XPost: talk.politics.misc, alt.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: alt.politics.usa   
   From: bliss@sfo.com   
      
   Pete nospam Zakel wrote:   
   > In article <4AC431D9.6070202@aol.com> Tristan  writes:   
   >   
   >> This sort of action is probably the most effective way to get marijuana   
   >> (and other drugs) legalized.  Appoint panels of experts to study the   
   >> problem and make recommendations (as a large group of economists   
   >> recently did for marijuana).  Few politicians (including Obama) have the   
   >> guts to come out for legalization on their own.  But if we can get the   
   >> policy makers to appoint an expert panel and abide by their   
   >> recommendations, practically all experts will advocate some sort of   
   >> legalization.  It would be a start at least.   
   >   
   > The trick is to get the politicians to actually abide by the recommendations.   
   > There was just such an expert panel put together in the early 70s that   
   > recommended legalizing marijuana, and the report was buried and ignored   
   > because it didn't give the results the politicians wanted.   
      
   	Actually it was one politician aka President Nixon who warned that   
   if the commission came back with recommendations that supported the   
   legalization he would suppress it.   
   	The following is in my tpd file:   
      
          In 1969, Nixon commissioned a study on marijuana that   
      recommended marijuana be decriminalized. Nixon rejected that   
      conclusion out of hand. More recently, a law counsel to the   
      DEA, Francis L. Young, Administrative Law Judge, on Sept. 6,   
      1988, filed a report that marijuana was factually and   
      truthfully less dangerous than aspirin.  That report, too, was   
      summarily repressed and rejected.   
      
   >   
   > -Pete Zakel   
   >  (phz@seeheader.nospam)   
   >   
   > "However, on religious issures there can be little or no compromise.  There   
   >  is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs.   
   >  There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jese Christ,   
   >  or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being.  But like any   
   >  powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used   
   >  sparingly.  The religious factions that are growing throughout our land   
   >  are not using their religious clout with wisdom.  They are trying to force   
   >  government leaders into following their position 100 percent.  If you   
   >  disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they   
   >  complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.  I'm   
   >  frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country   
   >  telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe   
   >  in `A,' `B,' `C,' and `D.'  Just who do they think they are?  And from where   
   >  do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?   
   >  And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of   
   >  every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control   
   >  my vote on every roll call in the Senate.  I am warning them today:  I will   
   >  fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral   
   >  convictions to all Americans in the name of `conservatism.'"   
   >   
   > 					-Senator Barry Goldwater,   
   > 					 from the Congressional Record,   
   > 					 September 16, 1981   
      
   	I only wish that the Republicans post-Goldwater had heeded his   
   advice.   
      
   	later   
   	bliss   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)