| Blowing
Smoke...
20/20’s
John Stossel says, “Give Me
a Break!” to the way politicians talk
tough on drugs while so many have
admitted marijuana use themselves.
(ABCNEWS.com)
Aug.
25 — When asked in 1992 about
his drug use, then-presidential candidate
Bill Clinton said, “I have never broken
the laws of my country.”
That
might have technically been
true, but when another reporter asked him
about laws in other countries, Clinton
issued his famous lines about not inhaling.
"The answer to that question is I have never
broken a state law. And that when I was
in England, I experimented with marijuana a
time or two, and I didn’t like it and didn’t
inhale.”
20/20
Correspondent John Stossel
finds Clinton’s attitude, and the
attitudes of other public political
figures who sometimes even chuckle
about their own drug use, hypocritical.
Why do these leaders strike a serious
tone about drugs to the public when so
many have experimented with drugs
like marijuana themselves? Stossel
asks why more Americans than ever —
about 1.5 million a year — are being
arrested on drug charges when so
many politicians seem so flippant about
their own past drug use.
Possession
Can Lead to Prison
Public figures like Vice President Al
Gore, Sen. Bill Bradley, former White
House Press Secretary Mike McCurry
and former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt
have all admitted to smoking marijuana
at some point in their lives. “Didn’t
seem like a big deal at the time,”
Babbitt said. The biggest category of
drug arrests in America, however, is
possession of marijuana. Eight out of
10 drug arrests, according to a 1997
FBI report, are for possession of drugs,
not for dealing.
And
for some of those arrested,
contrary to Bruce Babbitt’s comments,
it is quite a big deal.
Joanne
Tucker, who owned a
hydroponic garden store in Norcross,
Ga., with her husband and
brother-in-law, was given 10 years of
prison for a first-time marijuana
offense. Will Foster of Texas was
originally sentenced to 93 years of
prison after he was caught growing
marijuana, although his sentence was
reduced to 20 years. “I’ve never beat
up anybody,” Foster says. “I’ve never
raped nobody. I haven’t molested a
child.”
Yet
he sits in jail while politicians
quibble about inhaling?
John
Stossel says, “Give Me a
Break!” to this hypocrisy.
|
Harrelson’s
Hemp Woes Over
Jury Dismisses Drug Charges
Against Actor
Aug. 25
— BEATTYVILLE, Ky.
(Reuters) — A Kentucky jury has
dismissed a marijuana possession
charge against actor Woody
Harrelson who was arrested for
planting hemp seeds as part of a
crusade to legalize the plant and
to help struggling farmers
cultivate a new cash crop, his
lawyer said today.
Harrelson, best known for roles in
the television sitcom Cheers and in
movies such as Natural Born Killers,
ceremoniously planted four hemp
seeds in rural Kentucky in 1996.
His defense lawyers said he was
challenging a state law that makes no
distinction between marijuana and
hemp, even though hemp contains very
little of the psychoactive chemical
found in marijuana and can be used to
make a variety of industrial products.
Harrelson was immediately arrested
and charged with misdemeanor
possession.
State Upheld 1937 State Law
The Supreme Court of Kentucky — a
state where growing marijuana, though
illegal, is a huge business — upheld a
1937 state law against growing hemp.
It said the plant’s similarity to the
potent variety of cannabis put an undue
burden on authorities trying to root out
growers.
The Lee County prosecutor said
Harrelson’s stunt was punishable
under the law and carries a penalty of
up to a year in prison and a $500 fine.
But after a one-day trial, the six-person
jury deliberated less than half an hour
before acquitting him Thursday.
“I think this demonstrates that at
least six people disagree with our
Supreme Court about what the law
should be,” Harrelson’s attorney
Charles Beal said.
“Several jurors commented
afterward that they thought the law
was absurd,”he added. “But for now, at
least, hemp is illegal under state law”
Harrelson and others have argued
that hemp, which was one of
Kentucky’s leading cash crops up to 50
years ago, would be a boon to farmers,
particularly the many tobacco growers
in Kentucky whose traditional crop is
becoming increasingly stigmatized.
Hemp can be used to make textiles,
paper, soap, and other products.
Former Republican Gov. Louie
Nunn, a member of Harrelson’s
defense team and a hemp supporter,
said that Harrelson planted the seeds
to challenge the law, not to break it. He
said there was no evidence that any of
the seeds germinated into a thriving
plant.
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