Karen P. Tandy
DEA Administrator
Posted on 04/27/2005 3:39:23 AM PDT by seacapn
APR 26--When 14-year-old Irma Perez of Belmont, California, took a single ecstasy pill one evening last April, she had no idea she would become one of the 26,000 people who die every year from drugs.1 Irma took ecstasy with two of her 14-year-old friends in her home. Soon after taking the tiny blue pill, Irma complained of feeling awful and said she felt like she was "going to die." Instead of seeking medical care, her friends called the 17-year-old dealer who supplied the pills and asked for advice. The friends tried to get Irma to smoke marijuana, but when she couldn't because she was vomiting and lapsing into a coma, they stuffed marijuana leaves into her mouth because, according to news sources, "they knew that drug is sometimes used to treat cancer patients."2
Irma Perez died from taking ecstasy, but compounding that tragedy was the deadly decision to use marijuana to "treat" her instead of making what could have been a lifesaving call to 911. Irma was a victim of our society's stunning misinformation about marijuana-a society that has come to believe that marijuana use is not only an individual's free choice but also is good medicine, a cure-all for a variety of ills. A recent poll showed that nearly three-fourths of Americans over the age of 45 support legalizing marijuana for medical use.3
It's a belief that has filtered down to many of our teens, if what I'm hearing during my visits with middle school and high school students across the country is true. I'm amazed at how well versed in drug legalization these teens are. It is as if legalization advocates stood outside their schools handing out their leaflets of lies.
(Excerpt) Read more at usdoj.gov ...
It feels like I lost 10 IQ pts just clicking on that link..
Your tax dollars at work.
the dirty little secret is that doctors see the side effects of drug abuse every day. The recent school shootings mentioned prozac, but failed to mention that marijuana and crank are widespread in that high school...the dirty little secret is that those who take marijuana to get high are willing and able to take other things to get high...and we docs see the neglected kids and the messed up teens from parents who are so busy getting high that they can't take care of their kids.
The last marijuana "death" of one of my patients was a two year old killed by his mom and/or boyfriend...the parents and indeed the grandparents were druggies...
I know about marijuana. I saw all those hippies smoking LSD and shooting up marijuana. They all turned into killing, raping, animals. < /sarcasm>
Ping
Was the last alcohol death of one of your patients before or after the last marijuana death? I'm just curious.
You'll be swamped on this forum by burned-out losers extolling the virtues of marijuana quite soon.
These are the same people who criticize law enforcement and the medical community for having an "economic interest" in fighting addiction - but we'll never know how many of these online advocates of marijuana make money themselves by selling dope to kids.
What a sad bunch!
I don't deny that bad people use marijuana, but I do deny that marijuana per se creates bad people. I have a tough time distinguishing a lot of anti-marijuana arguments from a lot of anti-gun arguments. All I can say is, freedom is never 100% free. We'd have less crime if the government radio-tagged us and melted down all the metal we owned, or less auto wrecks if we lowered the speed limit to 25mph. That doesn't make it a good thing to do - though I don't even think marijuana in and of itself causes those kinds of problems.
The child died of MDMA. If a kid in a frat died of alcohol poisoning because his friends gave him coffee instead of a trip to the hospital, we'd hardly blame the coffee.
Marijuana is bad for kids. It retards their learning and shortens short-term memory. In a country already retarted in science and math education, we don't need to increase the retardation of our youngsters by legalizing marijuana.
But it appears the marijuana isn't the only cause of mental retardation. One has to assume that the author of this stunningly stupid piece is retarded from some other cause. Perhaps government bureaucracy is also a cause of mental retardation.
Drop your dope and get some hope, or you'll be in jail sharing soap on a rope!
Wrong! The child died because of drugs that people that glamorize them and extoll the "virtues" of them. The child died because she was doing drugs instead of some more productive and useful (dare I say selfless) pursuit because some people place drugs on a pedestal instead of hard work and achievement.
Because she's protecting you from harming yourself with dangerous drugs.
No she's not. I have no interest in harming myself with dangerous drugs, and if I did she wouldn't stop me.
And illegal marijuana made this happen...how?
What has that got to do with the case of this girl? Heck, all prescription medicines (drugs) are dangerous. Even most OTC drugs are dangerous. Asprin causes 10,000 deaths just in just the US every year.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.