Why I'm Opposed to Marijuana Prohibition
Relevant Publications
The Future is in Amsterdam
Topical WWN Articles
Letters to Editors (& Others)
Event/Conference Reports
|
Election 2000
Other Assorted Writings
|
Position
Statement
I am opposed to marijuana prohibition.
Being as I am a peace-loving hippie, I feel that war is seldom
the best solution to a problem. In the specific case of the War
on Drugs, I feel that the war itself has been far more damaging
to our country than the enemy in this war.
As a nation, we have spent several generations and over $200
billion trying to destroy the illicit drug trade. Yet drugs are
as widely available as ever. The war has clearly failed; it's
time for a new approach.
I believe marijuana prohibition must end for all the same reasons
that alcohol prohibition did: it does not solve the problems it
seeks to address, and instead just creates black market profiteering,
gangland violence, police corruption, and destruction of personal
freedom.
Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the land, generating
billions of dollars in secret transactions each year. I believe
the people earning all this money should be paying taxes on it.
I believe that the dangers of marijuana have been greatly exaggerated.
At least 70 million Americans have tried it; around 25 million
use it regularly. Very few of these users have real-life difficulties
as a result. Of those who do, most suffer because of prohibition
(i.e., they're in jail) rather than ill-effects of the drug. Around
11 million Americans have been arrested since 1970, yet no one
has ever died from an overdose of marijuana.
I believe one only needs to look at the example of Amsterdam,
where marijuana has been decriminalized for over 20 years, to
see that society will not collapse if marijuana laws are relaxed.
Cannabis has numerous proven medical and industrial uses, all
of which are forbidden under our draconian drug policies. There
are plenty of reasons to care about changing marijuana policy
that have nothing to do with recreational use.
Defenders of marijuana prohibition usually focus on the need
to protect our children from the dangers of drugs. I agree with
this goal, but believe it would be better served by a drug policy
that restricts use by minors while granting freedom to adults.
Legalization does not mean an end to anti-drug education; it simply
means we stop putting adults in jail when they choose not to heed
that education. (I also believe we should ban alcohol advertising
from television.)
One of the great bummers of my otherwise
near-perfect life is the fact that my lovely wife Kristin gets
frequent and nasty migraine headaches (usually brought on by encounters
with perfume or cologne). And she's not alone in her agony...
some statistics I've heard indicate that as many as 1 in 6 adult
American women suffer from migraines. I think that if all those
women - and the men in their lives - knew just how effective marijuana
is for this debilitating condition, it would long ago have been
legalized. (Hopefully Dr.
Ethan Russo will soon receive the government approvals necessary
for his research in this area...)
When Kristin is struck down by a migraine, I will do almost
anything in my power to end that pain, and since our government
won't allow her to use this particular medicinal herb, my only
alternative is to campaign for a change to our laws. I believe
that by fighting for legalization, I am working to reduce not
only my own loved one's pain, but that of millions of migraine
sufferers across the nation. (And while the legalization of marijuana,
even for medical use, may seem like an impossible goal, it'll
be a lot easier than eliminating the entire perfume industry...)
For all of these reasons, and others, I believe responsible
use of marijuana by adults should not be illegal. Instead, it
should be regulated and taxed, in exactly the same manner as alcohol
and tobacco are today.
Discussion
Questions
1.) If prohibition were a viable strategy, wouldn't it have
worked by now? Our politicians have been promising us a drug free
country for as long as I can remember, yet drug use is still widespread
and drugs are as easy to get as ever. For how many more years
must we wage this war on drug users before we will accept the
fact that prohibition cannot and will not ever work?
2.) Where exactly in the constitution does the government have
the power to outlaw drugs? When alcohol was outlawed, a constitutional
amendment was required. Since that amendment was repealed in 1933
and no other relevant amendments have since been added, isn't
the war on drugs unconstitutional?
3.) How many deaths were caused by marijuana last year? It's
a number that's rarely reported. Why is that? The death tolls
for heroin and cocaine overdoses combined are in the neighborhood
of 6 thousand a year; those for tobacco are over 400,000, and
alcohol-related deaths (not counting highway deaths and murders)
add up to at least half of that... but there is no number reported
for those dying from smoking marijuana. So, if marijuana is so
dangerous, why doesn't it ever kill anyone? Where are the corpses?
(Incidentally, have you ever noticed that life insurance advertisements
always specifically exempt only the tobacco smokers? Listen to
them, it's always "...and don't smoke cigarettes," or
"... and is tobacco-free." It's never just "non-smokers."
Why is that?)
4.) If marijuana is really a "gateway" or "stepping
stone" drug, then why is it that out of every 104 people
who've smoked pot, 103 have never tried heroin or cocaine?
5.) Who really is the worse threat to others: someone who's
drunk, or someone who's stoned? For example, who's more likely
to start a fight: a crowd of rambunctious, aggressive drinkers,
or a group of mellow, relaxed stoners? Who's more likely to get
into a car and cause an accident: the uninhibited drinker, who
has an inflated sense of capability and is ready to take on the
world, or the paranoid stoner, who just wants to lie on the couch
watching TV and eating oreos? And who's more likely to beat his
wife or child: the angry drunk, or the wasted stoner?
6.) We've all heard a million times how important it is to
keep kids from using drugs, and having grown up drug-free myself,
I don't dispute this. I doubt I'd be where I am now in life if
I'd gotten involved with drugs as a kid. But what really is wrong
with recreational drug use by the elderly? Don't you think the
quality of life in our nation's retirement homes would go up if
we allowed their residents free access to marijuana? Shouldn't
you be allowed to do anything you want to when you retire? Even
drugs? I fight for legalization now, so that I'll be able to use
cannabis for my arthritis when I'm old.
7.) Who is the more credible witness: millions of ordinary
Americans, who've smoked pot and say it's no big deal, or highly
paid government officials, charged with upholding a 60 year old,
$30 billion-dollar-a-year policy, who describe terrible dangers
but assert they've never used any drugs themselves?
8.) Suppose that you are a conservative, conscientious, law-abiding,
Christian parent, and your teenager is about to say to you something
that you've hoped and prayed you'd never have to hear from your
own child. If given the following choices, which would you find
to be the LEAST painful confession: a.) I don't believe in God,
b.) I'm a homosexual, or c.) I smoke marijuana?
9.) How can we call ourselves the land of the free when we've
got more people in prison than any other nation in the world?
Millions of Americans yearn for the simple freedom to smoke something
other than tobacco, without being branded a criminal. For them,
America is anything but a free country.
10.) How exactly does it benefit society to put a job-holding,
tax-paying pot smoker in jail? Keep in mind that 87% of last year's
700,000 marijuana arrests were for simple possession.
11.) Housing an ever increasing population of non-violent drug
law offenders is costing us, as tax payers, incredible sums of
money. It also costs a lot to entrap, arrest, and prosecute these
criminals. Is this really money well spent? We could have built
a moonbase by now with the money we've spent on the War on Drugs,
if we'd given it to NASA instead of the DEA.
12.) Shouldn't drug dealers pay taxes? Just think about how
much money the country could be putting in the bank (or rather,
applying to the national debt) if marijuana sales were taxed.
13.) How's it going
to end? We've spent 200 billion dollars and ruined countless
lives, yet marijuana use has not been eliminated, nor even meaningfully
reduced. Each year the law-makers pass ever harsher penalties,
yet, it's still not a drug-free country. We've fought the longest
war in our nation's history, but the war shows no signs of ever
being won. And how can it? The war on drugs is a war on our nation's
own citizens. No free nation can win such a war and survive. Those
that have come closest to winning such wars were the communists
and the nazis.
14.) Suppose you are a struggling artist of some kind. Now
suppose you somehow learn (through a crystal ball, the ghost of
xmas yet to come, a memo from your future self, whatever) that
if you decide to become a stoner, you'll achieve all the success
you've ever dreamed of ... but that your work is doomed to mediocrity
and obscurity if you don't. What would you do?
15.) What does "freedom" mean to
you? Does it exclude the freedom for a responsible adult to smoke
pot? If so, why? If not, why does that freedom extend to tobacco
and alcohol? Do you agree that it should?
16.) Did you know that Carl
Sagan was a stoner? He single-handedly wrecks the whole "demotivation"
myth, doesn't he?
Join the Drug-Peace
Movement!
Have I convinced you? Even if you don't care about the rights
of drug users, as a taxpayer, you should be concerned about the
fact that we're shredding money (as well as the bill of rights)
on a war that doesn't work and will never end. If you agree that
we must stop this madness, please join in our fight!
Here
are some ways you can help:
- Donate! Please make a donation to one or more of the
many groups working to stop the Drug War. They really need the
money, since they're up against a well-funded government propaganda
machine. Check out the Stoner
Fluxx Foundation Donation page for a list of worthwhile groups.
- Speak out! Bring up the subject whenever you can...
the more we talk about legalization as a viable option, among
our friends, our family members, and strangers on the subway,
the more we will succeed. Ask the difficult Questions.
Get people talking!
- Write letters! Write to the President.
Write to your Congresspeople. Write to newspaper editors and
talk show hosts. Demand an end to the madness of drug prohibition!
- Come out! If you are a stoner yourself, come out of
the closet to at least one person. Playing a game of Stoner
Fluxx is a great way to start a conversation...
this page was last updated on 2/5/7
Andrew
Looney: Activist
The
Real Crime is Prohibition
