I’ve never been a big anti-War-On-Drugs person. But it’s the no-knock raids and asset forfeitures that have pushed me over the top.
I’d rather have addicts dying on park benches every day than police kicking down my door one day because their GPS-dispatch system had a momentary glitch.
Luckily, you don’t have to have addicts dying on park benches as a price of ending cannabis prohibition. The evidence on physical addiction is mixed at best and unless you count a sketchy case in England, no one in human history has ever died of a marijuana overdose. Cannabinoids can kill cancer cells, but can’t kill you.
You’re not the only ex-drug warrior who has turned around on this issue. Ten years ago, dozens would have showed up here already to call me a pothead for my post above.
Even CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, formerly a reliable voice for drug war propaganda, now admits he and others have terribly and systematically misled Americans about marijuana for years. To his credit, he did finally recognize the evidence in front of his face that, despite its Schedule 1 status, marijuana is medically useful.