Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the New York Times she continues to oppose legalizing marijuana — even as she has courted alcohol PACs as one of the largest sources of her campaign funding.
Wasserman Schultz, a House Democrat from Florida, said she doesn’t “think we should legalize more mind-altering substances if we want to make it less likely that people travel down the path toward using drugs. We have had a resurgence of drug use instead of a decline. There is a huge heroin epidemic.”
The fifth-largest pool of money the congresswoman has collected for her re-election campaign has been from the beer, wine, and liquor industry. The $18,500 came from PACs including Bacardi USA, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, Southern Wine & Spirits, and the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that during a recent period, “excessive drinking was responsible for one in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64.”
When pushed by interviewer Ana Marie Cox, Wasserman Schultz said that she was “bothered by the drug culture that surrounded my childhood — not mine personally. I grew up in suburbia.”
Cox pointed out that despite the dramatic problem with opiate abuse, the state has not made opiates illegal. Wasserman Schultz responded by saying that there “is a difference between opiates and marijuana.”
She’s right about that. An estimated 8,257 Americans perished from heroin-related drug poisoning in 2013. Nearly twice as many — 16,235 — died from opioid analgesics.
There have been roughly zero deaths from marijuana abuse.
In 2014, 64 percent of self-identified Democrats told Gallup they support marijuana legalization.
Debbie Does DC is the perfect example of DC DEM neoliberal corruption and sale of democracy. She presided over the 2014 election debacle, and kept her job. She has singlehandedly squelched the DEM debates to hide Sanders from her fellow citizens. Nice, Debs! And she keeps her job, which means Obama and Hils support her. She has said publicly that their can be no light between the US and Israel on policy, meaning she sees the US as Israel’s sugar daddy, designated over-bloated proxy military, and all-around reliable schmuck. But so does Hillary.
Florida has private prisons that write checks to candidates, I would guess that influences her as does the liquor money. And law enforcement likes the weaponry and surveillance equipment to be used to suppress and maim/kill all citizen dissenters, er, dangerous pot smokers. DC DEMs love a uniform as much as REPUBs. Neoliberalism requires organized violence all over the world.
Looking on the bright side, the combination of excessive alcohol consumption as a result of genetic predisposition that runs in the family and wine as a beverage with a long history of religious ceremonial usage could be an indication that some of us are genetically more “spiritual” and easily rewarded than others. I’m not sure if that connection can be made when it comes to marijuana ;^).
Having been around hundreds of drinkers, smokers, and smoker/drinkers, I would certainly not say alcohol is more spiritual than weed, if it is at all. Alcohol is a rather crude and dangerous drug by comparison. Other cultures have used various drugs for spiritual enhancement. Peyote, weed (possibly by the ancient Greek/Roman oracles), kat, hashish, etc.
Also, why in the world should a drug’s connection to organized religion be a standard for legalization? I think we all know that 99.9% of alcohol consumption has nothing to do whatsoever with religion or spirituality.
Don’t criticize. Legalize. Shirt for only $15.00. Go check it out now at this link. http://www.teespring.com/legalizeit. DONT MISS OUT LIMITED ADDITION!!!
Sign the petition to have her removed.
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-remove-debbie-wasserman-schulz-as-dnc-chair-over-cannabis-hypocrisy
DWS photo – Quick, zoom out! Zoom out!
DNC chair, fueled by booze… LoL
Thank you, Mr. Clark. ;-)
If she was not such a hypocrite she couldn’t get away with calling herself an American.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is an old fashioned politician. Once bought, she stays bought. The public knows that a vote for Debbie means nothing for them unless their interests happen to coincide with the interests of the corporations and billionaires who own her contract. Politicians are much like professional sports stars who are bought and traded by billionaires for the sole purpose of enriching them.
No one should promote the canard that marijuana is a drug. In truth, it’s a medicinal herb, cultivated, bred, and evolved in service to human beings over thousands of years.
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that had two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting people to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, break up their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” –John Ehrlichman
Prohibition of marijuana is a premise built on a tissue of lies: Concern For Public Safety. Our new laws save hundreds of lives every year, on our highways alone. In November of 2011, a study at the University of Colorado found that in the thirteen states that decriminalized marijuana between 1990 and 2009, traffic fatalities have dropped by nearly nine percent—now nearly ten percent in Michigan—more than the national average, while sales of beer went flat by five percent. No wonder Big Alcohol opposes it. Ambitious, unprincipled, profit-driven undertakers might be tempted too.
In 2012 a study released by 4AutoinsuranceQuote revealed that marijuana users are safer drivers than non-marijuana users, as “the only significant effect that marijuana has on operating a motor vehicle is slower driving”, which “is arguably a positive thing”. Despite occasional accidents, eagerly reported by police-blotter ‘journalists’ as ‘marijuana-related’, a mix of substances was often involved. Alcohol, most likely, and/or prescription drugs, nicotine, caffeine, meth, cocaine, heroin, and a trace of the marijuana passed at a party ten days ago. However, on the whole, as revealed in big-time, insurance-industry stats, within the broad swath of mature, experienced consumers, slower and more cautious driving shows up in significant numbers. A recent Federal study has reached the same conclusion. And legalization should improve those numbers further.
No one has ever died from an overdose of marijuana. It’s the most benign ‘substance’ in history. Most people—and particularly patients who medicate with marijuana–use it in place of prescription drugs or alcohol.
Marijuana has many benefits, most of which are under-reported or never mentioned in American newspapers. Research at the University of Saskatchewan indicates that, unlike alcohol, cocaine, heroin, or Nancy (“Just say, ‘No!’”) Reagan’s beloved nicotine, marijuana is a neuroprotectant that actually encourages brain-cell growth. Research in Spain (the Guzman study) and other countries have discovered that it also has tumor-shrinking, anti-carcinogenic properties. These were confirmed by the 30-year Tashkin population study at UCLA.
Drugs are man-made, cooked up in labs, for the sake of patents and the profits gained by them. Often useful, but typically burdened with cautionary notes and lists of side effects as long as one’s arm. ‘The works of Man are flawed.’
Marijuana is a medicinal herb, the most benign and versatile in history. “Cannabis” in Latin, and “kanah bosm” in the old Hebrew scrolls, quite literally the Biblical Tree of Life, used by early Christians to treat everything from skin diseases to deep pain and despair. Why despair? Consider the current medical term for cannabis sativa: a “mood elevator”. . . as opposed to antidepressants, which ‘flatten out’ emotions, leaving patients numb to both depression and joy.
The very name, “Christ” translates as “the anointed one”. Well then, anointed with what? It’s a fair question. And it wasn’t holy water, friends. Holy water came into wide use in the Middle Ages. In Biblical times, it was used by a few tribes of Greek pagans. But Christ was neither Greek nor pagan.
Medicinal oil, for the Prince of Peace. A formula from the Biblical era has been rediscovered. It specifies a strong dose of oil from kanah bosom, ‘the fragrant cane’ of a dozen uses: ink, paper, rope, nutrition. . . . It was clothing on their backs and incense in their temples. And a ‘skinful’ of medicinal oil could certainly calm one’s nerves, imparting a sense of benevolence and connection with all living things. No wonder that the ‘anointed one’ could gain a spark, an insight, a sense of the divine, and the confidence to convey those feelings to friends and neighbors.
I am appalled at the number of ‘Christian’ politicians, prosecutors, and police who pose on church steps or kneeling in prayer on their campaign trails, but cannot or will not face the scientific or the historical truths about cannabis, Medicinal Herb Number One, safe and effective for thousands of years, and celebrated as sacraments by most of the world’s major religions.
Exactamundo
If you are both for sale AND a bigot against certain cultures that ‘bother you’, Ms. Schultz, what then, distinguishes you from a Republican?
Debbie;
Just to make sure… You do know that alcohol is & canabinoids aren’t adictive. Right?
You do know that annually many thousand deaths are atributed to alcohol and the only THC deaths and the vast majoity of all other illegal drug deaths result from circumstances created by the laws surrounding them. The absence of any product control and the profit that making them illegal provides, fuels murderous drug gang/cartel/usgovtagencies to “push” illegal drugs much like alcohol producers do legally through television sport etc etc.
You and your empowered attitude, megapharma with its greed themed business plan and capitalism based prisons each kill more people annually than all drug deaths that weren’t all or mostly a product of your bad laws and which are thus illegal. And I haven’t even mentioned the billions of dollars and perhaps a touch of hanky-panky that describes the police, police and more policing of the situation.
How do I know that you and your plan are simply greed and power based?
It’s partially by the racist character top to bottom of your way of dealing with it plus the fact that science simply isn’t on your side. .05% of your population, primarily Black and Hispanic are in cages because they use a product that incidently isn’t in the same “damage” ball park as the product that buys your time. Extrapolate and realize that it means a far higher % of non-Euro than .05 are imprisoned because of hugely benign TetraHydraCanabis. Calling it pot or marijuana or weed etc is just one more facet of your demonization process.
And the problems surrounding all other drugs which like alcohol are adictive and dangerous was escalated the day uou first made using them a crime. The escalation has continued to escalate with ever greater negative results ever since.
Huh, there’s a heroin epidemic and a massive problem with pill mills and addiction to prescription opiates in Florida- but those couldnt possibly be linked!
This woman was a hard working Representative from FL. and when she got this job, became a mirror image of how the Tea Party people behave! She is the perfect example of a corrupted politician and why our system is broken! Her very presence as head of the DNC at this late date, after all she has and I assume will continue to do, is a reason that if Sanders loses, I will not vote Democratic!
how does the Tea Party behave that bothers you so much? The Tea Party supports legalization of dope, lower taxes, less Federal Gov’t, more local control….how are those things bad?
The “Tea Party” is a branch of the right wing
who are mainly concerned with their own money
and do not give a rat’s ass about social and
environmental quality beyond their own
self-serving interests.
They are indeed like the democrats and republicans
in the government, no matter what words they use.
Debbie needs ‘shrooms. What a way to pander to the police lobby.
Edward Snowden should have put his utmost faith and trust in us. We love him and admire him for his courage and integrity ;-)
http://timcanova.com/about.htm Vote for Tim. Get rid of DWS
Blaming legal weed for a spike in heroine use??? Maybe getting people addicted to opiates via big pharma then cutting them off plays a big role. Not to mention the fact that alcohol related deaths account for roughly 88,000 US deaths per year on average… Correction: I just mentioned that. DWS is a typical liberal hypocrite who would pour poison down your throat while denying you the right to self-medicate with an all-natural plant that has never killed a single person. Like the great Ron White says “you can’t fix stupid” which is why this “progressive” hack still has a job.
To me Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a gateway drug. Everytime I hear her speak I crave relief at any cost. Has any other DNC chair been so offensive and unpopular? She is costing the party a fortune since none of us will support it with her in charge. Why is it surprising that someone so out of touch would be wrong on this issue as well?
Marijuana was declared illegal because the DuPont family wanted to push nylon, a product that was inferior to hemp. I surely hope Bernie Sanders wins the presidency and we can end the war on drugs, as well as corporate domination our government.
yes -DWS seems like a dunce -and hypocrite who is already demonstrating her willingness to pander to anybody who will cut her a check!
And yes, I craved relief after just seeing a picture of her! Didn’t even need to hear her speak.
She needs opiates. Lots of them.\
Where does the DNC come up with these idiots? Repulican/Tea Party rejects I presume…
Faulty logic and operant conditioning typically play a large part in “mob mentality”. Sad but true. For all or any of her faults this woman is hardly representative of the “entire political system”.
Will somebody please shoot that whore??!!
This lady is good for one thing, and that is a glance at the thinking (if you can call it that) of the upper levels of our national elites.
I do hope she is in a situation where she needs medical pot but can’t get it due to her hubris.
Also, they all started by drinking water and breast milk. Go figure.
They say marijuana is a gateway drug, you ask any druggy the drug they first used and it will be alcohol.
Alcohol is the true gateway drug.
Nicotine is a gateway drug,possibly the first.
Cuomo in NY says smoking is bad.Well,has he said cigarette smokers must vape?What a joke,he fell far from his fathers integrity.
Because left-wingers believe that a woman only owns her own body for an abortion. For everything else a woman wants to do with her OWN body, she needs to get permission from other women (and, of course, men).
By-and-large leftists are the reason any sort of drug decriminalization or legalization have occurred. There have been some great conservatives who have also worked to see that happen but most of them are authoritarian nutjobs who think the police should be killing minorities over nothing and arresting people for indulging in drug-use or possession.
What bothers me is comparing opiates/heroin/marijuana. Legal opiate analgesics have their time and place, heroin is an illegal substance used by drug ABUSERS, marijuana is also used by legal patients, scammin patients and drug ABUSERS. There is HUGE difference between users and ABUSERS, comparing different substances whike ignoring/mitigating this fact is MEANINGLESS. And Alcohol is a liquid DRUG.
Marijuana abuse is impossible.
It surely is possible. I left mine in a hot car once.
Great article, Zaid. Glad The Intercept is covering cannabis policy.
This shows a troubling and frightening lack of understanding of the nature of the disease of addiction.
Can we just refer to her as the “Chaircrook” or “Chairsleaze” and be done with it?
(Someone needs to ship that wretched hag to China).
And here I thought that everyone designated “Chair” had a responsibility to remain impartial, except when breaking a tie vote. In essence, the spokesperson for the DNC has said that that organisation will only support rationalization efforts if they are prepared to battle their own Chair.
It is estimated that
88,000 people die every year from
alcohol related deaths,
including over 10,000 fatal auto accidents which are
the result of alcohol.
God forbid mellowing and munchies!
Typical corporate democrats.
Liberal democrats? You say that like the GOP is all for legalization or something when their stance on pot is far worse.
“liberal” democrats?
The democrats and the republicans are corporate owned.
The democrats are republicans who LIE in order to
keep the suckers from seeing there is one agenda.
You say that like the GOP is the only party on the ballot other than the right-wingers who make up what is known as “Liberal Democrats”.
(Hint, the word “Liberal” refers to followers of Adam Smith, and indicates an adherent of Capitalism, which is inherently a right wing ideology.)
(Hint #2 the Green Party has been on enough ballots to potentially win the Presidency for over a decade now, if nominal “progressives” did not continue to vote against their own interests by supporting the right wing with a blue label.)
Obviously, this moron needs to get educated.
DW “Schlitz”? Besides, what makes people want to use drugs is having to deal with the reality of the assholes in the establishment ruling class.
DWS is an all round shill for HRC and whoever else pays her. Her tenure as DNC chair has been a miserable failure and poised to destroy the party with her thumb on the scale for HRC while ignoring down ballot offices.
$18,500? Is that really enough to buy one of these morons? If it were so I’d say we should take up a collection, but it probably is tougher than that.
It is beyond obvious that not only is the pot mostly harmless, but for some patients it actually does some good. But even if it were harmful, the best approach would still be legalization. Before it was banned, not even Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents could recognize it – it was so rarely used. My how that changed, because the bans made it worth money, and people like to make money. They didn’t ban henbane until recently, so I suppose in a decade or two we’ll see people all over the country out of their gourds on the stuff, once the entrepreneurs figure out how to jump start the market.
Nah. It’s really not that expensive to buy a politician. Most of the fed pols do it for no money up front at all. They do it for the promise of future rewards from whoever or whatever is seeking to influence the process.
I have a hard time believing she is actually that stupid. One of two possibilities is occurring:
1. She is making a political calculation and deciding to support the wrong side of the issue for that reason.
2. She has a financial conflict of interest.
It is impossible for a high-functioning person to still believe canbabis prohibition is the right choice without also supporting alcohol and tobacco prohibition. Impossible. The information is too readily available for people to actually still be as confused as she pretends to be.
wrong side of history
So I’ve heard. Both are dietary staples among her constituents, but it’s the flakka that I suspect has caused her extraordinarily rapid aging and her propensity for delusions.
That’s a fine pic of ol’ “Debbie-Does-Drug Wars” Wasserman-Shultz. She looks like she’s aged a quarter-century in the weeks since the scandal where she tried to block the Sanders campaign’s access to DNC data. Is she on flakka?
Hey there’s a difference between Opiates and Flakka
Her position makes perfect sense. Bill Clinton expands for profit prison populations with minorities and makes pot related use criminal.
B.t.w. Suburbs have the highest rates of drug use…the war in Iraq and Afghanistan brought more opiates to the U.S. That war is made possible by Clinton.
Wassrman also wants taxpayers to pay for the 20 million debt the DNC incurred after it scheduled debates during low viewership which led to less public support and donations. DWS is a hack and worst thing to happen to the Democratic party since HRC.
Alcohol vs Cannabis
http://planet.infowars.com/uncategorized/alcohol-vs-cannabis
ALCOHOL’S DAMAGING EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN
http://planet.infowars.com/uncategorized/alcohols-damaging-effects-on-the-brain
Cannabis and Neurogenesis
http://planet.infowars.com/uncategorized/cannabis-and-neurogenesis
Why Cannabis is Illegal and Medical Marijuana Laws are Not real freedom
http://planet.infowars.com/activism/why-cannabis-is-illegal
Infowars links? Really? GTFO.
She’s right about that. An estimated 8,257 Americans perished from heroin-related drug poisoning in 2013. Nearly twice as many — 16,235 — died from opioid analgesics. ~ Zaid Jilani
6 Americans die everyday from alcohol poisoning alone. No one has ever died from MJ poisoning.
She’s a bought and paid for witch
Suicide rate among veterans is 22 a day; Crisis hotline can provide support
BY ABC 7 NEWS, CNN, GORDON PETERSON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH 2014
http://wjla.com/news/nation-world/suicide-rate-among-veterans-is-22-a-day-crisis-hotline-can-provide-support-108910
Over 10 years ago, I called it exactly the way I was experiencing and being subjected to it (i.e., targeted): The Military/Industrial/Edutainment/Pharmacological Complex.
This is in large part why I am so vehemently opposed to the passing (and by executive Obama sign off) of the CISA legislation. It’s all about crippling and crushing, if not killing, the American spirit and its ordinary, law abiding citizenry.
The older I get, the more I think people who didn’t live through the 60’s drug culture are missing a few capabilities I’ve taken for granted all my life, like being able to ignore lingering mental states due to having been anesthetized, or even being drunk. Those things seem to topple people like DWS.
Yes, no one knew these things before or after the 60s. It was the center of time.
Ha! Nice one, Vic!
The 60’s was a time when marijuana was taken up by the masses of younger people in a way never seen on this planet before. Coming out of the 50’s, people were beginning to think for themselves in a new way. This movement was also influenced by the availability of psychedelics, and ran concurrently with a new sense of sexual freedom, women’s liberation, and a new black identity making itself known. Many people became feed up with the status quo in a number of areas, and at the same time. It was a great time to be young and be open to new ways of looking at life. It was much different than today. Sorry you missed it. But if you live long enough, you may see a similar thing happen as consciousness is beginning to become more aware of itself. And this will lead to the dissolving of the ego, the main thing that stands between all of us realizing that we are all One.
Although I agree she should go, the headline is misleading because it could be concluded from it that she is taking money from the booze industry and opposing marijuana legalization in return. This is clearly not the case, as the amount of money she has received in this regard is a paltry $18,500. She opposes legalization for other reasons, including the illogical conclusion that marijuana use leads to heroin use. The amount of money she has taken should have been included in this article. Why wasn’t it?
Oops, got my articles mixed up. The money was mentioned, but the title is still unnecessarily misleading.
From the headline I thought she went on a drunken rant… We can only hope that’s on deck
Not to mention the cost to the Prison Industrial Complex of legalizing a healthier alternative to alcohol.
Can the economy bear up under such a hit?
If stupid had a name, it would be Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
“a difference between opiates and marijuana.”
Apparently, Marijuana growers/sellers aren’t bribing her.
Yet! These machines take time to assemble.
Thanks for clarifying that earlier “twitter flash in the pan.” I have only a skiff more patience for Ana Marie Cox than I have for Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Which is to say, probability of patience is not statistically different than zero. Didn’t know what’all they were on about, and wasn’t prepared to spend the time to sort it out. So, sincerely, thanks for the “cultural reference.”