The American Spectator — not exactly Decriminalization Central — runs a spectacular piece of writing by a Vermont freelancer named Geoffrey Norman.

Snippet:

ccording to John Walters, the Supreme Court got it right on medical marijuana. His argument comes down, essentially, to saying that medical marijuana doesn’t work, and should be illegal, even if it does make some people “feel better,” a phrase which Mr. Walter puts, condescendingly, inside quotes. As though feeling better when one is sick is somehow no big deal and a vaguely tawdry aspiration.

Mr. Walters is the nation’s “Drug Czar,” a hideously ugly title that any American should be ashamed to hold. In this role, Mr. Walters co-ordinates — or something — the government’s $35 billion anti-drug effort. Plainly, this crusade is not working and, so, according to Mr. Walters’s own logic ought to be put out of its misery.

[...]

ou would think a man with $35 billion to spend would have more important things on his agenda than doing an end-zone dance over the bodies of a few cancer patients looking for a little relief from the side-effects of chemo. What did Mark Tucci, who lives down the road from me, ever do to Mr. Walters to make him gleeful that Tucci now cannot legally use a drug that makes him “feel better.” Tucci has MS and says of medial marijuana, “It is by far the most benign thing I’ve pumped into my body. It just gets rid of a lot of pain. It makes my life bearable.”

Not so fast there, Tucci. Your government has a better idea and if you know what’s good for you…

The whole thing is that good.

Thanks to Jeremy Lott for the tip.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2005 at 12:39 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.