The battle over medical marijuana in Florida officially lit up Tuesday when a state sheriff’s association launched an “education” campaign to oppose it, two polls show the proposal remains widely popular, and an out-of-state casino magnate cut a $2.5 million check bankrolling the opposition effort.
The $2.5 million contribution by Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino empire and a heavy contributor to Gov. Rick Scott’s re-election effort, not only juices the anti-marijuana movement, it effectively brings the medical marijuana debate into the governor’s race.
I'll get to Mel Sembler down thread.Many Democrats believe the amendment will drive sympathetic voters to the polls in support of Crist. While a newly-formed group backed by Adelson, the Drug Free Florida Committee, was started by long-time GOP fundraiser Mel Sembler and his wife Betty. It has raised $2.7 million so far and its top donors have been primarily Republicans.
So he is fighting research he has paid for? I don't get it. follow the "MS-like diseases in mice" link. Sheldon Adelson is prominently mentioned.Adelson and his wife, Miriam, a medical doctor, fund two drug treatment clinics in Nevada and Israel, known as the Adelson Clinic.
The couple also provides funding for marijuana research. According to a study, led by the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases at Tel Aviv University, “some of the chemical compounds found in marijuana can help treat MS-like diseases in mice.”
Sembler? This link is all you need to know (well a LOT of it):
Melvin Sembler’s Legacy of Torturing of Children. I know about Sembler. It is not hyperbole. From the link:
For 17 years Melvin Sembler and his wife Betty operated one of the most destructive and world’s largest chain of juvenile rehabilitation programs, Straight, Inc. As many as 50,000 kids were in the Straight program. Straight, Inc. is the biggest violator of human rights and civil liberties that the USA has ever seen. This was torture – there was deliberate degrading and humiliating treatment, sexual abuse, physical beatings, lack of proper food or sanitation, deliberate sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, and lack of medical care. With inhuman conditions of confinement likened to Korean prisoner of war camps and amidst thousands of law suits alleging severe child abuse, the Straight Inc was finally shut down after a US Congressional investigation. The International Survivors Action Committee Corporation (ISAC)(2) estimates that two Straight clients died wrongfully for every one thousand who survived after being incarcerated for any length of time at Straight. Some estimate is that as many as a hundred to even a thousand children perished as a result suicide secondary to the psychological trauma of being tortured in Straight Inc. During his research Wes Fager was able to document 40 suicides of known Straight Inc abuse. Five percent of children and adults who attended Straight Inc. did so with court order and even after child abuse allegations had already filed against the facilities. But an important lesson we can learn from the history Melvin Sembler’s Straight Inc. is that any revulsion authorities have to cruelty and mistreatment of teens can be redeemed by the transformative power of political contributions. Melvin Sembler was a very successful political campaign fundraiser. People at the highest levels of the US government have endorsed and approved of Straight and its spin off programs including Nancy Reagan, George Bush Sr., Jeb Bush, and George Bush Jr.
After extensive federal and state investigations into the abuse, the Straight Inc. program just changed its legal name and continued business as usual. This gave rise to a myriad of programs under various names but all with the same abusive treatment of children. Torture which is prohibited under US law and under International law had been used by Straight Inc as a means to perpetuate extensive medical insurance fraud some of which involved fraud against the US taxpayer. As Straight Inc. branched out it started using governmental grants to fuel its growth.
Considering that a significant fraction of those who use drugs "recreationally" are suffering from PTSD this is just insane.http://www.thefix.com/content/romney-se ... 5?page=all
...Aspen Education has an impressive rap sheet of wrongful deaths and abuse at its institutions. Children have died of neglect under their care as the pressure that Bain exerts on the company to make a profit filters down to their patients. Among the most serious abusers is Mount Bachelor Academy in Oregon, where staff members forced residents to wear provocative clothing and do lap dances. At a clinic called Turn-About Ranch in Utah, a girl was duct-taped to a chair after filing a complaint about the sexual abuse she had suffered at the hands of CRC staff. In addition, the quest for larger profit margins routinely leads to people being kept in these institutions longer than is therapeutic so that the institution can reap the revenue.But Mel Sembler’s name is most likely to strike fear into the hearts of anyone involved in teen drug rehabs. Sembler and his wife, Betty, founded a chain of such institutions under the name Straight, Inc., which at its peak in the ‘80s had 12 clinics in nine states and a track record of extreme abuse. Straight’s “rehabilitation” approach was adopted from an earlier program called The Seed, which was suspended by the US Senate for practices similar to Communist POW camps. As in the Scientology’s Narconon rehabs, Straight developed the cultlike feature of turning former students into counselors who embraced and enforced the institution’s brutal regime.
In one of many stories from Straight that have been exposed, a teenage girl testified to being compelled into the program after being caught with an airline bottle of liquor given to her by a friend, and then beaten, raped, locked in a janitor’s closet in pants soiled by urine, feces, and menstrual blood, forced into a false and bizarre confession to being a “druggie whore” who went down on truckers for a fix. Monroe’s story is extreme but in no way unique. Similar accounts from Straight survivors have been collected en masse online at TheStraights.com.
In one Pennsylvania death row case of a homophobic hate-murder, evidence of the perpetrator’s abuse at the hands of Straight counselors—which included beating boys while calling them “faggots” and spitting on them—was an admissible mitigating factor.
“My best guess is that at least half of the kids were abused,” Dr. Arnold Trebach, a professor emeritus at American University and founder of the Drug Policy Foundation (now the Drug Policy Alliance), which supports ending the drug war, told Gorenfeld.
Man this stuff is ugly. I knew Drug Free was funded by Big Pharma, Alcohol, and Tobacco (I think Tobacco was forced out) but I had no idea Sembler was a leader.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Sembler
Straight, Inc.
Main article: Straight, Inc.
In 1976, Sembler and his wife founded Straight, Inc., an adolescent drug treatment program which has treated more than 12,000 addicts. The group now operates as the Drug Free America Foundation.[17]
In May 1983, Straight, Inc was convicted of false imprisonment after being sued by then 20-year-old Fred Collins Jr, who alleged he had been held captive by the program against his will. The program was ordered to pay $40,000 in compensatory and $180,000 in punitive damages.[18][19]
In 1990, a jury awarded Karen Norton $721,000 in damages due to mistreatment by Straight. In 1982, while a patient in Straight's Florida facility, Norton alleged that staff members assaulted her, and denied her health care.[20]
It has been suggested that licensing for Straight's Florida-based programs had been renewed under pressure from Sembler on state senators.[21]
Sembler's Drug Free America Foundation continues to campaign for hard-line drug policy. Former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, the brother of President George W. Bush, Former Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Karen Tandy, and Congressman Dan Lungren of California are on the advisory board.[22]
So it looks to me like all this has nothing to do with Drugs. It is just a way to torture kids for fun and PROFIT. Government supplied Profit. Dang. These big time Republicans are an ugly bunch.
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/sh ... -p-KWPc21o
Straight Inc before Congress-Video - they got Medicaid money.
The Truth About Straight from a Survivor-video
Sexual Abuse at drug rehab --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5PXmvknypI Christian based.