Aug 31
The Dope Lobby Gains Momentum
It was just last month that I wrote an article on the
growing trend towards the legalization of drugs like
marijuana. Several major developments have caused me to
return to this subject.
Last week, Mexico decriminalized small amounts of
marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. The reason cited was the
government's grueling battle against drug traffickers.
Mexican jails are overflowing with people who have been
caught using drugs.
Under the new guidelines, the maximum amount of marijuana
for "personal use" is five grams—the equivalent of about
four joints. The limit is a half gram for cocaine, the
equivalent of about four "lines." For other drugs, the
limits are fifty milligrams of heroin, forty milligrams of
methamphetamine, and 0.015 milligrams for LSD.
Tens of thousands of American college students flock to
Cancun and Acapulco each year to party at beachside discos
offering wet T-shirt contests and all-you-can-drink deals.
The obvious fear is that Mexico could now also become a
destination for drug-fueled carousing.
Just four days after Mexico's decision, Argentina’s
Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to punish
adults for private marijuana use, a big step toward
decriminalizing the drug. The ruling is based on the
“privacy clause” of Argentina’s constitution—private pot use
doesn’t “offend public order or morality.” Brazil and
Ecuador are in lockstep to follow them.
Here in the U.S., our existing drug laws continue to be
chipped away. Denver's marijuana policy review panel just
sent a letter to the presiding judge of Denver County Court
urging a $1 fine as penalty for possession of marijuana of
less than an ounce. The current fine stands at $111. One of
the panel members is Mason Tvert, the executive director of
Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, which has pushed
decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana.
In my research for this article, I saw a poll in The
Denver Post that asked, "Do you support decriminalizing
marijuana?" Years ago, these types of polls would only get
about 30 percent of the respondents who are for
decriminalization. In this poll, 68 percent of the readers
were for legalizing pot.
Much of the effort to weaken drug laws has been carried
out under the name of “medical marijuana.” Pro-pot groups
argue that it helps relieve suffering. Marijuana's
painkilling properties are being called into question by new
research that suggests that pot can amplify and prolong pain
rather than relieve it. A study published in the current
issue of Science suggests prescribing marijuana for pain
relief may be counterproductive. The active ingredients in
pot can interfere with the body's mechanisms to stop pain
signals from reaching the brain.
I doubt this revelation will have any negative impact on
the medical marijuana bandwagon. It is just as much of
Trojan horse as the people who argued for the virtues of
hemp fiber in the making of cloth products.
If the war on drugs were not going bad enough, someone
has devised an easier formula for methamphetamine—one of the
world's most addictive drugs. Only a few years ago, making
meth required an elaborate lab with cans of flammable
liquids and hundreds of pills of the decongestant
pseudoephedrine. The process gave off foul odors, sometimes
sparked explosions, and was very hard to conceal. The new
"shake-and-bake" method can be made anywhere and only
requires a relatively small number of pills—an amount easily
obtained under even the toughest anti-meth laws.
I am absolutely amazed at how our drug laws are melting
away. The lack of opposition is the most stunning part. The
mindset of our current U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske is
good example. His reaction to Mexico and Argentina’s change
of their drug laws was to take a “wait-and-see” attitude. He
even said that President Obama has too much on his plate to
“touch drug policy right now.”
People send me books and charts all the time about when
they think the rapture and the tribulation are going to
start. I don't see any need to bother with their
predictions. All I need to do is look at the moral clock to
know how late it is. The uninhibited slide towards liberal
drug policies is proof enough that we are quickly headed for
judgment from God. Once substances like marijuana, cocaine,
and heroin become decriminalized, the added weight of sin
will seal the world's fate.
-- Todd
Obama: "We are God's partners in matters of life and
death."
The Supreme Court was allowed by Congress in 1963—the
majorities within those bodies foolishly thought—to keep God
from mixing within the business of the government of the
United States and the public it is supposed to serve.
Keeping God out of anything, of course, was not and is not
possible. Remember the constant refrain that church must be
separate from state? The public schools of America were the
most central victim of the decisions made then. From those
rulings flowing from that time has resulted all of this
nation's moral decline, in my view.
The same political party, which at that time had the
majority and produced the legislation to ram through
Congress the anti-God laws, thus making God illegal,
now—with an even more powerful majority—is demanding other
nation-destroying changes be instituted. This, even though a
growing majority of the American citizenry declares through
even the Democrats' own polls that they want no part of, for
example, the death-dealing healthcare dictatorship the
Democrat president is trying to force on them.
Senator Ted Kennedy is dead, and all stops are being
pulled out of the drive to, in the late senator's name, ram
through Mr. Obama's proposed privacy-eliminating healthcare
system that is based upon a potentially catastrophic,
socialistic national healthcare Kennedy championed until his
dying day last week. One key part at the center of the
controversy revolves around giving the government God-like
decision-making power to dictate who receives expensive
treatment that might save and/or prolong life. This, if
enacted as currently presented in Obama's healthcare plan,
apparently would give an unelected government panel
appointed by the president authority to approve who can and
cannot receive the treatments.
The healthcare plan, as proposed, would have, for
example, a provision that requires senior citizens in the
plan to have counseling at certain annual intervals. That
counseling would involve advising the senior citizens that
they should consider whether their poor quality of life is
worth prolonging. The ones being counseled, according to
those who have studied the matter, would be told to sign a
statement that they agree to not avail themselves of the
system of possibly life-saving medicines and technologies.
Then, the panel would do the decision making for them. They
would make the decision to simply make life comfortable for
the senior who might have a terminal disease. The government
panel would forbid payment for the person in question if he
or she didn't meet their criteria for extending life. The
senior would be given pain medications, but not the
life-saving surgery, medicine, or other costly treatments
that would be otherwise forthcoming.
These proposed panels have been chidingly accused of
being "death panels"—i.e., the methodology is not far from
being similar to the Hitler ideas on euthanasia during the
height of the Nazi regime in the 1930s.
Anyone remember the futuristic movie, "Soylent Green"?
President Obama has in his own words declared himself to
be the equal of God in his perceived right to dictate in
this life/death decision making. Using the royal "we," he
announced: "We are God's partners in matters of life and
death." The comment was seemingly made in reference to his
government being responsible for making decisions necessary
to see to it that all people are not ill served because of
foolishly wasting resources to save a few who are going to
die anyway. He, in effect, equates the royal "we" to the God
of heaven, with regard to the right to determine who is
permitted to live and die. One political analysis site
presents the following:
A reader points out that President Obama's call with the
rabbis today—as recorded in Rabbi Jack Moline's and other
clerics' Twitter feeds—freights health care reform with a
great deal of religious meaning, and veers into the blend of
policy and faith that outraged liberals in the last
administration. “We are God's partners in matters of life
and death,” Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah
Palin...), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says
that in the holiday period, it is decided “who shall live
and who shall die.” The president ended the call by wishing
the rabbis “shanah tovah,” or happy new year—in reference to
the High Holidays a month from now... (Ben Smith, “We are
God's partners in matters of life and death,” POLITICO.com,
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/.....).
America's slide toward being a death culture began in
earnest with the John F. Kennedy administration in 1963,
when the Supreme Court tried to throw God out of the
nation's governance. Arriving at the fruition of that
deliberate departure from the Lord's influence seems
imminent. Therefore, I, for one, can only express
incredulity over the current president, with his invoking
the name of JFK's just-deceased brother, now claiming God
Almighty as an equal partner in planning to write into law
his right to hold the power of life and death over this
nation's citizenry.
Is it this president who has said about abortion and who
determines when life comes in the birth process: "That's
above my pay-grade to know."
Now his words lead many of us to infer that he thinks
himself to have attained that stratospheric level of
deserved remuneration. He says, "We are God's partners in
matters of life and death." Now, I guess, God—as his
partner—will be back in favor with the anti-God forces in
Washington, D.C. and their enablers, the mainstream news and
entertainment media.
Paul the apostle wrote under divine inspiration: “This
know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers...Having a form of godliness,
but denying the power thereof: from such turn away" (2
Timothy 3:1-2, 5).
Fallen man, like their father, the devil (Jesus' words,
not mine—read John 8:44) seeks to push God aside, then usurp
His authority. Much of America's political leadership is
currently aspiring to such power and authority. That this
matter has risen to the top of news is yet more accumulating
evidence that this generation must be very near the terminus
of the age. Since God's wrath hangs over this planet of
rebels like the proverbial sword of Damocles, the rapture
must be very near.
--Terry
