The lies and distortions begin

Brad Swanson, candidate for Hillsborough County Commission, who can't run on issues because he is a wussy candidate compared to Rose Felrita, had decided to engage in mud throwing based on lies and distortions.

Steve Otto comments in today's column

"Say What?
He goes on in his letter to say, "Rose represents neighborhoods which are teeming with drug dealers and addicts. Yet she feels that marijuana should be legalized."
. . .
Anyhow, this letter points out that Ferlita represents neighborhoods "teeming with drug dealers and addicts." I guess so. She represents District 2 in the city, which happens to be a citywide district.

Then he goes on to suggest Ferlita wants to legalize marijuana. Too bad he didn't reprint the entire article he quoted, from the "Weekly Planet" on Dec. 8, 2004.

It was a long piece by Wayne Garcia on local Republican perspectives on the use of marijuana.

In that story, where Garcia talks to Ferlita about the use of marijuana on terminal patients, he points out that "she is also a consultant to a substance abuse nonprofit and sees marijuana as a dangerous gateway drug. She doesn't favor any form of legalization or decriminalization."

Until Wayne Garcia puts a link to the article in Blurbex, via the Wayback Machine we can read the article in its entirety.

"The most sympathetic read you will get from a local Republican on the issue comes from Ferlita, whose opinion on medical marijuana is informed by the fact that as an inner-city pharmacy owner, she has a large HIV-positive clientele who depend on the legal marijuana derivative Marinol for relief.

"In terms of terminal patients, marijuana is a wonderful drug," Ferlita said. (Disclosure: I have done political consulting for Ferlita, Murman and Homan in the past.) "Let's not try to overlook the good from something just because it is an illegal drug."

Before you go penciling in Councilwoman Ferlita for your next bong-fest, however, realize that she is also a consultant to a substance abuse nonprofit and sees marijuana as a dangerous gateway drug. She doesn't favor any form of legalization or decriminalization.

"You see many people in those facilities who started with marijuana," Ferlita said. "I can't discount the fact that, right now, marijuana is an illegal drug and it is abused."

This comment came in an article that was promted by a story in "William F. Buckley Jr.'s conservative weekly bible, the National Review."

"What's needed now are conservative politicians willing to say enough is enough: Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain each year. People losing their jobs, their property, and their freedom for nothing more than possessing a joint or growing a few marijuana plants," the magazine intoned.

"And all for what? To send a message? To keep pretending that we're protecting our children?" the cover story asked. "Alcohol Prohibition made a lot more sense than marijuana prohibition does today -- and it, too, was a disaster."

"And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend," Buckley himself wrote two weeks after the marijuana cover story ran. "If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or? committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo?"

Brad Swanson - let's see what further lies and distortions he and his undemoractic Boss Tweed Ralph Hughes cook up as things progress.