Posted on 01/03/2005 9:57:34 AM PST by CHARLITE
There are two fairly well-defined positions that have emerged regarding the issue, under consideration by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, of whether the use of marijuana should be legalized for the treatment of certain medical conditions.
The first of these sees marijuana's limited legalization as, in almost all cases, the effort of so-called "stoners" (in contemporary parlance people who pretty much can't live without getting high on marijuana on a daily basis) to find a way to circumvent existing laws that criminalize the use of wacky weed so that they (the stoners), with the consent of their croakers (q.v., below), can stay high all the time with impunity. Those who oppose passing laws which legalize the use of marijuana in "medically" sanctioned cases are seen by those who favor such laws' passage as inflexible obstructionists (scare quotes intended to emphasize the rather cynical view taken by opponents of legalization to the validity of the term "medical").
The term "croaker" is Beat-Generation slang for "doctor." I first encountered it in the writings of William S. Burroughs. Its meaning has since the 1950s been narrowed somewhat to denote a physician who stretches prescription medication guidelines to insure that his or her patients do not have to endure existential pain beyond what contemporary drug mediation can guarantee is acceptable. Under the proposed new laws, I can't imagine marijuana becoming anything — at least in California — but a substance any croaker would readily prescribe for patients with the same sort of substance cravings Burroughs and his cronies flaunted 50 years ago, and for which their croakers provided relief by prescribing opiates when heroin (Burroughs' drug of choice) was in short supply.
On the other side of this issue are those who favor the blanket legalization of medical marijuana. The "medical" umbrella seems to be providing, for people who would ultimately remove any restrictions whatsoever on smoking grass, something of an entry-level platform from which they might leverage across-the-board approval of the use of boo to ameliorate pretty much any condition that might create stress in any human who tends to respond to "stressful" situations by freaking out. All of this is to say that, where the use of marijuana is concerned, the currently-enumerated "medical" conditions are designed to protect a sub-class of American citizens from coping with their lives in traditionally accepted (read "pharmacologically unmediated") ways.
In fact, if such legislation is allowed by the Supreme Court to stand, it will become not much more than an excuse for a bunch of pot-smokers of every ilk to do what abusers of the Americans With Disabilities Act and their attorneys have done: find ways to twist and subvert and otherwise undermine legislation designed to provide succor to a class of American citizens who are legitimately entitled to government-sanctioned relief from their afflictions so that the legislation in question becomes the instrument, in this case, for a bunch of stoners "getting over" at the expense of American taxpayers, who will minimally be presented with the bill for legal fees in the lawsuits that result from potheads' bringing actions against the state if they are denied, for any reason whatsoever, funded access to the drug which has been the foundation of their lifestyles for, in many cases, the past several decades.
But these arguments beg the real question, which has to focus on the consequences for human brain chemistry and, subsequently, human behavior, of the overuse of psychotropic substances. A psychotropic substance is one which, when ingested and absorbed into the bloodstream, interacts directly with brain chemistry to alter moods and behavior. Psychotropic substances can dramatically change the way we feel and the way we respond to our environments. Psychotropic substances are all potentially addictive, and marijuana is most assuredly a psychotropic substance.
Let me backtrack a bit. Hundreds of substances — from the caffeine in coffee to the nicotine in cigarettes to the alcohol in "adult" beverages — that many of us routinely ingest are psychotropic. Add to these innumerable prescription drugs, from antidepressants to allergy medications to painkillers to stimulants, and you'll begin to get an idea of the range of "acceptable" psychotropic substances tens of millions of Americans consume on a daily basis. And I haven't even mentioned so-called "street" drugs, from ecstasy to cocaine to heroin to marijuana, that millions more Americans use on a more-or-less regular basis.
What no legislation, and no public policy that I'm aware of, has ever taken into account is the biochemistry of drug use. While physicians routinely prescribe drugs that have jarring effects on human brain chemistry, they also routinely fail to acknowledge or to advise their patients that such drugs, although often suppressing symptoms of everything from allergies to depression, at the same time alter brain chemistry in such a way that the humans taking the drugs become more and more dependent on them and that their bodies and psyches are consequently less and less able to mount natural responses to their conditions. In other words, the greater the degree to which you rely on any sort of psychotropic drug to mediate between you and the events of your life, the less "human" you become.
THC, the psychotropic ingredient in marijuana, substitutes for the brain chemical anandamide, which plays a role in such important functions as memory, mood, appetite, and pain perception (just in case you were wondering why stoners can't seem to concentrate, can't recall what's happened from one moment to the next, and need to be constantly resupplied with munchies). But while no one is arguing that marijuana might not play some role in mitigating certain types of pain, becoming an habitual marijuana user has other significantly damaging side effects, including lethargy, loss of motivation, inability to focus, the aforementioned memory lapses, and, after prolonged use, difficulty in experiencing pleasure, among numerous others.
Legislation which broadens the scope of acceptability of our use of psychotropic substances — no matter whether the substance be marijuana or Paxil, cocaine or Ritalin (Ritalin, for the record, interacts to disrupt brain chemistry in exactly the same way cocaine does) — is legislation that expands institutional authority over what we accept as "human." This is to say that legislation which expands the acceptability and the legality of using psychotropic substances for the purpose of helping us cope with the physical or psychological pain of existence is legislation which contributes, ultimately, to the disaffirmation of our humanity, of our ability to experience fully what it means to be human.
This is not to say that I don't favor, for instance, the use of painkilling prescription drugs to ease the suffering of those who are in the final stages of a terminal illness. The use of painkillers for the purpose of making bearable another human's last days on earth is to me not only an acceptable but even an honorable application of modern pharmacology. Nor do I object to the short-term use of prescription psychotropic substances in times of crisis, such as enabling someone to bear otherwise debilitating pain while recovering from physical or emotional trauma.
Rather, at issue here is the legitimization of what has been regarded as a "street" drug for the purpose of ameliorating the suffering associated (at least anecdotally) with certain medical conditions. (Indeed, the evidence that marijuana is effective in reducing physical pain among its users is totally anecdotal to my knowledge.) Further, the issue involves adding yet one more psychotropic substance to the list of such substances that can be legally used to reduce our humanness, our ability to build the natural strength to respond to the events and conditions of our lives without biochemical mediation. It is, finally, for this reason that I would argue against the legalization of marijuana use for medical purposes.
###
Writer Greg Lewis is co-author, with Dr. Charles Gant, of the Warner Books hardcover "End Your Addiction Now." Dr. Lewis is a frequent contributor of political and cultural commentaries to several websites. His next book, "The Politics of Anger: How Marxism's Heirs Are Redefining Liberalism in America Today," is due out in late Spring. Read more of his work at http://www.GregLewis.org
Comments:Glewis9000@aol.com
You're incorrect, as you probably were about the History Channel program on the history of marijuana criminalization in the United States. Again, what facts did this program get wrong?
It's time to put up or shut up. As conservatives, we're supposed to deal in fact, not emotion. You seem to be doing the latter.
What nonsense. This is precisely the reverse of the truth -- what is under consideration here (an exception to a legal prohibition) is a reduction, not an expansion, of "institutional authority".
But then we wouldn't need as many police. It's not as if they had some other job, such as looking for infiltration by savages who want to destroy Western Civilization, to occupy their time.
*** DING DING DING!!! *** No more calls; we have a winner!
If marijuana were prescribed (ie., went through the same process that every other prescribed drug went through) by a licensed physician and dispensed through a licensed pharmacy by a licensed pharmacist, I have no problem with that. Marinol is a good example. Sativex is another.
That's not what's going on here.
But you're right -- nothing happens. And the reason nothing is happening when it comes to medical marijuana is that the supporters are not pursuing an avenue of research, clinical trials, studies, etc. as was done with every other prescribed drug.
No, they want an exception made for theirs. Why? Well, you know as well as I do that this is not about medical marijuana. It's about the legalization of recreational marijuana.
It's... it's... it's in one of those emanations from a penumbra of something or other... let me get back to you....
True dat. And it hurts the people who could actually benefit from marijuana. In California, I think a shaman could even prescribe marijuana.
We're waiting....
Waiting for you to show some integrity....
Or for the sun to blow up into a red giant.
Whichever comes first.
1) It was written 40 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
Irrelevant to your promise "Nowhere does Madison say 'it was not to be used for the positive purposes of the general government'. You find that phrase and I'll retract my statement with an apology."
2) It was written as private correspondence, not in a public forum.
Irrelevant to your promise "Nowhere does Madison say 'it was not to be used for the positive purposes of the general government'. You find that phrase and I'll retract my statement with an apology."
3) It is contrary to 40 years of actual legislative history. 4) It is contrary to what is in the actual Constitution.
Irrelevant to your promise "Nowhere does Madison say 'it was not to be used for the positive purposes of the general government'. You find that phrase and I'll retract my statement with an apology."
5) If it was indeed intended "as a negative and preventive provision", then why isn't there any language to that effect in Article I, Section 10?
Irrelevant to your promise "Nowhere does Madison say 'it was not to be used for the positive purposes of the general government'. You find that phrase and I'll retract my statement with an apology."
To a native speaker of English, it is plain on its face that "A rather than B" is an assertion that A is correct and B is incorrect (e.g. "nails should be driven using a hammer rather than a screwdriver").
Will do. Hopefully, they will not be working with KenH's "interpretation" of the quote.
As I said, if you're to believe KenH's interpretation, then you have to ignore certain facts and history. But that's never stopped you before, has it?
pro-jec-tion pr&-JEK-sh&n: The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or desires to someone or something as a naive or unconscious defense against anxiety or guilt.
So what if it is? Didn't the federal government pretty much force this avenue of redress by steadfastly refusing to reconsider marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug?
Common language, rules of grammar, and application of reason will reveal your sophistry for the rhetorical illusion it is. Unsubstantiated accusations and insults won't help you.
I took what the author said, not what I assumed he meant, and commented on that. I suppose it might be true that there are no recent studies of Cannabis' pain relieving qualities and possibly no studies at all of Cannabis' effects when smoked but Cannabis was in the British and American pharmacopoeias for decades in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries and among its other properties it was listed as anodyne.
Yet it remains true that studies of any pain relieving compound rely on asking the subject how he/she feels so it's all anecdotal at its base however well you craft the collection and analysis of the information. Medicine is not a science it's an art that makes use of science. It also relies heavily, from development of procedures from the experiences of many to application in each individual case, on anecdotal information.
Yes, it's a reduction of "institutional authority" over legislation.
But the author is saying that when the government starts legalizing drugs, it is putting itself in the position of defining what is "human". People take drugs as a way of coping. But drugs remove them from life (by definition). The farther away from real life you are, the less "human" you are.
The more drugs "authorized" by the government, the more powerful the drugs "authorized" by the government, the more the government is taking a role in defining (down) what is acceptable as "human".
According to the author.
For the life of me, I don't understand why a conservative would go through such mental gymnastics in order to support more government intrusion into the private lives of its citizens. Honestly, Robert---why do you care about this issue (marijuana legalization) so much?
The Village says, "Yes." It's for The Children.
Hypocrites are for states rights when the state wishes to legalize marijuana in accordance with the state constitution, but when the state wishes to control guns in accordance with the state constitution, suddenly they favor the federal constitution.
Second amendment! Second amendment!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.