Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
From: [catalyst remailer] at [netcom.com]
Subject: Re: Clinton hears call for legalized drugs
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 17:36:28 -0700

Slightly more detailed....

        WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton didn't like it when his
surgeon general raised the possibility of legalizing drugs. On
Sunday he heard similar advice from the pulpit of his wife's
church.
        The Rev. Walter Shropshire Jr., a minister at the Foundry United
Methodist Church, said such a step might ``make a safer environment
for all of us.''
        If doctors could write prescriptions for narcotics, addicts
could ``obtain it cheaply and (they) would not have to go out and
arm themselves to obtain the money,'' Shropshire said in a sermon
on Christian fellowship.
        There was no immediate reaction from the Clintons or others
attending the service.
        Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the surgeon general, started a ruckus last
year when she said the government should study the idea of
legalizing drugs as a way to reduce crime.
        The president promptly disassociated himself from her comments
and said no study was needed. Clinton said in 1992 that he believed
his brother, Roger, once a drug abuser, would not be alive if drugs
had been legal.
        Shropshire, 61, raised the issue as an example of a topic on
which people of faith had sharply differing opinions.
        He quoted the words of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism,
that ``we can agree to disagree, but that we love each other.''
        Hillary Rodham Clinton is a United Methodist; the president is a
Baptist. They often worship at Foundry, but have not joined the
congregation.
        Shropshire said afterwards, ``I'm not encouraging recreational
use of drugs, (but) all of society needs to reexamine the economic
base for our use of drugs.''
        Shropshire, a former physicist for the Smithsonian Institution,
said he had been aware of the furor over Elders' remarks.
        ``She is a good Methodist and I have been following what she has
been proposing,'' the minister said. But he added, ``I did not
change my sermon at all because (the president) was there.''