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CLICK HERE to see Cliff's campaign website www.votethornton.com
Cliff Thornton is a retired businessman running for Governor of Connecticut!
Cliff is running with the endorsement of the Green Party and help from third parties and others to address the important issues facing the state, including education, the drug war, race, poverty, health care for all and a living wage.
Clifford W. Thornton, Jr., is a retired African-American businessman, whose mother died of a heroin overdose when Mr. Thornton was 18. As a result of this loss, he wanted drug laws to be harsher. Now he believes that if heroin use had been legal, and supervised by doctors, his mother might have lived a relatively safe and healthy life.
Cliff Thornton is the founder of Efficacy, a non-profit organization that has been concentrating efforts on drug policy reform.
Prior to working full-time in drug policy, Mr. Thornton was a middle-level manager with Southern New England Telephone Company in Connecticut. He was in charge of the delivery of all internal telecommunications to the corporation, serving some 10,000 employees with a $50,000,000 annual budget, supervising 23 people. He worked at SNET for 25 years. He was (and is) very active in community projects as well. He served as Vice President of the Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz for three years. This three-day event attracted approximately 75,000 people every year with a mere $50,000 budget. He also served as Parliamentarian of the Greater Hartford African American Alliance and was president of Jazz Radio New England.
Join us and sign up to help. Our email group is- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoteThornton
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Efficacy started as a public affairs program at the University of Hartfords radio station WWUH in 1996. Efficacy produced programs on domestic violence, education reform, race/class relations, political candidates, and drug policy. Efficacy evolved from a radio program to non-profit organization having articles and pamphlets published worldwide.
Check out Cliff's organization www.efficacy-online.org
Ive been having problems with this link, if you do just copy and paste.
Statement of Purpose
Efficacy is a Connecticut-based, non-profit organization advocating peaceful ways to respond to social problems. We use the following vehicles to express this: public presentations; a newsletter; commercial media; public radio and access television programs.
At the present time, Efficacy is concentrating efforts on drug abuse and crime prevention. We encourage citizens to re-examine drug policy. We challenge the mentality of the drug war and find that present policies have been counter-effective. We promote open discussion of alternatives and public-health awareness.
We are part of an emerging social movement based on common sense, harm reduction, human rights, science, compassion, and truth. We advocate a paradigm of basing social practices on efficacious methods. This is an advocacy of methods that have been confirmed and established to be effective rather than emotional or political reactions to problems.
Efficacy maintains a network of scholars, and legal and medical professionals who study results of new research and drug policy innovations in other nations. We convey these messages to our members, readers and listeners. We support other organizations working on drug policy reform.
Efficacy circulates a newsletter to approximately 1000 readers throughout New England on a quarterly basis. We produce presentations for educational institutions, churches, civic groups, etc. We participate in forums and communicate with the media on drug policy and other social issues.
The work of Efficacy is funded by donations and grants.
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The War On Drugs Is A War On:
-Justice
The War on Drugs makes a mockery of our criminal justice system.
Our federal prisons literally are packed with non-violent drug offenders who often have no prior criminal record.
People charged with simple drug possession quite often serve more time in jail than violent criminals ... and the violent ones are routinely released to make room for the drug offenders.
This is a direct result of Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences.
-Race & Class
The War on Drugs is waged more harshly against the poor and minorities who don't have the resources to fight back.
Draconian laws are never applied evenly to all people. African Americans comprise only 12.2% of the population but they make up 38% of those arrested for drug offenses and 59% of those convicted of drug offenses.
-Public Health
For what American spends on the Drug War, we could have a first-class health care system for everybody.
Public health problems like HIV and Hepatitis C are exacerbated by zero tolerance laws that restrict access to clean needles.
Millions of people who suffer from AIDs, cancer, and other wasting diseases find relief from smoking marijuana.
-Addicts
Only one third of the federal drug war budget is targeted at prevention and treatment.
Our jails are packed with drug offenders and virtually nothing is done to address the causes of drug abuse, even when a person requests treatment.
Heroin overdoses often occur when a user unexpectedly gets a more potent dose of the drug: a problem that could be addressed with legal regulation.
-Taxpayers
More Americans are imprisoned on drug charges than what Western Europe (with a bigger population) locks up for all offenses. This unprecedented mass incarceration has imposed an emormous burden on US taxpayers.
The federal government faces multi-trillion dollar budget deficits and warns of reductions in social services, education, and the environment. The federal anti-drug budget, however, will increase by 4.7% this fiscal year to $12.468 billion dollars.
From 1984 to 1996, California built 21 new prisons, and 1 new university. California state government expenditures on prisons increased 30% from 1987 to 1995, while spending on higher education decreased by 18%. This trend is echoed in every state of the
-Science
The federal government has repeatedly and aggressively sought to discredit scientific research on the medical efficacy of marijuana ... then claims that there is a lack of evidence to justify safe medical use.
With it's monopoly on the legal supply of marijuana, the government can just say no for any reason. Researchers must apply for a federal grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) before they can study marijuana -- even if they do not request federal money.
When the government does permit research, it delays the process and forces scientists to change their study objectives, making them far less likely to find positive results.
-Compassion
The best pain medicines are narcotics. They have more benefits and less side effects than any other type of drug.
Pain Treatment is seriously compromised under the banner of fighting drugs ... and it is getting worse. The DEA demands that doctors and pharmacies provide records of every prescription for controlled substances that is written or filled. Under John Ashcroft the DEA is seeking to cast a wider net over the pain medications and presciptions they scrutinize. The DEA's hardball tactics include storming clinics, ransacking offices, and arresting doctors. Legitimate pain sufferers find it increasingly difficult to get pain medication, and they live in fear that it could become unavailable at any time.
-Democracy
The War on Drugs has been a true bi-partisan effort, as politicians strive to appear "tough on crime". Many opinion polls, however, reveal that most Americans would prefer a cheaper, more compassionate, and more effective policy on drugs.
Voters in California have twice voted to make medical marijuana legal, yet the federal government refuses to recognize the outcome of these referendums.
The federal government spends millions of your tax dollars on drug war advertising, yet prevents drug reform organizations from buying advertising at public transit sites with their own funds. This amounts to censorship
-Marijuana
Despite popular belief, the war on drugs is very much a war on marijuana users -- even in the case of medical necessity.
The vast majority of citizens who use any illegal substance use marijuana only.
Marijuana is not associated with violent behavior, does not cause death by overdose, and provides therapeutic relief to millions of users.
By ending the war on marijuana, we would end the war on drugs, shut down the prison industrial complex, and restore liberties that have been eroded due to this futile crusade.
-Civil Liberties
If there is no victim, how can there be a crime?
Drug prohibition breeds police corruption and abuse, for the temptation to make drug profits in the black market is very strong. Almost every major US city has had innocent citizens accidentally killed by police in pursuit of a drug bust.
Under current law -- driven by the Drug War -- police need only "probable cause" - before they can seize property of a 'suspected' drug dealer. This has become a major source of funds for law enforcement agencies as the value of property seized has soared into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
-Prevention
Though every parent wants their child to abstain from drugs, many kids will experiment despite a barrage of "Just Say No" messages.
Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates started DARE over 20 years ago, as a program to prevent drug abuse among teens. Is this program even remotely effective? Study after study says no.
Prohibition creates 'forbidden fruit', and young people are attracted to drug use as a form of rebellion.
Young people need to know which drugs pose the most risks, and what to do in the event of emergency. Today's "Abstinence Only" approach to drug (and sex) education denies young people the facts they need to make informed decisions, in real-life situations.
-Industrial Hemp
Hemp is the industrial grade "cousin" of marijuana, used for centuries for paper, fiber, food and fuel. Hemp can produce four times as much paper as trees. Hemp could help save our endangered forests by reducing demand for trees.
Hemp could be a valuable cash crop for farmers who currently grow tobacco, or whose fields are damaged by overuse. Hemp grows well without pesticides and tolerates poor soils.
The USA is the only major industrialized nation that prohibits the growing of industrial hemp.
-Truth
The vast majority of people who use recreational drugs do not become addicts and do not need treatment. Most convicted criminals have used marijuana, as well as many other substances. There is no truth to the "Gateway Theory", as millions of Americans who admit to smoking pot do not desire harder drugs, and do not have life-ruining habits that began with pot smoking. This is the truth.
Research on the efficacy of marijuana use is non-existant in the USA due to a prohibition on research. International research, however, shows that marijuana's medicinal properties are undeniable.
We are supporting the "Truth in Trials" Act, H.R. 1717 to enable medical marijuana patients and providers in states with pro-medical marijuana laws to tell the juries the whole truth.
-Reason
There has never been, is not now, and never will be a drug-free society. Laws do not stop drug use.
New drugs will always materialize to replace ones that are forbidden and thus harder to obtain.
While politicians scramble to make names for themselves as tough anti-drug warriors, experts agree that the "war on drugs" has been lost, and can never be won. The tragic victims of that war are you, your personal liberty, and your tax dollars.
-Enviroment
America spends billions spraying herbicides over the coca-growing regions of South America.
In July 2003, the House of Representatives rejected the McGovern-Skelton Amendment by a razor thin vote of 226-195, keeping Colombia military aid intact, much of it for the drug war.
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Is Efficacy a Drug Legalization Organization?
If one thinks we want children to have easier access to narcotics, of course not. We care deeply about the welfare of kids.
If one thinks we want to see a "nation of zombies", please think again.
We have been accused of wanting to see inner cities and minorities destroyed. We say this has already happened with the drug civil war. The war is not really against drugs; it is against people.
Efficacy advocates bringing drugs under legal control.
That is what we mean by legalization.
Drug prohibition is presumed to control the production, distribution, sale, possession, and use of substances society has deemed dangerous. Prohibition does not work. With prohibition, all control is lost to the black market. Global, billion-dollar dangerous criminal industries control the cocaine, opium, heroin, and marijuana businesses. Prohibition is their necessary fuel. These industries did not exist before the drug war and will disappear when it ends.
There are many substances, subject to potential abuse, presently controlled through the law by the medical profession. This would include morphine, valium, and the like. They are more difficult for anyone to obtain than marijuana, heroin, or cocaine.
Two drugs are legal for personal use by adults, tobacco and alcohol. Everyone knows tobacco use has adverse health consequences. For too many decades, these effects were not taken seriously. If the truth had been accepted from the beginning, the scenario would be different.
Alcohol has been glamorized, as has tobacco. Our culture has viewed staggering drunks as amusing, and has tolerated heavy drinking. Alcohol abuse causes serious health and social problems. It is frequently connected with domestic abuse and violent behavior. Alcohol use, however, does not. Doctors say a drink or two every day is not harmful, and can even be healthful for an adult. Wine or beer with meals is the norm in may cultures, even for children. Societies that do not make a big deal of moderate alcohol use have far lower rates of alcoholism.
When prohibition made alcohol illegal, problems were much worse. Sure, a lot of people complied with the law and did not drink. But those who did not wish to comply adopted dangerous practices. There were illegal drinking clubs called "speak-easys"; where people were encouraged to get drunk. People made "bathtub gin" at home, which sometimes caused blindness or death. Cocktails were invented to mask the taste of the harsh alcohol that was available and made it easier to drink more.
The worst thing was that a dangerous criminal empire developed around alcohol. Black markets always provide great profits. Street violence increased dramatically. Prisons were overcrowded and violent criminals were often released to make room for prohibition violators.
Alcohol prohibition lasted only 13 years because these symptoms of failure were so obvious to Americans. The drug war has been much more effective in confusing people and blurring the issues. It has truly bamboozled otherwise intelligent folks with fear. It has made drugs seem worse than they are, so people are willing to sink more money into the failed policies. Billions of dollars and lives have been wasted with misery, hysteria, intolerance, and violence the results. We have been bamboozled!!
Efficacy wants to bring marijuana, heroin, and cocaine under control. The only way to do that is to bring them under the law, not to exclude them from legal regulation.
Surveys of school children always show that marijuana is much more easily obtained than beer. Street dealers do not ask for I.D., package store owners are subject to the loss of their businesses for selling to minors.
So, in these contexts, Efficacy is a drug legalization advocacy organization.
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I have meet Cliff and support him fully. Feel free to email me. All are invited to join this group and please tell your friends.
CLICK HERE to see Cliff's campaign website www.votethornton.com
www.votethornton.com
or
http://www.politicalgateway.com/cand.php?id=314&page=cand
Green Party web site www.gp.org
www.ctgreens.org/
