Posted on 01/13/2003 7:31:37 AM PST by MrLeRoy
Twenty-five years ago, Lester Grinspoon noted in his classic study, Marihuana Reconsidered, that "the single greatest risk encountered by the user of marihuana is that of being apprehended as a common criminal, incarcerated and subjected to untold damage to his social life and career." What was true then is even more true today: around 700,000 Americans are arrested annually for simply possessing marijuana, and more than 10,000 Americans are currently in jails and prisons because they have been convicted of marijuana possession, and no other crime.
The government's propagandists are taking full advantage of these statistics: A new anti-drug commercial depicts the potentially devastating arrest of a teenage marijuana smoker (drug convictions bar students from receiving federal educational loans), and concludes: "Marijuana can get you busted. Harmless?" The commercial's unintentionally surreal message - that marijuana is illegal because it's harmful, and it's harmful because it's illegal - is one that seems likely to fill any young person capable of independent thought with contempt for both our marijuana laws and the dangerously authoritarian logic that supports and enforces them.
Imagine if one were to extend this logic to, say, freedom of the press: The government could produce commercials depicting the arrest of young people caught reading "subversive" literature, in order to drive home the point that, if you happen to live under a sufficiently repressive regime, merely reading the wrong sort of book can be hazardous to your health.
Anti-drug zealots will reply that books, unlike marijuana, are harmless. This is of course preposterous: few things are more dangerous than books. How many millions of deaths can be traced to the publication of The Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf or, for that matter, the Bible and the Quran? Yet this is hardly an argument for the repeal of the First Amendment.
The idea that something ought to be criminalized because it isn't "harmless" is a key feature of the authoritarian mindset. It's an idea that allows for the criminalization of just about any imaginable activity, since almost nothing in this world is harmless. Marijuana isn't harmless, but it isn't nearly as harmful as, for example, alcohol - a substance that causes thousands of fatal overdoses every year (no one has ever died from an overdose of marijuana).
So why don't we make America an alcohol-free nation by criminalizing alcohol? The superficial answer is that we tried that once and it was total failure. (Attempting to eliminate marijuana use has also been a total failure: almost half the current adult population - nearly 100 million Americans - has used marijuana, and several million Americans continue to use it regularly). The more nuanced answer is that making America an alcohol-free nation would actually be a bad thing, even if it were possible.
This isn't merely because the costs of prohibition are so high. Most people who drink alcohol have benefited from the experience more than they've been harmed by it. What anti-drug zealots are incapable of acknowledging is that the same holds true for marijuana users. Indeed the evidence is overwhelming that, for the vast majority of marijuana users, their use has had no significant harmful effects, and many good ones.
Yet as Grinspoon pointed out a quarter-century ago, "reason has had little influence in this matter." The criminal prohibition of marijuana, he said, was due to "cultural factors that have nothing to do with the effect of the drug itself." In the years since, little has changed, as we waste billions of dollars, and give free rein to an increasingly dangerous authoritarianism, in the futile attempt to stamp out this largely benign practice.
...on what, btw?
By reflection, this would have to do not only with the chemicals at work, but also with availability, stigma-vs.-acceptance, and conscience.
In my understanding, it shows that when a chemical is generally accepted and available (as alcohol is) then the liklihood of addiction goes up. If that is so (and here again, it is a matter of basic behavior and economics) than this fits the pattern and shows that we should not allow marijuana and the rest to become as pervasive as alcohol.
Besides, marijuana must taste terrible to smoke.
Which thread? Oh, you mean in my "tag line?" I'm looking into the various responses that FR folks have about America's drug problem and the vehemence of the Drug Lib posters in FR. Hadn't intended upon doing so, until I noticed how aggressive those posters are.
Even stinkier, though. In Chicago, the urb to my suburb, they seem likely to ban smoking from all public places, from what I see, by referendum, etc.
...on what, btw?
On that particular drug. 32% of all those who have used tobacco became addicted to tobacco; 9% of all those who have used marijuana became addicted to marijuana; and so forth.
By reflection, this would have to do not only with the chemicals at work, but also with availability, stigma-vs.-acceptance, and conscience.
Agreed.
In my understanding, it shows that when a chemical is generally accepted and available (as alcohol is) then the liklihood of addiction goes up.
False; heroin is less accepted and available than alcohol, yet a higher percentage of heroin users end up addicted. Besides, your theory is counterintuitive; when a chemical is generally accepted and available, the number of people who try it will go up, but the percentage that become addicted would if anything be LOWER than for less accepted and available chemicals, because less acceptance and availability leads to the kind of behaviors that would encourage addiction (e.g., making the chemical a focus of one's activities rather than a sidelight).
Do you see any particular requirement that these Officials, and the people who elect them to the application of objective reason and critical logic in the formulation of this legislation? If they propose to pass laws to protect us from the Boogieman, do we have any responsibility to question wheather this Boogieman actually exists?
Which part of "secure the Blessings of Liberty" did you not understand?
As for legislation being solely for the purpose of keeping our rights from being violated, the answer to that, by the framers of the Constitution is: Nope. There are many examples, including provisions for state universities, exploration, etc., etc.,
Where in the Constitution are those provided for?
I'm against them---clearly post the dangers, then step back and let the foolhardy cleanse themselves from the gene pool.
They should have polled those who have used marijuana to find out whether they became addicted on any chemical (besides alcohol, if you like).
Can't see it that way. Availability with the excuse of being generally accepted is a key for alcohol abuse, I believe it's clear. Kind of a "hide in plain sight" thing. As for heroin, it's simply HIGHLY addictive. Ask most uses. Then ask them if they were introduced to psychotropic/narcotic drugs by using marijuana.
Why?
Yes. Yes. Also conviction, wisdom, moral sensitivity, as well as calculating logic. Such requirements is in the realm of those popular principles upon which the founding fathers repeatedly asserted that our Republic rests.
Nonsense; use is easy to hide, and abuse hard to hide, regardless of legality.
As for heroin, it's simply HIGHLY addictive.
And marijuana is less addictive than alcohol.
Ask most uses. Then ask them if they were introduced to psychotropic/narcotic drugs by using marijuana.
No, most of them were probably introduced by beer.
Let's look at those intents and purposes again:
1. a more perfect Union 8-o
2. establish Justice
3. insure domestic Tranquility
4. provide for the common defence
5. promote the general Welfare 8-o
6. and secure the Blessings of Liberty
Notice the order. Notice also that liberty is referred to as a Capital "B" Blessing. Those who ended this document by referring to "the Year of our Lord" declared at the beginning that liberty is a blessing rewarded by moralistic care for all of the above. Surely the mention of "a more perfect union" also refers to an overriding purpose of government to be for the quality of the life of its People, under the eyes of God.
Where in the Constitution are those provided for?
Good question, certainly allowed to the states and whatever other non-federal partnership the People may determine with their governance, by means of the 10th Amendment.
Like I said before, I think it would be a good idea to get more realistic about what is and is not a federal power; also what should and should not be, since the 1780's.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise.
Surely the mention of "a more perfect union" also refers to an overriding purpose of government to be for the quality of the life of its People, under the eyes of God.
Nope---it refers to the flaws of the Articles of Confederation.
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