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.
Perhaps, except for "short term memory loss" associated with smoking cannabis.
I would think short term memory loss (persistent as the drug remains in the body for some days/weeks) could be an issue if you are a surgeon, airline pilot, stock broker, etc. where decisions must be quick, clear, and accurate.
Turning 10,000 tax payer supported prisoners back into tax payers should save a few mil.
Turning 10,000 tax payer supported prisoners back into tax payers should save a few mil.
No, only its inert metabolites remain in the body.
could be an issue if you are a surgeon, airline pilot, stock broker, etc. where decisions must be quick, clear, and accurate.
Alcohol hangovers could be an issue for those people, too. What's your point?
Hint: No.
So we're not going to save any money, and there's nothing more productive they could be doing than running around in the boonies cutting down weeds? The whole notion of "smaller government" is lost on you, isn't it?
Yeppers, in the guise of “government off our backs” Liberaltarians won’t stop obsessing until our society has degenerated into its basest form of degradation and repugnance. Pinheaded “intellectualism” is no substitute for common sense; thank God they’re such an irrelevant force in this country.
This is not completely true. Dr. Greenspoon and others have found that asthmatic patients benefited from the induction of small amounts of smoked or vaporized cannabis. One of the active ingredients in marijuana is a bronchodilator, (opens the constricted airways), without the severe side effects of other asthma inhalers, like synthetic steroids or beta-agonists.
I use no drugs---including the deadly addictive drugs alochol and tobacco.
No facts or logic, just namecalling---you and Kebbie should get along just fine.
No, they are simply very loud.
Hacksaw, who are the potheads on FR?
"It is therefore not surprising that every court that has considered the question, both before and after the Supreme Court's decision in Lopez, has concluded that section 841(a)(1) represents a valid exercise of the commerce power."
Here's your cite. Stop lying to the other posters.
They do when the logic is "flawed."
There is ample evidence that even recreational use of cannabis affects short term memory. Short-term memory (STM)is essential for consciousness. The aspect of transience—namely rapid decay of the information input, represents a primary characteristic of STM. Limited processing capacity is another characteristic that is strongly associated with short-term memory. STM is the seat of reasoning, cognitive ability and function.
See:
See Kyllonen, P.C. & Christal, R.E. (1990). Reasoning Ability is (Little More Than) Working Memory Capacity?! `Intelligence, 14, 389-433.
Alcohol hangovers could be an issue for those people, too. What's your point?
My point? Maybe when someone hands you a joint and says, "Hey man, wanna get stupid?" you should take it literally! :)
Duh---section 841(a)(1) was enacted well after FDR's court-packing threat had cowed the Supreme Court into ceasing to interpret the Commerce Clause as it was written. The clear language of the Commerce Clause remains on my side; your craven surrender to FDR-style Constitutional misinterpretation is duly noted.
I suggest you write your congressman with this absolutely brilliant idea!
They do when the logic is "flawed."
There is ample evidence that even recreational use of cannabis affects short term memory.
My statement was made in response to a claim about depression and schizophrenia---looks like you have first-hand experince with short term memory loss.
Alcohol hangovers could be an issue for those people, too. What's your point?
My point? Maybe when someone hands you a joint and says, "Hey man, wanna get stupid?" you should take it literally! :)
Your point was a witless quip? ... OK.
Perhaps the only honest anti-marijuana ad ever aired---but it presents no justification for keeping it illegal, since alcohol use can be just as detrimental to one's employment prospects.
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