« Lessons Learned: Clinical Effects (Benefits) of Cannabis 1 | Main | The Science-Pseudoscience Connection »
January 30, 2009
Say It Isn’t So
While googling away in the wee hours on Friday, I came across references to one Ed Jurith, an ONDCP lawyer, who was quietly appointed interim drug czar some time after Obama's Inauguration. What little I was able to learn reveals him to be an even more faceless ONDCP functionary than John Walters, Dubya’s eminently forgettable choice who will someday be best remembered for his over-the-top attacks on medical marijuana.Anyone familiar with the history of the position knows it started under Nixon with the appointment of Psychiatrist Jerome Jaffe as presidential "drug advisor" and was then occupied by another Psychiatrist, the untruthful Robert DuPont after Nixon was forced to depart suddenly. Then came Carter's man, the unfortunate Peter Bourne, who was destoyed when the founder of NORML had a fit of pique. Bourne, who would be the last physician to hold the job was replaced by Carelton Turner after Reagan was elected. Then came the execrable Bill Bennett, appointed by Poppa Bush and the first advisor to become a "czar." Because the job doesn't confer any executive power, it is an apt metaphor for the fraudulent policy it's intended to defend. Every subsequent czar from Clinton's Lee Brown, who was unceremoniously dumped in favor of Barry McLiar in '96, and especially the colorless John Walters, has been either a fool or a charlatan; take your pick.
Nurith sounds like a worthy successor. What little can be learned about him reveals he’s long been employed by ONDCP. The one public interview I had the patience to read about, quoted him as mouthing the usual doctrinaire garbage.
Now I know why a club in South Lake Tahoe was raided last week. Although I'm discouraged to learn Obama is no smarter than NORML when it comes to pot policy, I’m still optimistic enough to believe that Carter and Bubba held out the promise that Democratic Presidents are more educable than their GOP rivals and that a (nominal) black man who is obviously very intelligent, once got high, and fits the pot smoker profile by having been abandoned by his father in infancy and finding it difficult giving up cigarettes, may “get it” in time to make a difference.
What other choice is there?
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at January 30, 2009 03:58 PM