NBC Insults Marijuana Users
Once again, we find the press struggling to cover drug policy reform without resorting to derogatory epithets:
This is really an achievement in childish drug reporting in that it not only sounds ridiculous, it actually renders the story utterly frivolous and misleading. Marijuana arrests are a problem in New York to be sure, but simple possession is technically decriminalized already. Rockefeller reform is primarily not about marijuana at all. It's about reforming wildly draconian sentencing guidelines for a variety of drug offenses. Framing it as a marijuana policy reform is just wrong. Many of the worst excesses of the Rockefeller laws have nothing at all to do with marijuana.
Sadly, it looks as though the author loved his dumb headline so much, he destroyed the entire story just so he could use it. It's pure journalistic malpractice.
Please take a moment to click over there and leave a polite comment.
State Moves Toward Lighter Sentences for Potheads
By Scott Ross
The state Assembly has struck a blow for the state's stoners by voting to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws that have threatened so many tokers with the wrong kind of joint. [NBCNewYork.com]
This is really an achievement in childish drug reporting in that it not only sounds ridiculous, it actually renders the story utterly frivolous and misleading. Marijuana arrests are a problem in New York to be sure, but simple possession is technically decriminalized already. Rockefeller reform is primarily not about marijuana at all. It's about reforming wildly draconian sentencing guidelines for a variety of drug offenses. Framing it as a marijuana policy reform is just wrong. Many of the worst excesses of the Rockefeller laws have nothing at all to do with marijuana.
Sadly, it looks as though the author loved his dumb headline so much, he destroyed the entire story just so he could use it. It's pure journalistic malpractice.
Please take a moment to click over there and leave a polite comment.
Looking for the easiest way to join the anti-drug war movement? You've found it!
Thanks for the heads up.
If you Know Scott Ross, Please kick him in the Balls.
More often than not it's the Editor
calling the shots, not the reporter, especially for the headlines. Even so, this does not excuse this Jr. High School level of reporting.
What a douche bag.
What a douche bag.
can you say
dumb ass
It's a clever little pun, I
It's a clever little pun, I think it's funny - wrong kind of JOINT - ha!
-Kevin Wadsworth
Northeastern U
News media fuels stereotypes
The popular news media sees all drug use the same: all users are addicts who steal to fund their habit, and the police are heroes saving us from the scourge of drugs. Far be it from them to use reason and consider that most drug users are everyday people who have jobs and keep their habit in line as a way to relax, just as many people pour a beer, smoke a cigarette, or take a nap.
More Drugs
I see NBC is pushing a new drug in their Nightly News, so I thought I'd add it here:
VESIcare, solifenacin succinate tablets
Not new.
Been around for years. It decreases bladder spasm by paralyzing the muscle some. Succinylcholine is a skeletal muscle relaxer.
While I don’t doubt your
While I don’t doubt your knowledge, I believe it is a new addition to the NBC Nightly News “Making a Difference” segment (which is where I compiled the list from).
I subscribe to their podcast and watch it off and on. This means I (fortunately) don’t see the ads that come on TV (so there could be plenty more drug ads I don’t see).
The on-air ads are replaced by NBC promos, all except for segments which are sponsored by these various drugs. I’m pretty sure this was the first time they’d mentioned this drug. (I usually try to fast forward through the hawking.)
If only The News Hour with Jim Lehrer was a complete podcast!
About four years.
It has not been so long! It was marketed in Nov of 2004. It is the one that uses the pipe people, in the TV advertisements. Now that I am over a half century old, it does not seem that long ago!
Wait...
what?
really up on the rocky fella drug laws, aren't they?
get it together, NBC.
Typical
I'm sure Scott Ross is a complete yuppie, breast fed until he was 18, sent away to an Ivy League college and has never had to formulate an original thought in his entire, rhetoric-filled and scripted life. Well, I could be way off. Regardless, this guy either doesn't have a clue, or he's just reciting the canned rhetoric that management flushed down the corporate crapper so he can collect his check.
Take off your shades. Turn off your ipod and take out your ear buds. Stop watching American Idol and gossipping about soulless celebrities. Put your blackberry on silent for 10 minutes and stop to look around you. You may be suprised by how far off you are on your concept of reality.
Peace.
what a cocknose
Scott Ross is a fucking joke and a piece of shit yuppie, you know hes just mad because he was just one of those kids in highschool that everyone picked on and never got laid, so he becomes a journalist so he make dumb fucking comments like this, and we are the people getting kicks off of something that he will never understand, so Scott Ross get a FUCKING LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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