RUTHFULLY YOURS

Donald Trump’s choice of his VP running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, worries the marijuana lobby. They question Pence’s belief that marijuana is a gateway drug and its abuse is a crime, deserving penalty. While the marijuana lobby claims “Marijuana is a happy, healthy, wonderful plant and everybody should have the right to grow it, just as they grow dandelions,” the National Insitute of Drugs (NIDA) findings support Pence’s objection to the legalization of marijuana.  According to NIDA’s latest available data, “illicit drug use in the U.S. is on the rise, and “More than half of new illicit drug users begin with marijuana.” Yet, marijuana legalization has become an issue in the U.S. presidential elections. http://acdemocracy.org/the-obama-soro-legacy/

How did we get here?

The impresario who staged and pushed to legally dope of the American people is the billionaire financier George Soros. He found a kindred spirit in President Obama who got this dog and pony show on the road. The chosen vehicle was Obama-Care. And the first indication for this came on August 5, 2009, with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)’s little noticed tender for the production and distribution of large quantities of marijuana cigarettes, for purposes other than for research, clocked under the DEA control and supposedly in compliance  with FDA regulations

According to pro-legalization activist Sean Williams, “President Obama has suggested that the best way to get the attention of Congress is to legalize marijuana in as many states as possible at the state level. If a majority of states approve marijuana measures, and public opinion continues to swell in favor of cannabis, Congress may have no choice but to consider decriminalization — or legalize the substance.” Not surprisingly, recently  there have been widely-reported leaks from the DEA  that the agency anticipates making “medical” marijuana” legal in all 50 states, even though this requires FDA approval.

Until the early 1990s, the voices to legalize drugs in the United States were not in sync. This changed with Soros’ first foray into U.S. domestic politics in 1992-1993. Soros, who made his fortune by bidding on instability, is known to say, “If I spend enough, I make it right.” While other billionaires give to the arts, higher education and medicine to better the quality of the lives of their fellow men, Soros chose to “right” illegal drug use, under the guise of a social reformer. “The war on drugs is doing more harm to our society than drug abuse itself.” Due to the widespread social and political opposition to illegal drug use, he chose to begin his efforts to “right” the situation, with a popular getaway drug, marijuana – a brain and mind altering drug that creates life-long dependency. To make his decision more palatable, the ultimate opportunistic Soros, declared marijuana is a “compassionate drug,” and for more than two decades poured tens of millions of dollars into campaigns to first legalize the use of “medical marijuana,” and more recently to decriminalize the use of “recreational” marijuana.

Pretending to support an “open society,” Soros,  uses his philanthropy to “change” or more accurately deconstruct the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people. He claims to support humanitarianism, equality and individual and political freedom, what Karl Pooper, the Austrian-born British philosopher argued were necessary for what he considered an “open society.”nominal contact with Popper while studying at the London School of Economics. Although Popper met with Soros once or twice while Soros was a student at the London School of Economics, Soros failed to make much of an impression on the old philosopher. According to Michael T. Kaufman’s 2003 unauthorized biography of the billionaire, when Soros contacted Popper in 1982 to let him know about how he’d been naming funds, foundations, and various other entities after the concepts enshrined in the The Open Society, Popper wrote back: “Let me first thank you for not having forgotten me. I am afraid I forgot you completely; even your name created at first only the most minute resonance. But I made some effort, and now, I think, I just remember you, though I do not think I should recognize you.”

Not surprisingly, Soros’ “open society” Institute and foundations are not about promoting any of Popper’s ideas. Certainly not freedom.  Instead, by working diligently to legalize drugs, Soros advances the greatest slavery ever–drug addiction. This sits well with his rejection of the notion of ordered liberty, in favor of a progressive ideology of rights and entitlements.

On February 7, 1996, I opined in The Wall Street Journal that Soros’s “sponsorship unified the movement to legalize drugs and gave it the respectability and credibility it lacked.” I suggested that “unchallenged, Soros would change the political landscape of America.” It took two decades and lots of money to achieve what he set out to get. For him, legalizing marijuana was a necessary stepping-stone to advancing drug policies in the U.S. and elsewhere toward legalizing the use of all drugs.

Making money is but one of the many possible speculations on Soros’s motivation to legalize drugs. If asked, he’ll respond with gibberish that makes no sense.  However, the revenues from the illegal drug trade are enormous. There are no other commodities on the market that yield such high and fast a return. Since 2014, legally listed marijuana producing and distributing companies will be generating huge revenues. Soros seems to believe that state-controlled drug distribution will best serve to increase dependency on the state.

The overwhelming evidence on the short and long term harm caused by marijuana to the user and to society should have stopped any attempt to legalize the drug. However, the vast amounts of money spent on influencing the public and the politicians generated the desired social acceptance of the “compassionate drug,” marijuana. 

In November 1996, Soros’ efforts succeeded in California, making it the first state to legalize “medical marijuana.”

Recreational use of marijuana has nothing to do with medical marijuana. As with other drugs, the development of marijuana/cannabis as medicine has to follow modern medical rules – advancing with clinical trials with specific compounds, looking for side effects and interactions with other drugs, etc.

But when last November, DEA Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said, “We can have an intellectually honest debate about whether or not we want to legalize something that is bad and dangerous, but don’t call it medicine. That’s a joke.” Rosenberg opined there was a need for “legitimate research into the efficacy of marijuana for its constituent parts as a medicine. But I think the notion that state legislatures just decree it so is ludicrous.” The pro-drug lobby called for his dismissal. 

Among the ill-effects of marijuana use (whether obtained legally or not) is memory loss, as proven by researchers at Northwestern University. The study also found “evidence of brain alterations … significant deterioration in the thalamus, a key structure for learning, memory, and communications between brain regions.”  If this were not enough, the study concluded, “chronic marijuana use could “memory-related structure [to] shrivel and collapse.s..[and] boosts the underlying process driving schizophrenia.”

This study as many others documented the devastating long-term harm caused by marijuana use. Another National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) study found that “marijuana smoke contains 50% to 70% more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke … which further increases the lungs’ exposure to carcinogenic smoke.” Moreover, “marijuana users have a 4.8-fold increase in the risk of heart attack in the first hour after smoking the drug. … This risk may be greater in aging populations or those with cardiac vulnerabilities.”

Other studies documented “distorted perceptions, impaired coordination, difficulty in thinking and problem-solving, and problems with learning and memory.”  As a result, someone who smokes marijuana every day may be functioning at a suboptimal intellectual level all of the time.” In conclusion: “Research clearly demonstrates that marijuana has the potential to cause problems in daily life or make a person’s existing problems worse. In fact, heavy marijuana users generally report lower life satisfaction, poorer mental and physical health, relationship problems, and less academic and career success compared to their peers who came from similar backgrounds. For example, marijuana use is associated with a higher likelihood of dropping out from school. Several studies also associate workers’ marijuana smoking with increased absences, tardiness, accidents, workers’ compensation claims, and job turnover.” NIDA’s latest survey from 2013, show that drug users are exacting more than $700 billion annually in costs related to crime, lost work productivity and health care. Add yo this the cost of newly hooked Americans on social welfare, including food stamps, Obamacare, public housing, free cell phones, and other entitlements.

Moving to relax Federal oversight on marijuana use, a Department of Justice memo on August 29, 2013, clarified the government’s prosecutorial priorities and stated that the federal government would rely on state and local law enforcement to “address marijuana activity through enforcement of their own narcotics laws.”

When Colorado legalized the use of “recreational” use of marijuana, on January 1, 2014, the TSA announced it stopped deploying detection dogs in the state’s airports, even though these dogs are trained to also detect other illegal drugs, explosives, blood, contraband electronics, stashed currency, and more. Similar measures will take place once marijuana is legalized, exposing American airport to terrorist attacks.

The Obama’s endorsed and Soros’ funded Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, has promised to “defend and build on the progress…made under President Obama,” including his and the billionaire’s efforts to legalize marijuana. American voters should keep this in mind when voting for their next President.