California State Attorney General Dan Lungren thinks that the nationally syndicated comic-strip Doonesbury is going to pot, and he isn’t amused.
Lungren is upset over this week’s series of Doonesbury cartoons focusing on the police raid on the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club and promoting Proposition 215, a state ballot initiative to prevent the state prosecution of patients who use marijuana for a documented medical need. Lungren was responsible for ordering the August 4 raid on the club and is one of the chief opponents of Proposition 215. He has asked Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes the cartoon, to either pull this week’s strips or include a disclaimer saying the cartoon is inaccurate. UPS is doing neither.
“This week’s Doonesbury strips clearly advance the wink-and-nod attitude toward drug use that is most responsible for the addition of thousands of American kids to the drugged and at risk roster,” argued Lungren in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Cannabis Buyers’ Club Founder Dennis Peron countered that Lungren was advocating censorship. “Instead of attacking characters in a cartoon, why doesn’t he meet me in a debate?” he asked.
“This week’s Doonesbury strips are bringing national exposure to a situation in dire need of widespread attention and reform,” said NORML Deputy Director Allen St. Pierre. “National polls indicate that Americans delineate between marijuana use for recreational purposes and medical needs and strongly support the latter. If Doonesbury can help further the debate, then it’s a positive step.”
Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau has refused to comment specifically on Lungren’s attacks, but did weigh in on the issue of marijuana prohibition in the September 16 issue of Time Magazine. “Before we can get any traction on controlling pot, … the generation that popularized the stuff has got to finally come clean about what made it so alluring in the first place — and then square that with current marijuana policy,” Trudeau wrote. “A good start might be for every middle-aged public official in America to take the following oath.
“… I concede that I once did not view marijuana as dangerous. … It was only after my appetite for recreational drugs had abated, and I produced children whom I did not believe capable of ‘handling’ marijuana as responsibly as I had, that I came to oppose decriminalization. I acknowledge that it was this fear, and not new medical evidence, that caused me to subsequently support mandatory sentencing for other people’s children caught emulating the actions of my generation.”
Doonesbury runs in 1,400 newspapers.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre of NORML at (202) 483-5500. For more information on Proposition 215, please contact Dave Fratello of Californians for Medical Rights at (310) 394-2952.