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March 02, 2011
Don’t call it “Victory” yet; but it’s probably the beginning of the end.
In a seemingly abrupt change in federal policy: the DEA announced anonymously and sotto voce over the past week-end that it would allow “natural” cannabinoids to be used by designated pharmaceutical companies to manufacture oral medications. That news was greeted with deserved skepticism by “reform” publications and has yet to even be noticed by mainstream media outlets which remain focused on the spectacular dissolutions of authority now taking place around the world from Madison to Mexico and from North Africa to South Asia.The DEA announcement was nevertheless, very significant because it represents such a radical departure from cherished drug war dogma that it’s almost certainly the beginning of the end of an enduring policy of failure that began during the Presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, was augmented under FDR, reached its legislative peak under Richard Nixon, and has since evolved into a tar baby with the potential to besmirch the memory of every subsequent White House occupant because all supported it. As confirmation that it has been an equal opportunity federal disaster, all three branches of US government have cooperated in protecting the policy from scrutiny and arguing on its behalf at various key occasions. So also, have its false precepts become so institutionalized within US Commerce and Academia that it’s almost impossible to speak out publicly against it.
We are thus at the beginning of a tedious and contentious argument; one filled with enough shame to discredit the cognitive abilities of our entire species. The good news is that it could also be filled with lessons on how to avoid similar traps in the future. As with the related issues of climate change, and population growth, humanity stands at an important crossroads; we can, as a species, follow the time-honored paths of greed, fear, and mysticism; or we can opt to study the past through the more objective lens of scientific empiricism that has, for the last five centuries, demonstrated repeatedly that relative truth, honestly arrived at, is both safer and more reliable than absolute truth by decree.
The choice is ours; but it must be made as a species if we are to significantly alter history's current trajectory. The good news is that total extinction is unlikely; even if we are slow to "get it." In fact, a series of successive disasters could reduce the number of humans required for rational choices to be made.
In future entries I hope to relate exactly why I see the DEA's concession as so significant.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at March 2, 2011 12:10 AM