The Loris Bite

 Yesterday, U.S. Congress and House of Representatives members finished negotiating the FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

The act commences three great advancements for reformers.

1) The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign has gotten the funding cut from 70 MILLION DOLLARS to a simple 45 million dollars. That's 25 MILLION DOLLARS that can be spent on something better than the comic relief of watching some pothead kid make a badass cannabis cocoon. Seriously, the "I forgot to pick my little brother up from baseball practice" or the "I starved my grandmother out of pure stoned negligence" commercials were funnier than most of the Budweiser Super Bowl commercials. Unfortunately, some of the money that was cut will be redistributed to other futile "Drug Czar" or Office of National Drug Control Policy projects.

2) The prohibition on federal funding to any program that distributes syringes to intravenous drug users has been lifted, but not only that, Washington D.C. will actually have the ability to implement Syringe Exchange Programs using federal funding. According to the professionals who make up statistics, the average IDU injects 1,000 times annually. Without being able to get sterile syringes HIV, AIDS, and any other blood-borne disease within the using community is obviously on the rise. Syringe Exchange Programs allow "responsible" drug users to dispose of their syringes appropriately and acquire new ones at free of cost. I know that this sounds like it would increase drug use, but that's bullshit. People who use drugs do just that, use drugs. They don't care about paying for clean needles, that's why there's so many cases of AIDS in the IDU community. These programs, though they seem very stupid, will at least give an option to help prevent the spreading of these viruses. There's a chance that not enough of the junkies will actually use them to make a noticeable difference, but I think it should be tried out for a little while. It's gotta work better than the anti-drug ads right?

3) LAST but definitely not least,  The District will be allowed to implement the medical marijuana referendum. Cool! now lets just make it nationwide instead of just in D.C.! At least it's legal in the home of the feds. I doubt they'll get as intense as California, but at least the residents of D.C. will be able to get their medijuana fix.

 This is how they go about stating their decisions

Removing Special Restrictions on the District of Columbia:"...Also allows the District to implement a referendum on use of marijuana for medical purposes as has been done in other states, allows use of Federal funds for needle exchange programs except in locations considered inappropriate by District authorities..."


National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign: "$45 million, $25 million below 2009 and the budget request, for a national ad campaign providing anti-drug messages directed at youth. Reductions were made in this program because of evaluations questioning its effectiveness. Part of the savings was redirected to other ONDCP drug-abuse-reduction programs."