The Political Whore ended up in Steve Otto’s Tampa Tribune column this morning, thanks to (or, more accurately, no thanks to) the Brad Swanson campaign for Hillsborough County Commission. Otto took Swanson to task for quoting his opponent Rose Ferlita wildly out of context in his latest attack on her.
The quote came from a 2004 column I did about how some in the GOP are changing their tune about the War on Marijuana ™, most notably William F. Buckley’s National Review. In it, Ferlita, a pharmacist, acknowledges that Marinol pills have helped some of her terminally ill patients. It is this quote that Swanson reprinted in a July 27 letter to Republican frequent voters. But the column continued (and Swanson left out of his screed):
Before you go penciling in Councilwoman Ferlita for your next bong-fest, however, realize that she is also a consultant to a substance abuse nonprofit and sees marijuana as a dangerous gateway drug. She doesn't favor any form of legalization or decriminalization.
"You see many people in those facilities who started with marijuana," Ferlita said. "I can't discount the fact that, right now, marijuana is an illegal drug and it is abused."
Otto’s criticisms were echoed by the Seminole Heights blog here.
This is Swanson’s second attack that has been shown to be inaccurate. His first accused Ferlita of being endorsed by the “local gay community.†(Disclosure: the Political Whore worked in Ferlita’s first campaign for Tampa City Council.)
