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It does not bother me that John Walters, Director of National Drug Control Policy, is passionate about his positions on drug addiction and how it is best treated; with opinions I can always respectfully disagree. What is unacceptable are lies, fallacies, and deceptive wording in federal government publications.

Barack Obama is looking at CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta to serve as surgeon general, providing yet more ammunition for those of us who like to constantly point out how bad his choices are when it comes to drug policy.

Here's Gupta's 2006 article "Why I Would Vote No on Pot." The reason? Because "marijuana isn't really very good for you," as though that has anything do with whether or not it makes sense to arrest nearly 1 million American a year for possessing it. The bright side is that Gupta acknowledges "health benefits for some patients." Unfortunately, he then proceeds to complain that most medical marijuana supporters "just want to get stoned legally," as though that justifies supporting laws that hurt legitimate patients.

Hopefully, if Gupta is our next surgeon general, he will come to understand that there is in fact an enormous war on marijuana users in America that harms them in all sorts of ways that aren't really very good for you either.

An article that appeared in the Metro newspapers Vancouver edition claimed that tests done on military vehicles(2)showed traces of narcotics and that the military was going to experience drug traffick

So, I’m checking out High Times' Top 10 News Articles of 2008 (the stories that got the most traffic on their site) and noticed that I wrote two of them (#1 and #9). Both are crazy marijuana stories that never brought us the traffic I expected, but seem to have done well on the HT site. We allow our material to be reprinted as long as StoptheDrugWar.org is credited, so this is totally legit. I guess it kinda sucks for us that they pulled more traffic from our content than we did, but it’s fun to know that I rule the High Times news archive.

Anyway, since you cool dudes at High Times are obviously reading my blog, I’d like to be perfectly clear about the fact that I will write even better articles for you if you give me some money.

They’re even doing their own diplomacy:

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Mexico's warring cartels are negotiating a truce that, if it holds, could end one of the bloodiest eras since the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution, according to a U.S. official and experts familiar with the talks.

A peace agreement would be the second in two years and, like the last one, its chances of surviving are slim, the U.S. official said.

"In the end, greed prevails over reason," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. [Dallas Morning News]

Actually, it was the drug war that prevailed over reason. We were all watching when Calderón declared war on the cartels and…wait for it…a huge bloody war broke out! Why is anyone acting confused or surprised by what happened? It’s all perfectly clear. If you throw rocks at a beehive, expect swarms of angry bees.

The fact that they’re negotiating their own peace agreements does not reflect well on the decades-long war that was supposed to disrupt the drug industry. They’ve become a second government that even controls its own territories:

Already, the violence is crippling regions and cities, some of them on the border with Texas. Some top U.S. officials and analysts describe these cities, including Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, as "failed cities," in which cartels, not city or police officials, have control. [Dallas Morning News]

Amazingly, the U.S. and Mexican governments actually believe we should continue the policies that produced this outcome.