Posted on 07/23/2004 7:55:29 AM PDT by cryptical
Marijuana Prohibition: Who Does It Protect?
By Henry Koch
Is marijuana illegal in the United States to protect Americans or to protect a handful of well-connected industries that believe ending prohibition would affect their profits?
Every study, whether privately or government sponsored, has declared the penalties against cannabis far out of line with the substance. Every study has illustrated how tobacco and alcohol do far more damage to individuals and society than marijuana. The draconian laws against this naturally occurring herb have ruined millions of lives. These laws have done far more damage during the current 66-year period of prohibition than the plant has done since its first recorded use and cultivation nearly 6,000 years ago.
Yet today, a cadre of individuals and industries is spending billions of dollars to keep marijuana illegal. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Office of National Drug Control Policy contribute to these private efforts by refusing to acknowledge the validity of reports whose results run contrary to current drug policy. The DEA and the ONDCP even reject studies commissioned by the Congress and other U.S. government agencies.
When the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed there was no scientific evidence as to the effects marijuana had on consumers. (The psychoactive component of cannabis, THC, was not isolated until 1965.) The congressional hearings leading to the passage of the Tax Act were held in secret and considered no scientific evidence. Harry Anslinger, director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962, presented popular fabrications about marijuana as fact to the congressional committees investigating the substance.
Here are a few of Anslinger's more memorable quotes about marijuana:
"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."
"Marijuana is taken by ... musicians. And I'm not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type."
"Marijuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing."
Industries that have a high interest in keeping marijuana illegal include the tobacco industry, the alcoholic beverage industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the petrochemical industry, the pulp and paper industry, the prison-building industry, the prison guard unions and organizations, and law enforcement organizations.
The tobacco and alcohol industries realize that when people smoke marijuana, they use less tobacco and alcohol. Nicotine and alcohol are both highly addictive. Current research has not shown marijuana to cause physical dependency.
The pharmaceutical industry knows of the medical benefits of the Cannabis sativa plant and does not want individuals cultivating their own medications.
The petrochemical industry knows that industrial hemp and its myriad products could replace 98 percent of our hydrocarbon-based petroleum. Instead of pumping an exhaustible resource out of the ground, we could produce enough hemp seed to provide nearly all the petrochemical raw materials we need.
The pulp and paper industry knows that hemp can provide more fiber for pulp per acre than trees. Plus, hemp fiber can be converted to pulp without the pollutants created by the sulfuric acid process currently used to turn trees into paper. Converting to hemp for fiber would cost millions up front but would save billions in the long run, with the added bonus of greatly improving the environment.
The American prison system is the largest in the world, with more than 2.1 million prisoners at the end of 2003. This has made the prison-building industry one of the fastest growing industries in the country. The major growth of prison population in the United States is due mainly to the war on drugs. Marijuana arrests account for almost 80 percent of all drug arrests. Having the largest prison system also requires the largest prison guard industry, and this industry depends on the current drug policy for its members' job security.
Many law enforcement organizations receive more funding from the war on drugs budget than they do from their respective municipal budgets. If the laws against marijuana were changed to eliminate arrest for possession, almost every law enforcement organization in the United States would be required to eliminate personnel.
Prohibition has never worked, and it isn't working for marijuana. According to a nationwide poll conducted by Time magazine and CNN in October 2000, 80 percent of Americans support the medicinal use of marijuana and 72 percent say that adults who use marijuana recreationally should be fined, but not jailed. Only 19 percent of respondents favored jailing recreational pot smokers. In addition, 40 percent of respondents also said that they favored the legalization of small amounts of marijuana.
Who is marijuana prohibition really protecting? Is it the American public and our way of life or is it protecting the interests of the giants of industry who have friends in high government positions?
Henry Koch is president of the Midlands chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). For more information on Midlands NORML, visit www.midlands-norml.org.
"...The tobacco and alcohol industries realize that when people smoke marijuana, they use less tobacco and alcohol...."
LOL--I can tell this writer didn't grow up during the 70's!!
should say "WHOM DOES IT PROTECT"
And as for the pulp-and-paper industry, they're not pleased about the prospect of using ANY annual crop for pulp, because then they'd have to build storage facilities for the crops they'd harvest in the fall. Trees just stay in place and continue to grow until harvest, which can be any time of year.
Here's my answer: Marijuana laws protect a very lucrative business for lawyers, and cops.
Walter Crondike once reported on the CBS nightly news that an article in the New England Medical Journal reported that smoking marijuana causes people to stttuttter.
lawyers and cops have to work, too.
You bet they do and pot busts are easy money for lawyers and for Gov't bureaucrats who don't have to raise taxes to bring in the revenue.
Worms gotta eat, too.
The only people protected by the Prohibition of Marijuana are the illegal growers, both here and abroad.
This is the same error, on a smaller scale, that was made in the 20's with Alcohol. It has always been a Fools Errand, suggested by fools, funded by fools, and actively enforced by fools.
If a law by Congress could stop "weeds" none of us would have crabgrass.
If we repealed drug laws think of all the people who would be out of work: everyone at the DEA; all the K-9 units that only sniff out drugs (the ones that sniff out corpses and bombs would still be able to find work); all the illegal drug dealers who can't show up to work on time wouldn't be able to work in the "coffee" houses; all the folks smuggling drugs across the border; and (if we can believe the government's advertising) the terrorists. Illegal drugs are a billion dollar industry - you legalize drugs and our entire nation's economy is crippled. Plus, they'd sin-tax the drugs - no doubt about that - and who wants to put that kind of money in government hands?
Here they go - the hippies trying to legalize drugs again. I suppose someone will make the "economist's" argument pretty soon that the folks in prisons are a "loss" to society because society loses their productivity while they are imprisoned.
We've got to stop people like this from making too much sense!
Good one. Don't forget the border patrol. Legalize pot and what else have they got to do? Light up another one, dude.
Yeah and drug dealing is easy money for losers who don't wanna get a job.
Got that right, imagine if they'd have to compete with bonafide dealers. They wouldn't stand a chance.
"The pulp and paper industry knows that hemp can provide more fiber for pulp per acre than trees."
If they would stop trying to link hemp and marijuana, we might actually be able to use hemp for pulp, paper, fiber, etc. Fact is that they aren't the same plant. Related, but not the same at all. You couldn't smoke enough hemp to get even the slightest buzz (unless you call oxygen deprivation a "buzz"). You couldn't even realistically process the THC out of it, it is in such minute amounts. Barely even detectable.
On the other hand, if you tried to use marijuana for pulp, paper, fiber, etc, you would have to use a massive amount of chemicals to treat it. It is an extremely oily plant.
Hemp and Marijuana are NOT the same plant!
Very, very true!
I'm still trying to find the "Congress shall have the power to regulate plants that...." part in the Constitution, though.
Yeah, and keeping alcohol illegal would have saved countless livers.
I don't want or need the government telling me what I can or cannot put into my body.
I smoke pot almost daily. I have a good job I enjoy, a wonderful wife and a modest home that we own. The only difference between me and anybody else is that I smoke a joint in the evening to relax instead of drinking a beer or cocktail. I have not been to a bar to drink in years.
People who smoke weed know that it is less harsh on your body and mind than alcohol. I'm not touting it as "wonder-weed", mind you, it's an intoxicant, but one of the mildest aside from caffiene and nicotine.
This is a personal freedom issue. Nobody should be able to tell me, in the Land of Liberty, that I cannot smoke a naturally occuring plant in the privacy of my own home.
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