Everyone knows the U.S. government hates medical marijuana. Still, most people understand that, illegal or not, marijuana is a very beneficial treatment for patients with certain conditions. But few people are aware that the federal government actually supplies marijuana to a small group of patients, while still claiming that it isn't medicine. These patients receive 300 joints every 25 days and cannot be arrested for possession anywhere in the country.

This video from last week's NORML Conference features Irv Rosenfeld explaining why the government grows marijuana for him:


Needless to say, words can scarcely describe the hypocrisy of growing marijuana for a select few, while arresting patients and caregivers for the same behavior. I've explained previously how the government knows perfectly well that marijuana is medicine, but if there's one single argument that illustrates this fact, it is that the government actually grows and distributes medical marijuana.

And while we're on this topic, it might interest some folks to know that the government's marijuana is terribly bad. Contrary to the popular urban myth, government pot has very low potency and it's full of seeds and stems. So don't be jealous of Irv Rosenfeld. He may receive huge amounts of free government-grown marijuana that he can smoke wherever he wants. But he also has painful bone tumors, and his free weed sucks.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy hates harm reduction. It's strange because they're supposed to be helping people with drug problems and yet all they ever do is defend the government's authority to punish and injure these very people. Not only that, but they actually go out of their way to oppose programs that prioritize saving lives over making drug arrests.

Predictably, therefore, ONDCP was quick to attack an effort to reduce drug overdoses in San Francisco by opening a safe injection site. As usual, their arguments aren't even related to the topic at hand:

Proposed "Safe-Injection" Site in San Francisco Ignores Proven Solutions to Treating Drug Addicts

Drug treatment works. How do we know? Today, there are millions of millions of Americans successfully recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. These courageous Americans are living proof that effective drug treatment can save lives and reduce our national drug problem.

That's why it's so troubling to see this…

It shouldn't even be necessary to point out that the effectiveness of drug treatment has nothing to do with safe injection. The idea here is to keep at-risk users alive long enough to get them into treatment. These programs create a vital point of contact for connecting users to medical professionals and treatment options.

ONDCP's childish protestations simply overflow with unintended irony:

Indeed, no one proposes aiding and sustaining an alcoholic by providing a supervised site for alcohol use.

Um, what? These supervised sites are called "bars," and no one ever gets alcohol poisoning at them. Alcohol poisoning is the hallmark of unsupervised parties where inexperienced underage drinkers consume surreptitiously. The circumstances under which drugs – be they alcohol or heroin – are consumed has everything to do with the relative safety of the user. What a simple concept that is.

But, as is often the case in the debate with ONDCP, the question is not what they understand, but rather what they really care about. To the Drug Czar, harm reduction is an "approach that accepts defeat." ONDCP only cares about reducing drug use. If drugs are used, then they feel "defeated," regardless of whether lives are saved.

For everyone else, "defeat" isn't defined solely by the frequency with which hits of dope are jacked into the veins of some bright-eyed youngster. Defeat is when that person's life is turned upside down, when they get sick, when they share a needle, when their lifeless body is found crumpled and cold on a park bench.

Preventing these things is the goal of the harm reduction community. It is an achievable goal, and those who stand in the way become apologists for disease, decay, and death.