The latest Bush hypocrisy
Gov. Jeb Bush calls for jail time for nonviolent drug offenders as his daughter gets sent to rehab.
By Arianna Huffington

I feel nothing but sympathy and concern for Noelle Bush. Her latest stumble on the rocky road to recovery -- being caught with crack cocaine at a drug rehab center -- shows that she is in desperate need of help. As a parent, I can also easily empathize with the anguish Noelle's father, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, must be experiencing. And I'm in total agreement with his insistence that his daughter's substance-abuse problem is "a private issue."

But when I think about the heartless stance the governor has taken toward the drug problems of those less fortunate and well connected than his daughter, my empathy turns to outrage.

While Noelle has been given every break in the book -- and then some -- her father has made it harder for others in her position to get the help they need by cutting the budgets of drug treatment and drug court programs in his state. He has also actively opposed a proposed ballot initiative that would send an estimated 10,000 nonviolent drug offenders into treatment instead of jail. I guess what's good for the goose gets the gander locked away. [read more]

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Pot raid angers state, patients

Suzanne Pfeil understands why federal agents burst in just after dawn with guns drawn and handcuffed her. That's routine in drug busts. What she can't understand is why agents kept ordering her to stand up after they saw her crutches and leg braces next to the bed.

When when her blood pressure spiked and she felt chest pains, the agents refused to call an ambulance, says Pfeil, 42, disabled by polio ( news - web sites). That she can't forgive. ''Totally unprofessional,'' she says. ''They were brutalizing us.''

Outrage over a Sept. 5 raid at a medical marijuana cooperative in the coastal hills north of here festers beyond the terminally ill patients who use marijuana to ease pain, which California law allows. [read more]

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