We Really Lost This “War on Drugs”!

Thu, Jan 15, 2009

“The only way you can die from marijuana is to get arrested and get killed in jail” An Exclusive Interview with Stephen H. Frye, MD, author of We Really Lost This War! 25 Reasons to Legalize Drugs

Hi Steve, I just finished reading your book, We Really Lost This War! Twenty-Five Reasons To Legalize Drugs. Did anything in particular inspire you to write it?

As I researched our drug policy for my radio talk show, I became amazed with what a devastating and deadly catastrophe it is. I had to write this book to start to change the policy that is so racist and lethal to our kids and teens.

Steve, although you’re now in Reno, Nevada, like so many of us, you’re from Northern California. Tell me about yourself and that.

I was born in Boston and attended Boston Latin School. I studied piano at the Boston Conservatory of Music. I then graduated from Boston University and earned my M.D. degree at the George Washington University School of Medicine. After my internship at San Francisco General Hospital, I was drafted and volunteered to serve as a physician in the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) during the Vietnam era. After my military service, I completed my psychiatric training at the Langley Porter Neuro-Psychiatric Institute of the University of California, San Francisco. I served as the Director of Mental Health for Sonoma County, California for four years, then founded a private practice multi-specialty mental health group and directed it for 18 years. I concluded my medical career by teaching at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. I’m the divorced father of two adult sons and play the piano, sail, ski, and am a world traveler, having visited 45 countries, 44 states, and 8 Canadian provinces.

Why Reno?

I moved to Reno in 2000 to teach in the medical school and because I have always loved Reno, Tahoe and skiing.

I understand that the book’s title has been moved around due to a possible movie deal. What’s going on there?

At the book show in LA in June, a documentary filmmaker agreed that it would make a great “Inconvenient Truth” type film with me giving my lecture and film clips behind me. He suggested that I make the subtitle the title, so “We Really Lost This War!” became the title.

A review of 25 Reasons To Legalize Drugs was done by another BrooWaha writer in Fall 2007. The writer is a Santa Rosa, California attorney and he wrote “Hopefully it will turn the tide and we as a country will adopt what Holland has so successfully proven. The stranglehold burden on lawyers and our courts will be lifted. The drug dealer, the middle-man, the only one who currently benefits, will be eliminated. The savings to taxpayers is enormous. Add to that savings the sales tax collected off the legal sale of the drugs.” In your book you noted many judges have made the same complaint about the failed War on Drugs clogging up the legal system. Tell me about that.

Judge James Gray wrote in his outstanding book, “Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed” about the devastation wrought by a war he witnessed from the frontlines as a trial judge and federal prosecutor in detail. Marijuana smoking is a totally victimless crime and is much safer than alcohol. It’s the safest recreational, OTC or RX drug in history. There has never been a single medically recorded death from pot alone. In fact, the only way you can die from it is to get arrested and get killed in jail, where one-third of prisoners are dead by age 45.

Your book has some very depressing stuff in it, all well documented. President Lincoln wrote that “Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.” Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. President. Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives. With Lincoln’s words it made me wonder why we enacted Prohibition at all and with the colossal failure of Prohibition against alcohol, why did we later repeat that mistake with marijuana?

The drug prohibition law was based on lies and racism with support from the alcohol industry and the totally fictitious movie, “Refer Madness” that depicts a young man getting crazy and violent on pot, the most mellowing drug in the world. The AMA testified that it was not a good policy, but then as now, being tough on drugs is great politics, but devastating and deadly policy. We are never smart about drugs, always tough.

We have the highest incarceration rates in the world by far, and still have the highest drug use. We have 5% of the world’s population, but 60% of the drug use and one million teenagers selling drugs, more than all the rest of the world combined. We never learned our lesson from the success of the repeal of Prohibition.

Tell me about the Netherland’s Nobel Prize.
At the international Drug Policy Alliance conference in New Orleans in Dec. 2008, the question was raised as to how we could publicize the success of the Dutch policy. I suggested that we learn from Al Gore and nominate the Netherlands for a Nobel Prize and to my surprise there was a 30 second roar of applause. Not one person suggested that it was not a great idea. NORML has followed through and the web site Netherland4Nobel.org is up and we are working on it.

If you were offered the appointment as Drug Czar, would you accept?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! I would eliminate the ONDCP and most of the DEA, saving the taxpayers billions of dollars a year!

The ONDCP is a massive total lying failure as indicated in the revealing book, “Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics, A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy,” written by two professors. My goal is to change the policy to regulate, control and tax, as they have done with such great achievements in the Netherlands.

Thank you Steve. Any last words?

The War on Drugs kills people, not drugs. Prison kills far more people than drugs and AIDS also is more deadly. Compared to these disasters, drugs are benign.

Twenty-five Reasons:

1. We Really Lost This War!

2. This War Kills Children!

3. Teen Gangs Are a Deadly Growth Industry

4. Devastating Impact on Women

5. Racism Worse Than Slavery

6. The Netherlands’ Spectacular Success

7. Treatment Is a Bargain? MDs, Not DAs

8. Harm Reduction Is the Answer

9. Huge Avoidable Increases in Contagious Diseases

10. The Truth? Drugs Are Rarely Deadly

11. Marijuana’s Miraculous Benefits

12. Murder, Overdoses, and AIDS Are More Deadly Than Drugs

13. Extreme Environmental Toxicity? National and International Poisons

14. Hemp, a Global Warming Powerhouse Wasted

15. Even Animals Get “High”

16. The Cancerous Prison-Industrial Complex

17. Economics ? A Trillion Plus Squandered

18. Narco-Terrorism ? We Fund It!

19. The Worst Corruption in the History of the United States

20. International Crime, Corruption, & Government Destabilization

21. Grave Judicial Concerns

22. Relentless Erosion of the Bill of Rights

23. Unintended Consequences ? Everything Backfires!

24. Medical Groups, Judges, Churches, and Law-Enforcement Organizations Support Drug Reform

25. All 23 Independent Government Commissions Support

We Really Lost This War!

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25reasons.org

We Really Lost This “War on Drugs”!

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