Medical Marijuana Issue

I hope that you are doing well. Attached an article written by Bruce Grant who was the director of the Florida Office of Drug Control and now serves as the chairman of the Leon County drug prevention coalition. His excellent editorial was published in the Miami Herald on 05/22/2014 and I urge you to read the article in it entirety. He clearly and eloquently states that: " If you liked Big Tobacco, you are going to love Big Marijuana. Expect the same slick ads that neglect to mention dangers in order to get our kids hooked as a key long-term strategy for profiteers. Just look at Colorado to see Florida’s future with legalization. Pot shops will replace pill mills. Physicians will abuse their prescribing privileges for marijuana just as they did when over-prescribing deadly legal narcotics. The medical marijuana ballot initiative would turn Florida into Colorado. The bill that just passed the Legislature allows cannabis oil to those truly sick who need it, but we don’t need to allow further legalization. The world is dangerous enough for kids without sanctioning another intoxicating drug to trip them up. The real effect of medical marijuana in Florida will be to jeopardize the safety and drug-free future of our most precious resource — our youth. Current drug prevention efforts will be stymied leaving us with thousands of pot shops, more teenagers smoking pot and more deadly car wrecks. That won’t be on the ballot in November, but it should be on every voter’s mind." Yours Bernd

Drug Abuse: An African Perspective

I just returned from a speaking tour in South Africa where I visited Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and Pretoria. Its a truly exciting, modern and vibrant country but the country is still struggling with poverty, social injustice and a rising violent crime rate. Drug abuse is rampant among the black population. According to South African healthcare experts 11% (5.7million people) of the South African population will suffer from an addiction disorder in their lifetime. Other experts estimate that the number of addicts already exceeds 15% of the population. Drugs of choice include whoonga (mixture of heroin and dagga), along with the rising use of heroin, cocaine (crack) and tik (methamphetamine). Whoonga – also called wunga or nyaope – is a potent and highly addictive mixture of marijuana, heroin and HIV medications. Nyaope is a whitish powder - low-grade heroin mixed with ingredients such as rat poison and sometimes even crushed-up medicine for people with HIV. Sprinkled on top of marijuana, it is a highly addictive, life-wrecking drug cocktail. I think its important for us to follow the international variations of drug abuse because with globalization and international travel "exotic" drug combinations can travel fast, too. Yours Bernd