Not looking good.

On paper, Jim Ramstad -- who is rumored to be Obama's choice for drug czar -- looks like the ideal man for the job . He's a recovering alcoholic himself and a Congressman who championed legislation recently passed to provide equal insurance coverage for addictions and other mental illnesses.
To top it off, he's a Republican, giving Obama what looks like a relatively harmless way to make his cabinet more bipartisan. Choosing Ramstad would appear to make a powerful statement about addiction as a medical, not a moral issue.
Unfortunately, Ramstad may be a drug warrior in recovering person's clothing. There is one issue that has consistently separated those who put science and saving lives in front of politics. That is needle exchange programs for addicts to prevent the spread of HIV and other blood borne illnesses.
Even President Clinton now says he was "wrong" when he ignored the recommendations of every scientific and medical organization in the world that has examined the question -- from the AMA to the World Health Organization -- and refused to lift the federal ban on funding.

Needle exchanges have been shown repeatedly to reduce HIV and contrary to the claims of opponents, they help addicts get into treatment.
But Bill Clinton had a drug czar -- Barry McCaffrey -- who said that needle exchange "sent the wrong message," and would make him seem soft on drugs. McCaffrey fought against it and Clinton now says he "regrets" caving in to drug war politics.
While Obama has said that he favors federal funding, the last thing we need is another drug czar to talk him out of it.
Ramstad looks like that person. I am awaiting comment from his office to see if he has changed his position, but his history on the issue isn't good. In 1992, he said, "Federal funds should be used to get people off drugs not facilitate drug abuse...let's support programs that save lives, not destroy lives." By then, dozens of studies from around the world already suggested that clean needle programs not only reduce HIV, but attract addicts into recovery.
When I was injecting drugs in the '80s in New York, when 50% of IV drug users were HIV positive, a friend taught me to use clean needles. She probably saved my life -- she certainly didn't destroy it. I have now been free of cocaine and heroin for 20 years.
But people like Ramstad believe that it would have been better to deny me the information and equipment I needed to protect myself than to risk "enabling" my addiction. And they push this view that risks addicts' lives regardless of evidence that shows that their fears are groundless!
In 1999 -- with the data now overwhelming -- Ramstad voted to prevent Washington DC from using its own money to fund syringe exchange.
DC has the country's highest HIV rate. Not coincidentally, until after that provision was repealed late last year, it had no publicly funded needle exchange. African Americans have been the group most affected by the failure to prevent the spread of HIV amongst IV drug users, their partners and children.
New York, by contrast, started needle exchange relatively early and saw infection rates cut in half over the following years, according to a 1998 study.


Ramstad also -- again, against the evidence -- opposes medical marijuana and supports federal policing and prosecution of providers and patients in the states that have made it legal. These states have not seen the rise in teen drug use that opponents like the Congressman predicted.
The opposite, in fact, happened -- as is the case in countries that have decriminalized marijuana like Holland. The UK's "downgrading" of cannabis offense to a lesser status was also accompanied by a drop in use.
There's simply no evidence that allowing sick people to get needed medication conflicts with helping addicts. Obama has said he does not support these prosecutions -- will Ramstad push him in the wrong direction here, too? In an economic crisis, do we really want to spend federal time and money locking up medical marijuana providers and sick people?


While Ramstad has opposed some interdiction efforts and called for more treatment funding, someone who doesn't even believe that addicts have a right to life if they aren't in treatment is not the kind of recovering person that I want representing me as drug czar.
That's not change, President Obama -- that's more of the same. Don't make the mistake that Bill Clinton did and install a drug czar who will ignore science and push dogma.
While it's great to have a recovering person as an example, just having a disease and talking with others who've recovered the same way you did does not make you an expert. We need someone who knows the science, recognizes that there are many paths to recovery -- and understands that dead addicts can't recover.

• <LI class=" first" typeof="foaf:Agent">Health <LI typeof="foaf:Agent">Obama Transition
• Barack Obama

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USMC, U want me on that WALL, yeah thats us liberating Kuwait..Just another day in the Glorious Marine Corps

We will probly be saying "Oh Shit" alot during this presidency. I did not vote for obama. I will not be like all the bush bashers and doom him to failure. I pray to god that he will change this country for the better. He is my president and I will hope for the best. If indeed he really is a POS then in 4 yrs i will vote for whoever is a better replacement. We all know he is a filp flopper so it would not surprise me if he did go all anti drugs on us.

I agree TreesOfLife, I wish impeachment of the president could be through popular vote rather than electoral college because as history has shown, presidents have gotten away with some horrible shit, and no i'm not talking about Bill Clinton getting a bj from sum wanker'.

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|_Ryan_|

The president is impeached is by the house and senate. It's got nothing to do with the electoral college.

As for Obama's drug czar, I'll comment, if at all, when the decision is made. I get the feeling it'll be pretty low down on his list of priorities.

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Grower's Bookshelf

I am a fiscally responsible, womans choice, decrim pot, low tax, middle of the isle person who voted for McCain because I wasn't thrilled with Obama and I know everybody else in this country was in lub with him.

He will be making changes, but who knows which will be for the better and for the worse. I do know this:

I am a white guy, and I know that at my black friends houses, its no big deal to smoke some herb. So if anything, there will be some pressure from the top to stop throwing the brothers in jail for a dubbie (or a half gram like I had in my car). I live pay check to paycheck but due to a stroke of luck I had had the money for bail so I didn't have to spend the night in the clink.

Basically, Fuck the soft drug war. There are drugs out there that ruin lives, people with booze problems and coke problems and meth problems, and even some hippies who cant get off the couch. But there are alot of stoners like me who go to work blazed and preform better a little glossed over then not.

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Stop Arresting Patients. LIKE ME DAMNIT!

are you fucking kidding me?

this may be one of the least thought out posts ever on RIU...you gotta be kidding? you think obamas sitting around saying:

"im gonna make it better for all my BROTHAS and decrim erb for them so they got an easier time"

get real kid...with thought processes like that you probably should have spent that night in jail...give you some reality

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Sour Diesel Grow Journal
Funks Dowloads

a little harsh. ignorance is bliss?

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EVERY PICTURE AND COMMENT I POST IS FAKE. I am curious and this is all entertainment to me!

Funny cause my bro Pedro was smoking a fatty with Obama and he said the very same thing.

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Can anyone give an update on this? Has Obama selected the new Drug CZAR yet?

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Wikipedia, Google and Youtube, the only textbooks I will ever need.

Is google broken?

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