The Minnesota Police Chiefs Association kicked off the second day of its 2015 Executive Training Institute with a keynote address from Kevin Sabet, President and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), “preventing another big tobacco.”
http://www.mnchiefs.org/executive-training-institute-eti-
What could possibly motivate the Minnesota Police Chiefs to waste their time and our money listening to Kevin Sabet? Sabet is not a physician or medical researcher, not a cop or legal expert, and presumably, not a pot smoker or drug addict (but who knows?). Sabet is a PhD in “Social Policy” whose only apparent expertise is self-promotion. What makes Kevin Sabet a marijuana expert?
http://kevinsabet.com/about
While Sabet seems to have a big problem with “big tobacco,” apparently he has no similar objections to the big pharmaceutical industry. Sabet’s “smart” approach includes: “research on marijuana in order to obtain FDA-approved, pharmacy-dispensed, cannabis-based medications.”
Sabet lists 4 SAM partners, including:
1. National Families in Action (NFIA), which along with Sabet produces and publishes a “reefer madness” piece of pseudo-science titled: What Will Legal Marijuana Cost Employers?
http://www.nationalfamilies.org/reports/What_Will_Legal_Marijuana_Cost_Employers–Complete.pdf
Obviously, since marijuana is not legal in most places, Sabet and his NFIA co-author Sue Rusche are fabricating findings. How could anyone document the impact of legal marijuana on job performance or anything else when it’s been illegal since the 1930s? Prior to the federal prohibition, Marijuana was used legally for 1000s of years. In all of human history, has anyone ever documented the cost of legal marijuana to employers?
2. Parents Opposed to Pot (POPPOT) features the smiling face of Judge Kimberly J Mueller of the US Court in Sacramento, CA.
The happy Judge recently ruled that marijuana belongs in the same Class I category with much more lethal and addictive substances like heroin and cocaine. Judge Mueller’s POPPOT-approved decision defers to the authority of the DEA, whose agents recently got caught with their pants down partying with drug cartel prostitutes in Columbia.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/14/dea-agents-prostitutes-overseas-sex-parties
If ever there was a questionable authority, it’s the DEA.
3. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). Who sponsors ASAM? Here’s a list:
While big tobacco, not surprisingly, is not an ASAM supporter, the list of sponsors does include Alkermes, Orexo, and Pfizer, Inc., makers of such wonderful products as: Zubsolv (buprenorphine and naloxone), Edluar (zolpidem tartrate), Vivitrol, aripiprazole lauroxil, invega sustenna, ALKS 5461, Geodon (ziprasidone mesylate), Zoloft (sertraline HCl), Ziprasidone (ziprasidone hydrochloride), and much more. While I am not adverse to smoking weed, I wouldn’t touch any of the above mood altering substances with a 10ft pole. ASAM funders also include the treatment industry businesses Two Dreams, Inspire Malibu, and Seabrook House – how lovely.
4. The National Association of Drug Court Professionals. While I couldn’t find any evidence that they’re taking money from the drug companies or the treatment industry, their “reefer madness” position paper clearly indicates they don’t relish the thought of losing their marijuana caseload.
http://www.nadcp.org/drugpolicy
Obviously, the drug court business and the treatment industry it supports would take a big hit if marijuana was legalized. People aren’t getting drug tested because they want to kick a marijuana habit; they’re getting ordered into treatment and drug tested in order to stay out of jail.
Fortunately, there are cops, lawyers, judges, probation officers, prison workers and other experienced law enforcement professionals who are not beholden to the pharmaceutical and treatment industries and who do not have a vested interest in the continuation of the failed drug war.
Rather feeding on the “reefer madness” propaganda of a pharmaceutical and treatment industry-funded, self-promoting, “social policy” pseudo-scientist, maybe the Minnesota Police Chiefs could make better use of their time and our money getting treatment for their drug war addiction.
HOOYAH! The Brainpower State
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