PRESS RELEASE
Patients Out of Time is pleased to add the National Association for Public Health Policy to the ever expanding list of organizations that are proactive in demanding the federal government abort its failed policy of medical marijuana prohibition. The Council on Illicit Drugs of the National Association for Public Health Policy declared their opposition to the federal policy in their draft submitted and approved by the association on November 15, 1998 in Washington, DC.
In their introduction they point out that, "A century of increasing criminal justice efforts culminating in the 'war on drugs' has produced few positive outcomes and many negative sequelae." They emphatically state that the primary drug problems in the US relate to licit drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and that it is time for a paradigm shift in the way the entire approach to personal human relations to drugs of all types are viewed.
"Drug addiction should be treated as a public health problem rather than a criminal justice problem and the drug addict as a patient rather than a criminal," states the report. The report further indicates that in order to properly address the circumstances that bring addiction to a patient the broader social issues of poverty, racism, ineffective drug education, limited drug treatment funding and intervention, and governmental corruption at every level due to the enormous sums of money that prohibition sponsors must be considered.
The National Association for Public Health Policy is the sixty-fourth group that has joined with Patients Out of Time in publically calling our nations failed drug policy a failure. Over half of the organizations on this list are professional health care organizations, the very groups that our citizens depend upon for counsel in the care of the sick and dying. Their advice is clear - end the prohibition of therapeutic Cannabis now.
Al Byrne, co-founder of Patients Out of Time and a retired drug warrior, explained the disaster called the war on drugs this way. "The war on drugs is a misnomer in the best traditions of our political class. This war is in reality a war on people as all wars are. In this case, it is the first time in human history a country has actually declared war against a part of its population and to the great disgrace of our country it is attacking its sick and dying. The US states it does so to send a message to our young people. And what message does it send? I'd say it is telling our young people that to be mean and merciless is what the US is all about."
Patients Out of Time is proud to be associated with the millions of health care professionals who alongside millions of citizens call their government policy and the officials who prop it up with their vacuous duplicity dead wrong. We can assist your organization in formatting a similar response to our government's horrendous behavior to the ill and dying or help with any media presentation on this issue. Please don't wait too long to speak out we implore because we are Patients Out of Time.
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