The Marijuana Question

No Easy Yea or Nay

The question of legalization is not straight forward and simple as it sounds.  Legalization is different than de-criminalization.  It has been proven over and over by our best social scientists that the only value to society of law enforcement is its existence.  For example, if you are speeding because you are late and you see a police car up ahead you will most likely slow down which will make the road safer.  However, if you are speeding because you are late and a cop stops you and gives you a ticket, you will probably just wait until he is gone and speed again because you are even later from being stopped.  The ticket and the money you spend paying for it will not stop you from speeding when you are late.  When something is widely accepted but still illegal all that happens is the creation of a large underground economy, and the over-stuffing of jails and prisons.  These resulting social problems do not make society any safer, smarter, or well off.  Personally, I have never known a pot-head that was an actual danger to anyone other than  themselves and even that was questionable.  I’m not thinking that the government should be in the business of behavior modification.  The more laws there are the more law breakers there will be.  A law is only good when people are willing to acknowledge its value and obey its intent.  So, I don’t think that having marijuana be an illegal trade is actually a good law.  California has admitted for decades now that it is our #1 cash crop.  Unfortunately, its all black market cash.

Prohibition Style Legalization vs. Medicinal Style Legalization

Making it legal in the same way we made alcohol legal after prohibition of course has all the same problems as alcohol.  It would be severly taxed as well as easily abused by underage people.  Probably not much more easily abused than it is already.  Making it a medicine has already been done.  Marinol tablets have been available by prescription since the 40’s.  So, this little joke California has going right now about medical marijuana is just that, a joke.  If it were seriously a medicine it would be available at pharmacies, covered by insurance, and free through public health to AIDS victims, cancer patients, etc.  The lame denials that it has no medicinal value is no more than an insult to my intelligence.  I suppose such a premise would mean that morphine and the myriad of opiates we have are of no value either.  I don’t know about other people, but when I end up in the hospital I have to clearly state more than once that I don’t want any morphine or any of the nice clean herion products they have available.  The DEA has clearly stated that the abuse and illicit distrubution of pharmaceutical opiates is a bigger, wider spread, more expensive, more damaging problem than all other illicit drugs combined.  There are a lot of substances that are dangerous that have medicinal value, marijuana being one of the lesser dangers.  The biggest hazard with its use is the damage to our reproductive systems for both men and women, and I’m not really thinking that is such a bad thing at this point in our history.   However, I don’t see it as a very good thing for the pharmaceutical industry to industrialize and control another plant.  There are already many, many plants that are illegal due to the pharmaceutical industry, which I don’t think promotes responsible self care.

Agricultural Hemp

I do think it should be decriminalized, and I also think it should be left as an agricultural resource.  Hemp is really an excellent product and is not a hazardous substance.  It is not the same as the hybrid, super pot we have in California now.  Selling Mexico perequot did nothing but ruin the industry for Mexico and raise the street price and THC content of California medicinal strength marijuana.  If we had let it turn back into hemp instead of making it a drug, California would proabably be a lot less stoned, and our #1 cash crop would be a legitimate enterprise.  It has always made me angry to realize that pot farmers increase their earnings by trading their crop for really high dollar stuff like cocaine and heroin.  I guess if they’re in the illicit drug business anyway, they don’t see the difference.  I believe this is the only time marijuana is actually a “gateway” drug.  The really big “gateway” drug problem comes from the fact that the phamaceutical industry imports enough heroin to support entire countries like Afghanistan, as well as being able to let a bunch go “missing” directly into the street (see DEA Fact Sheets).  If marijuana farmers could sell their crops to legitimate businesses the gateway concept would be a mute issue.  I’ve been told by more than one doctor that I should be smoking pot every chance I get.  I tell them that it is not covered by Partnership and, besides, I like being awake in the daytime. 

Also, if we allowed marijuana/hemp to be imported from Mexico it would drive the price of the medicinal strength pot down to where sick people might even be able to afford it and growers would be much less motivated to invest in a seriously expensive green house operation.  I don’t think Mexico will be recognized as Southern California any time soon due to that line on the map we make such a big deal about, so Mexico will just have to keep up their own deadly war on/with drugs.

Harm Reduction and Social Tolerance 

There is a lot of discussion about the harm-reduction theory in use in Europe.  I think it is a very realistic concept that people are going to be idiotically self destructive no matter what the laws are, and the best government can do is hope to reduce the idiocy.  The Justice Department here in America is fighting such a concept furiously, because decriminalization results in de-funding.  They like to say it is wrong for all the same reasons proponents say it is right and I get the impression that no one has the cajones to be honest about the money that drives the rampant incarceration of the citizenry.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’m not really for or against the legalization of marijuana, because I don’t think it will be handled responsibly either way it goes.  Money and politics will still define any governmental action and it will always be related to corporate power.  So returning “bammer-bud” to the state of hemp as an agricultural product that benefits the small farmer is probably entirely unrealistic on my part. It is still what I think should happen.

Bibliography

Drug Enforcement Administration and the International Police Chiefs Association. “A Police Chief’s Guide to the Legalization Issue.”  New York, 1997.

“United States vs Thomas B. Kin Chong.” A Documentary Film written and directed by Josh Gilbert, Awesome Documentaries LLC, 2008.

Moffatt, Mike. Should Governments Legalize and Tax Marijuana? Examining a Recent Study on Legalization.”  Retrieved from About.com 5 May 2009.

Drug Enforcement Administration. “State Fact Sheets, California.”  US Department of Justice, 2008.
Retrieved 24, December, 2008 from http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/california.html

Drug Enforcement Administration Field Division News Release, “Indictment Charges a Chinese Drug Manufacturer and Three Others with International HGH Trafficking; $3.4 Million Seized From Banks in New York.”  Boston Field Office, 25, September 2007
Retrieved 20 January 2009 from http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/boston092507p.html

Drug Enforcement Administration Field Division News Release. “Two Physicians Plead Guilty In International Internet Pharmacy Conspiracy.” San Francisco Field Office, 1 August 2008
Retrieved 23 January 2009 from http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/2008/sanfran080108p.html

Nadelman, Ethan. “Europe’s Drug Prescription.” Rolling Stone ,  January 26, 1995:pp.38-39.
Reprinted by Drug Policy Alliance, (2008)