war pays so much. Corporate holdings in competition would never slant a free press to side with gobbledegook. Yet they do. For if they don’t it might harm the message to the kids they hide behind like cowards.

    Jodie Emery Speaks Out on Her Husband’s Imprisonment
    Jodie Emery, Publisher and Editor of Cannabis Culture, hits the television airwaves to demand freedom for her husband Marc Emery, who was imprisoned yesterday for selling marijuana seeds.

    <Damn Them All by Loretta Nall
    Yesterday my close friend and mentor Marc Emery was taken into custody in Vancouver, British Columbia to await extradition to the US for selling pot seeds over the internet from Canada.

    A HREF=”http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/”>Vancouver.24hrs POLL:
    Is it fair Marc Emery, be extradited to the United States
    on charges of selling marijuana seeds? (right hand side)

    Yes 42% * No 58% * 201 votes

    Marc Emery’s Marching Orders – Goodbye for now… U2b

    Headlines…
    “Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days —
    Hashish goads users to bloodlust.”
    ` William Randolph Hearst – (1936)

    Free Speech Leeched

  19. R.O.E. says:

    Yes EZ, we need some good Edward R. Morrows today. Seems to me reporting is dead.

  20. Rick H. says:

    Osborne: Whatever one thinks about AA or Narcotics Anonymous, they are completely different from Narconon, which is a Scientology front scam.

  21. Kelvin87 says:

    This history is well known.

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