Drug Warriors in a Dead Heat

By Daniel Forbes, AlterNet. Posted August 16, 2002.

Rabid drug-warrior Bob Barr and the equally avid, though low-key, drug warrior John Linder are in a dead-heat Republican primary this Tuesday in Georgia's newly drawn 7th Congressional District. The question is, if Barr loses how much credit can the national Libertarian Party claim?

The LP's fetchingly named "Incumbent Killer Strategy" has -- with good reason -- targeted Barr as the drug war's point man. So the party has purchased nearly $50,000 of airtime on metro Atlanta cable stations (with a few ads on broadcast Fox and NBC slated for this final, pre-primary weekend) for a wrenching, 30-second ad featuring a woman who's suffered from multiple sclerosis for 31 years and is obviously in the last stages of a painful struggle.

Given that Barr is blanketing the airwaves with nearly $2 million worth of his own ads, is the Libertarian effort small beer? Should the entrenched Georgia Democratic machine, which re-districted the two right-wing incumbents to ensure that one didn't return to Washington, deserve all the credit? (The American Conservative Union rates Barr at 100 percent; Linder at 96 percent.)

In a wheelchair, MS patient Cheryl Miller is barely able to choke out the ad's conclusion:

"Bob Barr thinks I should be in jail for using my medicine. Why would you do that to me, Bob?" [Voice-over]: "When the drug war turns on our own sick and dying, it's gone too far. And so has Bob Barr." Then Miller, struggling again, repeats: "Why would you do that to me, Bob?"

Libertarian Party political director Ron Crickenberger said the ad's many jump-cuts were necessary since Miller lacks the strength to speak uninterruptedly for 30 seconds. She takes medicinal cannabis orally to relieve pain and spasms. Keith Stroup, head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, described Cheryl and her husband and caretaker, Jim Miller, as "incredibly committed. I'm afraid Cheryl's illness is well-advanced, and they have made the decision to not allow her to die quietly."

Crickenberger encountered them at a NORML press conference backing Rep. Barney Frank's bill allowing for the use of medical marijuana, and the ad was shot that day.

The Millers and Barr are no strangers to each other, at least by reputation. Jim was arrested after laying Cheryl down on a sleeping bag in the doorway of Barr's House office in 1999 following Barr's efforts to block the D.C. medical-use initiative approved but not tabulated in 1998. Cheryl's body wracked by MS, Capitol police were afraid to touch her and called for medical assistance just to place her in her wheelchair; they also lacked the nerve to arrest her. Barr later referred to her as a "prop," according to the AP.

Such statements are all in a day's work for the nation's foremost opponent of medical marijuana. Aside from the fact that redistricting cast Barr in a tight race against a fellow Republican incumbent, not for nothing did the LP unloose the full force of its 50 grand on the man Stroup calls "the most crazed anti-marijuana zealot in Congress."

According to the Marietta Daily Journal, Barr referred in May to medical marijuana as "bogus witchcraft." Flying in the face of numerous government and medical authorities, Barr declared, "There is no legitimate medical use whatsoever for marijuana." He also cited the discredited notion that it serves as a "gateway drug."

Medical cannabis proponents are most wigged by the "Barr Amendments," which are now hard-wired into the D.C. appropriations process. There's been three so far, all prohibiting in one way or another D.C. election authorities from certifying any voter initiatives that cut penalties for Schedule I drug offenses, including marijuana.

The first was when Barr introduced legislation preventing D.C. from spending an estimated $1.64 to flip a switch and tabulate the vote on 1998's medical marijuana initiative. After a long court battle, it was found to have won with 69 percent of the vote. This particular amendment was struck down by the U.S. District Court in March as an unconstitutional free-speech abridgement.

More recently, via a letter urging action by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Barr, Mark Souder (R-IN) and Doug Ose (R-CA) "led the charge to close the L.A. cannabis club that the DEA raided," said Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy.

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