* Forwarded (from: NETMAIL) by L P.
* Original dated: Mon Dec 16, 03:29
From: "Carl E. Olsen" 
December 9, 1996
Ron Corbett and Allen Helmers on
KCNZ 1250 AM
721 Shirley Street
Cedar Falls, IA 50613
319-277-1918
PART 4
    COLOFF:  Welcome back to the program.  Local talk radio on KCNZ.
Talking about the medicinal uses of marijuana.  Should it be legalized in
Iowa?  It has been in Arizona and California.  Is this sweeping the nation?
Is it going to be everywhere soon?  Well, not in Iowa probably.  It sounds
like it won't come up this year.  We've got a caller on the phone.  Allen in
on line two, but first off we want to give the other Allen, Allen Helmers,
our guest here in the studio, a chance to answer the question.  A caller
called in and wanted to know if he would support legalization of crack
cocaine if it helped make someone feel better.  Or, how about heroin?  What
if that helped someone feel better?
    HELMERS:  Cocaine is already available through your doctor.  Crack
cocaine, there's really no medical use for it, according to any literature
that I've ever read.  Yes, I would support heroin, which I do believe is
available through doctors in some states, it was on the Arizona referendum,
for chronically ill people, under a doctor's supervision.  I don't think
heroin belongs on the street, as well as any other drug.  It's too easily
abused.  
    COLOFF:  Uh hum.  And, Ron, any comment on that?  What if we passed
this, and then we have the next group that want to legalize something else?  
    CORBETT:  Well, that's the point I've been trying to make, that all the
safeguards that the legislature, whoever, other legislators around the
country can put in, this issue it just seems to me, at least the way I
understand it, and what I've been able to read about it, that it's way open
to abuse and misuse through the process, with today anything being
classified as a medical use.  I mean, so for you to start saying that, well,
only people that have chemotherapy are allowed to use it.  Well, what
happens if someone develops carpal tunnel and they have some extreme pain in
their wrist?  And then some person that has it says, well, these drugs
aren't working for me, so I want to use marijuana.  And so, I mean, where do
you draw the line on an issue like this?  
    COLOFF:  Uh hum.
    CORBETT:  And, I don't know where you draw the line.  So, rather than
trying to guess where to draw the line, we've elected not to authorize this
in Iowa.  Let some of the other states, through their referendum process, it
seems to be the only way they can get it passed, let them try it.  And, in
three years from now, we'll have an understanding.  And, in three years from
now we'll have some results.  Was it abused, wasn't it abused?  All these
questions that I've been asking and we've been bouncing back and forth,
maybe we'll have some more information.  So let's hold off for three or four
years and see how it works in some other states.
    HELMERS:  Do you think that doctors are over-prescribing morphine and
other pain killers for people with carpal tunnel now?
    CORBETT:  Oh, I don't know.  I don't know. 
    HELMERS:  Well, there's the point.  I mean, if the doctor is prescribing
the marijuana, that's the whole point.  You must have missed 60 Minutes last
night.  It started out with a great article about how America is killing its
sick people because they're afraid to prescribe pain medication.  It was a
terrific piece there.  I wish you would have seen it.  
    CORBETT:  Yeah, I did miss it.  
    COLOFF:  Okay, we've got another call on the line here, and if you want
to get in on the discussion, 277-1918 or 1-800-913-9479. And, Allen from
Waterloo, thank you for holding Allen.  What's your comment here on the air?
    ALLEN:  Well, I just wanted to comment on the idea of when will our
legislators understand that prohibition does not work, it never has worked,
and never will work?  These people are going against historical and natural
law, and until they come around to this understanding, that it is honest
education that works to help people out, prohibition will not work.  Since
they put a profit into it, drugs will always be out there.  The only way to
really get a handle on it is to go ahead and let the people do what they
want to do, but honestly education them about it.  
    COLOFF:  Mr. Corbett, do you think this is prohibition, or just...
    CORBETT:  Well, what you're advocating is, what the caller is advocating
is legalization of all drugs then.  Correct?
    COLOFF:  Caller, are you there?
    ALLEN:  I think they should legalize marijuana.  I do believe that they
should go ahead and decriminalize everything else.  Yes, honest education is
the only way to do it.
    HELMERS:  Because it doesn't make sense locking a person with three
ounces of marijuana up for five years, and locking a person who raped a five
year old kid up for two.  I don't see what's going on.  You guys got to
start thinking about the laws you're writing.
    CORBETT:  Well, we do.  And...
    HELMERS:  Well, that's what's going on.
    CORBETT:  And you know there's a lot of problems out there with
substance abuse.  Allen, you've already pointed that out.  You got hit by a
drunk driver.
    HELMERS:  And you gave her seven days in jail.
    CORBETT:  People will abuse alcohol.  They will abuse other substances.
And, they will abuse the right to use marijuana for medical purposes.  So, I
think we've proven it.  They'll be abuses in it.  Now, how do you handle the
abuses?
    HELMERS:  Well, people abuse food.  People abuse anything there is that
can be abused.  How do we stop all the abuse?
    COLOFF:  Allen, are you still on the phone Allen?
    ALLEN:  Yes.
    COLOFF:  Okay, do you think that, you mentioned legalizing marijuana for
all purposes, is that correct?  
    ALLEN:  Yes.
    COLFOFF:  Do you think that if it was legalized for medicinal purposes
you'd have a greater case to make to have it legalized for all?
    ALLEN:  I think it would probably help out, yes.  I mean, obviously,
this drug war that we've got now doesn't work, hasn't, and it won't.  So,
let's start thinking of some more positive approaches, instead of this
negative idea of prohibition.
    COLOFF:  So, this could be the first step in your goal to have it
legalized for everyone?
    ALLEN:  Yeah.  
    COLOFF:  Okay.
    ALLEN:  I mean, well, you also have to look at the history of things.
Like, marijuana basically didn't exist until in the 1930s.  The historical
name is hemp.  
    COLOFF:  Uh hum.
    ALLEN:  And, there's two forms of hemp.  There's an industrial hemp, and
there's a medicinal hemp.
    HELMERS:  Cannabis.
    ALLEN:  And when they changed the name in the Congress, they changed the
name to marijuana and made it all illegal.
    COLOFF:  Sure.
    ALLEN:  What they've done is held back the farmers from growing the
industrial form of hemp also.  The Iowa Farm Bureau has just passed a
resolution calling for studies and research into it for growing it here in
Iowa.  
    COLOFF:  Okay, Allen, thanks for the call.  Appreciate it.
    ALLEN:  Thank you.
    COLOFF:  Okay, Mr. Helmers.  We heard from the caller that this could be
the first step to legalizing marijuana for everyone, and it sounds like he
was talking about letting farmers grow hemp for whatever purpose.  Now one
of Mr. Corbett's concerns was that this was kind of the first step to an
explosion here, and drug paraphernalia, drug use.  Do you agree with that?
    HELMERS:  Ah, no I don't.  I think that the drug use will end up going
down over it.  
    COLOFF:  It will go down?
    HELMERS:  I do.  I really believe so.  And, that's been the way it has
gone in the Netherlands and other European countries who are legalizing.
There's a couple more, Belgium legalized just a while back.  It doesn't pay
to put non-violent, peaceful people in prison.  Most enlightened societies
are aware of that.  And I'd like to get back on one point that Mr. Corbett
made earlier.  The people who backed these resolutions in California and
Arizona, the political people, a few of them were Reagan's ex-secretary of
state George Schultz, former U.S. Senators Barry Goldwater, Allen Cranston,
and Dennis DeConcini, and Nobel economist Milton Friedman, and conservative
William Buckley.  The people who bank rolled it, like George Soros, one of
America's richest men, contributed $550,000.  Peter Lewis, Cleveland
Insurance tycoon, gave a half a million.  John Sperling, president of
Phoenix, chipped in, as did Lawrence Rockefeller, Nelson's brother.  Don't
tell me that's a line up of busy minded pot-head hippies.  I mean, the
problem is you're trying to turn it into a Cheech and Chong show.
    CORBETT:  No, that's not...
    HELMERS:  There's a medical need, and people are being punished in this
country.  Is the next step for me to call Dr. Kevorkian?  Or, are we going
to do like the Nazis did and load sick people in the back of trucks and run
the exhaust up into them, so when you get them to the hospital you don't got
nothin' to do but bury 'em?  
    COLOFF:  Okay, Mr. Helmers...
    CORBETT:  Well, first of all, I never said anything about Cheech and
Chong or how I've tried to frame this issue.  Now, don't think that I'm
trying to make this into a Cheech and Chong show.  I haven't said anything
about that.  I've been pretty open with saying there's been studies on both
sides that have showed, yes, there is some medicinal value, and other
studies that have said no.  I haven't tried to make this a partisan issue.
I haven't been in any way...
    HELMERS:  I didn't say you did.  That's the tones I've been getting out
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