| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Dr. Zarkov" |
| Date: |
12 Jul 2004 09:07:52 AM |
| Object: |
National Review: Marijuana Legalization Article |
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n939/a04.html
US: An End To Marijuana Prohibition
Pubdate: Tue, 12 Jul 2004
Source: National Review (US)
Copyright: 2004 National Review
Contact:
Website: http://www.nationalreview.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/287
Author: Ethan A. Nadelmann
www.drugpolicy.org
AN END TO MARIJUANA PROHIBITION
The Drive To Legalize Picks Up
Never before have so many Americans supported decriminalizing and even
legalizing marijuana.
Seventy-two percent say that for simple marijuana possession, people should
not be incarcerated but fined: the generally accepted definition of
"decriminalization." Even more Americans support making marijuana legal for
medical purposes.
Support for broader legalization ranges between 25 and 42 percent, depending
on how one asks the question.
Two of every five Americans-according to a 2003 Zogby poll-say "the
government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats
alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and only make it illegal
for children."
Close to 100 million Americans-including more than half of those between the
ages of 18 and 50-have tried marijuana at least once. Military and police
recruiters often have no choice but to ignore past marijuana use by job
seekers. The public apparently feels the same way about presidential and
other political candidates. Al Gore, Bill Bradley, and John Kerry all say
they smoked pot in days past. So did Bill Clinton, with his notorious
caveat.
....
The debate over ending marijuana prohibition simmers just below the surface
of mainstream politics, crossing ideological and partisan boundaries.
Marijuana is no longer the symbol of Sixties rebellion and Seventies
permissiveness, and it's not just liberals and libertarians who say it
should be legal, as William F. Buckley Jr. has demonstrated better than
anyone.
As director of the country's leading drug policy reform organization, I've
had countless conversations with police and prosecutors, judges and
politicians, and hundreds of others who quietly agree that the
criminalization of marijuana is costly, foolish, and destructive. What's
most needed now is principled conservative leadership. Buckley has led the
way, and New Mexico's former governor, Gary Johnson, spoke out courageously
while in office.
A SYSTEMIC OVERREACTION
....
Millions of Americans have never been arrested or convicted of any criminal
offense except this. Enforcing marijuana laws costs an estimated $10-15
billion in direct costs alone.
....
Prosecutors often contend that no one goes to prison for simple possession-
but tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people on probation and parole
are locked up each year because their urine tested positive for marijuana or
because they were picked up in possession of a joint.
Alabama currently locks up people convicted three times of marijuana
possession for 15 years to life. There are probably-no firm estimates
exist-100,000 Americans behind bars tonight for one marijuana offense or
another.
And even for those who don't lose their freedom, simply being arrested can
be traumatic and costly.
A parent's marijuana use can be the basis for taking away her children and
putting them in foster care. Foreign-born residents of the U.S. can be
deported for a marijuana offense no matter how long they have lived in this
country, no matter if their children are U.S. citizens, and no matter how
long they have been legally employed.
More than half the states revoke or suspend driver's licenses of people
arrested for marijuana possession even though they were not driving at the
time of arrest.
The federal Higher Education Act prohibits student loans to young people
convicted of any drug offense; all other criminal offenders remain eligible.
[And often includes forfeiture of property--DrZ]
....
Most people who smoke marijuana never become dependent.
No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose, which cannot be said of most
other drugs.
Marijuana is not associated with violent behavior and only minimally with
reckless sexual behavior. And even heavy marijuana smokers smoke only a
fraction of what cigarette addicts smoke.
Lung cancers involving only marijuana are rare.
The government's most recent claim is that marijuana abuse accounts for more
people entering treatment than any other illegal drug. That shouldn't be
surprising, given that tens of millions of Americans smoke marijuana while
only a few million use all other illicit drugs.
But the claim is spurious nonetheless. Few Americans who enter "treatment"
for marijuana are addicted. Fewer than one in five people entering drug
treatment for marijuana do so voluntarily. More than half were referred by
the criminal justice system. They go because they got caught with a joint
or failed a drug test at school or work ( typically for having smoked
marijuana days ago, not for being impaired ), or because they were caught by
a law-enforcement officer-and attending a marijuana "treatment" program is
what's required to avoid expulsion, dismissal, or incarceration. Many
traditional drug treatment programs shamelessly participate in this charade
to preserve a profitable and captive client stream.
Even those who recoil at the "nanny state" telling adults what they can or
cannot sell to one another often make an exception when it comes to
marijuana--to "protect the kids." This is a bad joke, as any teenager will
attest. The criminalization of marijuana for adults has not prevented young
people from having better access to marijuana than anyone else. Even as
marijuana's popularity has waxed and waned since the 1970s, one statistic
has remained constant: More than 80 percent of high school students report
it's easy to get. Meanwhile, the government's exaggerations and outright
dishonesty easily backfire. For every teen who refrains from trying
marijuana because it's illegal (for adults), another is tempted by its
status as "forbidden fruit." Many respond to the lies about marijuana by
disbelieving warnings about more dangerous drugs.
....
The bigger battle, of course, concerns whether marijuana prohibition will
ultimately go the way of alcohol Prohibition, replaced by a variety of state
and local tax and regulatory policies with modest federal involvement.
Dedicated prohibitionists see medical marijuana as the first step down a
slippery slope to full legalization. The voters who approved the
medical-marijuana ballot initiatives ( as well as the wealthy men who helped
fund the campaigns ) were roughly divided between those who support broader
legalization and those who don't, but united in seeing the criminalization
and persecution of medical marijuana patients as the most distasteful aspect
of the war on marijuana. ( This was a point that Buckley made forcefully in
his columns about the plight of Peter McWilliams, who likely died because
federal authorities effectively forbade him to use marijuana as medicine. )
....
In this regard, the history of Dutch policy on cannabis ( i.e., marijuana
and hashish) is instructive. The "coffee shop" model in the Netherlands,
where retail (but not wholesale) sale of cannabis is de facto legal, was not
legislated into existence.
It evolved in fits and starts following the decriminalization of cannabis by
Parliament in 1976, as consumers, growers, and entrepreneurs negotiated and
collaborated with local police, prosecutors, and other authorities to find
an acceptable middle-ground policy. "Coffee shops" now operate throughout
the country, subject to local regulations. Troublesome shops are shut down,
and most are well integrated into local city cultures. Cannabis is no more
popular than in the U.S. and other Western countries, notwithstanding the
effective absence of criminal sanctions and controls. Parallel developments
are now underway in other countries.
....
And the question will inevitably arise: If the emerging system is successful
in controlling production and distribution of marijuana for those with a
medical need, can it not also expand to provide for those without medical
need?
Millions of Americans use marijuana not just "for fun" but because they find
it useful for many of the same reasons that people drink alcohol or take
pharmaceutical drugs.
It's akin to the beer, glass of wine, or cocktail at the end of the workday,
or the prescribed drug to alleviate depression or anxiety, or the sleeping
pill, or the aid to sexual function and pleasure. More and more Americans
are apt to describe some or all of their marijuana use as "medical" as the
definition of that term evolves and broadens. Their anecdotal experiences
are increasingly backed by new scientific research into marijuana's
essential ingredients, the cannabinoids. Last year, a subsidiary of The
Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal, speculated whether marijuana
might soon emerge as the "aspirin of the 21st century," providing a wide
array of medical benefits at low cost to diverse populations.
Perhaps the expansion of the medical-control model provides the best
answer-at least in the U.S.-to the question of how best to reduce the
substantial costs and harms of marijuana prohibition without inviting
significant increases in real drug abuse.
It's analogous to the evolution of many pharmaceutical drugs from
prescription to over-the-counter, but with stricter controls still in place.
It's also an incrementalist approach to reform that can provide both the
control and the reassurance that cautious politicians and voters desire.
In 1931, with public support for alcohol Prohibition rapidly waning,
President Hoover released the report of the Wickersham Commission. The
report included a devastating critique of Prohibition's failures and costly
consequences, but the commissioners, apparently fearful of getting out too
far ahead of public opinion, opposed repeal.
Franklin P. Adams of the New York World neatly summed up their findings:
Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.
We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime
It don't prohibit worth a dime
It's filled our land with vice and crime,
Nevertheless, we're for it.
Two years later, federal alcohol Prohibition was history.
What support there is for marijuana prohibition would likely end quickly
absent the billions of dollars spent annually by federal and other
governments to prop it up. All those anti-marijuana ads pretend to be about
reducing drug abuse, but in fact their basic purpose is sustaining popular
support for the war on marijuana.
What's needed now are conservative politicians willing to say enough is
enough: Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain each year.
People losing their jobs, their property, and their freedom for nothing more
than possessing a joint or growing a few marijuana plants.
And all for what? To send a message?
To keep pretending that we're protecting our children? Alcohol Prohibition
made a lot more sense than marijuana prohibition does today-and it, too, was
a disaster.
Mr. Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy
Alliance ( www.drugpolicy.org ).
.
|
|
| User: "Relaxification" |
|
| Title: Re: National Review: Marijuana Legalization Article |
12 Jul 2004 04:31:00 PM |
|
|
AN END TO MARIJUANA PROHIBITION
The Drive To Legalize Picks Up
Snip.
Much as I wish it would, it'll never happen. There are too many right
wingers out there who believe in the government's right to tell you
what you can put in your body.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Dr. Zarkov" |
|
| Title: Re: National Review: Marijuana Legalization Article |
12 Jul 2004 07:47:17 PM |
|
|
"Relaxification" <relaxification@hotmail.com> wrote ...
AN END TO MARIJUANA PROHIBITION
The Drive To Legalize Picks Up
Snip.
Much as I wish it would, it'll never happen. There are too many right
wingers out there who believe in the government's right to tell you
what you can put in your body.
If William F Buckley and National Review could come out for legalization, as
they did, it must be reasonably feasible. It's the vested interests and
their propaganda that are holding up drug legalization: Prohibition supports
an army of worthless parasites like the DEA who would have to find real
jobs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n939/a04.html
An End To Marijuana Prohibition
Pubdate: Tue, 12 Jul 2004
Source: National Review (US)
Copyright: 2004 National Review
Contact:
Website: http://www.nationalreview.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/287
Author: Ethan A. Nadelmann
www.drugpolicy.org
The Drive To Legalize Picks Up
Never before have so many Americans supported decriminalizing and even
legalizing marijuana.
Seventy-two percent say that for simple marijuana possession, people should
not be incarcerated but fined: the generally accepted definition of
"decriminalization." Even more Americans support making marijuana legal for
medical purposes.
Support for broader legalization ranges between 25 and 42 percent, depending
on how one asks the question.
Two of every five Americans-according to a 2003 Zogby poll-say "the
government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats
alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and only make it illegal
for children."
Close to 100 million Americans-including more than half of those between the
ages of 18 and 50-have tried marijuana at least once. Military and police
recruiters often have no choice but to ignore past marijuana use by job
seekers. The public apparently feels the same way about presidential and
other political candidates. Al Gore, Bill Bradley, and John Kerry all say
they smoked pot in days past. So did Bill Clinton, with his notorious
caveat.
....
The debate over ending marijuana prohibition simmers just below the surface
of mainstream politics, crossing ideological and partisan boundaries.
Marijuana is no longer the symbol of Sixties rebellion and Seventies
permissiveness, and it's not just liberals and libertarians who say it
should be legal, as William F. Buckley Jr. has demonstrated better than
anyone.
As director of the country's leading drug policy reform organization, I've
had countless conversations with police and prosecutors, judges and
politicians, and hundreds of others who quietly agree that the
criminalization of marijuana is costly, foolish, and destructive. What's
most needed now is principled conservative leadership. Buckley has led the
way, and New Mexico's former governor, Gary Johnson, spoke out courageously
while in office.
A SYSTEMIC OVERREACTION
....
Millions of Americans have never been arrested or convicted of any criminal
offense except this. Enforcing marijuana laws costs an estimated $10-15
billion in direct costs alone.
....
Prosecutors often contend that no one goes to prison for simple possession-
but tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people on probation and parole
are locked up each year because their urine tested positive for marijuana or
because they were picked up in possession of a joint.
Alabama currently locks up people convicted three times of marijuana
possession for 15 years to life. There are probably-no firm estimates
exist-100,000 Americans behind bars tonight for one marijuana offense or
another.
And even for those who don't lose their freedom, simply being arrested can
be traumatic and costly.
A parent's marijuana use can be the basis for taking away her children and
putting them in foster care. Foreign-born residents of the U.S. can be
deported for a marijuana offense no matter how long they have lived in this
country, no matter if their children are U.S. citizens, and no matter how
long they have been legally employed.
More than half the states revoke or suspend driver's licenses of people
arrested for marijuana possession even though they were not driving at the
time of arrest.
[Even arrest often includes forfeiture of cars or other property--DrZ]
The federal Higher Education Act prohibits student loans to young people
convicted of any drug offense; all other criminal offenders remain eligible.
....
Most people who smoke marijuana never become dependent.
No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose, which cannot be said of most
other drugs.
Marijuana is not associated with violent behavior and only minimally with
reckless sexual behavior. And even heavy marijuana smokers smoke only a
fraction of what cigarette addicts smoke.
Lung cancers involving only marijuana are rare.
The government's most recent claim is that marijuana abuse accounts for more
people entering treatment than any other illegal drug. That shouldn't be
surprising, given that tens of millions of Americans smoke marijuana while
only a few million use all other illicit drugs.
But the claim is spurious nonetheless. Few Americans who enter "treatment"
for marijuana are addicted. Fewer than one in five people entering drug
treatment for marijuana do so voluntarily. More than half were referred by
the criminal justice system. They go because they got caught with a joint
or failed a drug test at school or work ( typically for having smoked
marijuana days ago, not for being impaired ), or because they were caught by
a law-enforcement officer-and attending a marijuana "treatment" program is
what's required to avoid expulsion, dismissal, or incarceration. Many
traditional drug treatment programs shamelessly participate in this charade
to preserve a profitable and captive client stream.
Even those who recoil at the "nanny state" telling adults what they can or
cannot sell to one another often make an exception when it comes to
marijuana--to "protect the kids." This is a bad joke, as any teenager will
attest. The criminalization of marijuana for adults has not prevented young
people from having better access to marijuana than anyone else. Even as
marijuana's popularity has waxed and waned since the 1970s, one statistic
has remained constant: More than 80 percent of high school students report
it's easy to get. Meanwhile, the government's exaggerations and outright
dishonesty easily backfire. For every teen who refrains from trying
marijuana because it's illegal (for adults), another is tempted by its
status as "forbidden fruit." Many respond to the lies about marijuana by
disbelieving warnings about more dangerous drugs.
....
The bigger battle, of course, concerns whether marijuana prohibition will
ultimately go the way of alcohol Prohibition, replaced by a variety of state
and local tax and regulatory policies with modest federal involvement.
Dedicated prohibitionists see medical marijuana as the first step down a
slippery slope to full legalization. The voters who approved the
medical-marijuana ballot initiatives ( as well as the wealthy men who helped
fund the campaigns ) were roughly divided between those who support broader
legalization and those who don't, but united in seeing the criminalization
and persecution of medical marijuana patients as the most distasteful aspect
of the war on marijuana. ( This was a point that Buckley made forcefully in
his columns about the plight of Peter McWilliams, who likely died because
federal authorities effectively forbade him to use marijuana as medicine. )
....
In this regard, the history of Dutch policy on cannabis ( i.e., marijuana
and hashish) is instructive. The "coffee shop" model in the Netherlands,
where retail (but not wholesale) sale of cannabis is de facto legal, was not
legislated into existence.
It evolved in fits and starts following the decriminalization of cannabis by
Parliament in 1976, as consumers, growers, and entrepreneurs negotiated and
collaborated with local police, prosecutors, and other authorities to find
an acceptable middle-ground policy. "Coffee shops" now operate throughout
the country, subject to local regulations. Troublesome shops are shut down,
and most are well integrated into local city cultures. Cannabis is no more
popular than in the U.S. and other Western countries, notwithstanding the
effective absence of criminal sanctions and controls. Parallel developments
are now underway in other countries.
....
And the question will inevitably arise: If the emerging system is successful
in controlling production and distribution of marijuana for those with a
medical need, can it not also expand to provide for those without medical
need?
Millions of Americans use marijuana not just "for fun" but because they find
it useful for many of the same reasons that people drink alcohol or take
pharmaceutical drugs.
It's akin to the beer, glass of wine, or cocktail at the end of the workday,
or the prescribed drug to alleviate depression or anxiety, or the sleeping
pill, or the aid to sexual function and pleasure. More and more Americans
are apt to describe some or all of their marijuana use as "medical" as the
definition of that term evolves and broadens. Their anecdotal experiences
are increasingly backed by new scientific research into marijuana's
essential ingredients, the cannabinoids. Last year, a subsidiary of The
Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal, speculated whether marijuana
might soon emerge as the "aspirin of the 21st century," providing a wide
array of medical benefits at low cost to diverse populations.
Perhaps the expansion of the medical-control model provides the best
answer-at least in the U.S.-to the question of how best to reduce the
substantial costs and harms of marijuana prohibition without inviting
significant increases in real drug abuse.
It's analogous to the evolution of many pharmaceutical drugs from
prescription to over-the-counter, but with stricter controls still in place.
It's also an incrementalist approach to reform that can provide both the
control and the reassurance that cautious politicians and voters desire.
In 1931, with public support for alcohol Prohibition rapidly waning,
President Hoover released the report of the Wickersham Commission. The
report included a devastating critique of Prohibition's failures and costly
consequences, but the commissioners, apparently fearful of getting out too
far ahead of public opinion, opposed repeal.
Franklin P. Adams of the New York World neatly summed up their findings:
Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.
We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime
It don't prohibit worth a dime
It's filled our land with vice and crime,
Nevertheless, we're for it.
Two years later, federal alcohol Prohibition was history.
What support there is for marijuana prohibition would likely end quickly
absent the billions of dollars spent annually by federal and other
governments to prop it up. All those anti-marijuana ads pretend to be about
reducing drug abuse, but in fact their basic purpose is sustaining popular
support for the war on marijuana.
What's needed now are conservative politicians willing to say enough is
enough: Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain each year.
People losing their jobs, their property, and their freedom for nothing more
than possessing a joint or growing a few marijuana plants.
And all for what? To send a message?
To keep pretending that we're protecting our children? Alcohol Prohibition
made a lot more sense than marijuana prohibition does today-and it, too, was
a disaster.
Mr. Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy
Alliance ( www.drugpolicy.org ).
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Don Zimmerman" |
|
| Title: Re: National Review: Marijuana Legalization Article |
12 Jul 2004 05:20:29 PM |
|
|
"Relaxification" <relaxification@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:dae65ca5.0407121331.47e9812b@posting.google.com...
Much as I wish it would, it'll never happen. There are too many right
wingers out there who believe in the government's right to tell you
what you can put in your body.
It will eventually happen. There are not enough opponents to stem the tide.
.
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: National Review: Marijuana Legalization Article |
12 Jul 2004 06:38:03 PM |
|
|
On 12-Jul-2004, "Don Zimmerman" <dwzimm@telus.net> wrote:
"Relaxification" <relaxification@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:dae65ca5.0407121331.47e9812b@posting.google.com...
Much as I wish it would, it'll never happen. There are too many right
wingers out there who believe in the government's right to tell you
what you can put in your body.
It will eventually happen. There are not enough opponents to stem the
tide.
It won't happen. It's going to be like pornography. Nobody in Congresss
would vote for porno and no President would sign it even if their own
daughter was involved. (Of course I'm not suggesting that they are,
but...."Presidential Bush" featuring Barbara and Jenna has a certain
something)
Anyway, there is too much political risk for very little gain in coming out
for porn or pot.
--
"I don't watch porn. I don't even own a pornograph!"
.
|
|
|
| User: "Don Zimmerman" |
|
| Title: Re: National Review: Marijuana Legalization Article |
12 Jul 2004 07:49:37 PM |
|
|
<peeance.freeance@bayofgoats.org> wrote in message
news:10f6871na0n1o88@corp.supernews.com...
It won't happen. It's going to be like pornography. Nobody in Congresss
would vote for porno and no President would sign it even if their own
daughter was involved. (Of course I'm not suggesting that they are,
but...."Presidential Bush" featuring Barbara and Jenna has a certain
something)
Anyway, there is too much political risk for very little gain in coming
out
for porn or pot.
They said women would never get the vote. They said the schools would never
be integrated. They said automobiles would never replace horses.
It will happen!
.
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