The war on drugs is an attack on rationality. Reason lost yet another skirmish recently when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on April 20 that “no sound scientific studies” supported the medical use of marijuana. The announcement flatly contradicts the conclusion of virtually every major study on the efficacy of medical marijuana, including two performed by the government. In… return to article
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Reader Comments (12)Page 1 of 1 pagesWhile i am in favor of legalized cannabis, i think it is a bit naive to think that there will not be deleterious consequences of such a policy. Increased rates of cancer for smokers (eat it!), increased auto accident rates, etc. But one has to compare this to the cost of enforcing an unpopular law - increased incarceration rates, decreased freedom, etc.
If nothing else, adding a new drug to the litany of legalized ones could benefit from our history. This can be done by clearly labeling cannabis as a carcinogen (something tobacco fought far too long!) and a public ad campaign against driving high.
We can use the Netherlands as an example. They have rather nice Cafes there. . .
Posted by wolf on May 18, 2006 at 3:23 PM —wolf
While many find it logical to assume marijuana smoke causes cancer, the fact is, it does not. Out of the 25 million people who smoke pot on the planet, NO ONE has developed cancer from it. The worst effect is a mild throat and lung irritation, and for heavy smokers, perhaps bronchitis. As you pointed out, even these minor irritations can be avoided by consuming it in other ways, the best probably being vaporization.
While marijuana does alter consciousness, it may have some effect on driving, but the big difference from alcohol is that marijuana consumers are AWARE of their altered state and drive more slowly and cautiously to compensate for it. Some studies have shown marijuana consumers are safer drivers (with less accidents) than straight drivers. Plus, there are many prescription drugs which cause far more impairment.
A General Response To The Article:
A MODERN DAY WITCH HUNT
Why not regulate marijuana like alcohol? Every major study has shown marijuana is non-addictive and less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
See: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/studies.htm
In fact, deaths from alcohol are around 400,000 per year with tobacco more than that. Add the carnage alcohol causes in traffic accidents and alcohol fueled violence and the numbers are staggering.
Now, deaths from marijuana - ZERO. That’s right. No recorded deaths from marijuana in its entire history.
To treat marijuana consumption more strictly than alcohol is one of the greatest travesties of justice that exists. In fact, it is a monstrously destructive fraud that brands over 700,000 U.S. citizens with a criminal record EACH YEAR!
Why do we still have this barbaric persecution? Because police and politicians build their careers and empires on it. Because industries like alcohol and pharmaceuticals don’t want the competition. Because other interests like the drug treatment/testing industry and the prison industries depend on it for their life’s blood. And because government uses marijuana prohibition as a means of controlling minorities and the poor.
There NEVER was a good reason for marijuana prohibition.
See: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm
We must end this horrible travesty of justice in order to save millions of innocent people and restore respect for law enforcement who we have made the Inquisitors in this disastrous witch hunt.
Posted by john.thomas on May 18, 2006 at 4:42 PM I suspect that Marinol and Cesamet have more to do with this “finding” than any actual scientific investigation.
Posted by ob1quixote on May 18, 2006 at 9:48 PM “Isn’t it a sign of mental disorder when distorted reasoning is unchanged by empirical evidence? What is it about marijuana that drives our politicians insane?”
Nope. It’s neither mental derangement nor political insanity. It is simply business.
Connect the dots. Since when has distorted
reasoning stopped any political initiative? In
fact, most political initiatives are characterized
by a passionate state of mind, and more or less
distorted reasoning. Precisely because political discourse is about Power, not Rationality. Eric
Hoffer had some interesting things to say
about this ‘passionate’ mind state in his works.This is easy: The vast prison-oriented society
that the united States has devolved into is
motivated by all the money to be made servicing
this ‘war on drugs’...to legalize pot would vastly
cut into the BUSINESS. If you connect all the dots of the legal and illegal agencies/mafias/
gangs that have a vested interest in keeping
pot consumption illegal then it starts to make
perfect sense. The prison industry is a growth
industry. Legalized pot would impact that
growth curve severely.Politicians, after they are elected, cease to
behave like elected representatives of their
constituents. They behave like members of a privileged club. Club members often behave
in erractic and inconsistent ways which appear
to rational beings like insanity. It isn’t. They
are behaving according to their own definition
of ‘rational self-interest’ . Also, who elected
them? It may or may not have been ‘the people’ but some party machine that effectively and
regularly hoodwinks ‘the people’. Or rigged
voting machines. Or a decree from the
Supreme Court. Think bout it. This is easy.Connect the dots. There are a LOT of vested
interests that will keep pot (and some other
useful drugs) illegal because of the money.
These people are not irrational or insane. They
are, well, how do I put it politely? They are scum.
Posted by sequ0yah on May 18, 2006 at 10:46 PM A simple two step solution to multiple problems…
1. Use pro-choice logic — “An individual’s body is NOT a government responsibility.”
2. “We are a nation of laws.”
Legalize all drugs and enforce existing laws against employers of illegal aliens
Immediate national benefits would include:
• $ Billions saved as War on Drugs funding can be spent on education and treatment. Make info available as to known and suspected effects and let the user decide.
• End of smuggling — no profit
• Release thousands of prisoners into the workforce
• No jobs at slave wages — no reason to be hereCongress would be able to address the problems of U.S. citizens such as:
Social Security/Medicare, universal health care and prescription drugs, realistic homeland security, genuine campaign reform… and plenty more.
Posted by whattheheck on May 19, 2006 at 4:59 PM It’s idiotic to spend so much of limited resources on trying to prohibit people from getting a buzz on, presuming they don’t do it at the wheel or some other place where others are put at risk. And if rationality was the guiding principle, we would have had real clarity on the medical facts about therapeutic as well as recreational use of cannabis (or coca, or psylocibin, or…) long before now.
But unhappily, not only is rationality not particularly prized by enough people (Americans and also much of the human species), neither is the discipline of science. The latter of these derives from the former. Science may not be able to clarify everything about human existence, but there is no better approach to understanding the physical universe, how our bodies work, how chemical compounds interact with our mental processes, etc. And there’s little help coming from enough of the factions and political climbers who govern schools. An evidence-based approach to, for instance, human origins is still on the ropes in too many school districts. This is because people continue to prize the right to opinionate, even in the absence of any real learning about a topic, above all things. They think their emotional responses constitute sufficient “evidence” from which to base their understanding. They think their “beliefs” are sacrosanct, and that any questioning of those beliefs is the same as an assault. And (like everyone, even me) they are are fiercely protective of their children. This last would not be problematic if their agenda was to equip their children with incisive, rational methods of thought, from which to base their decisions as they enter adulthood. Instead, it’s to reincarnate themselves and their thought systems into the next generation. Or, it’s to allow themselves to be lazy thinkers, and to react from impulse or bandwagon-jumping emotions, rather than to discipline their minds and invest energy into the mental work of identifying and evaluating evidence.
For all of its imperfections, give me an expansion of rationalism in the global culture. This would confront a host of “cultures” whose spokespeople crow on about assaults upon their traditional (and sometimes wrong) understandings. Rational approaches sure beat making every decision through the filter of worrying about confronting some culturally based habit of thought, for fear of being called imperialistic.
As though belief systems and culturally induced cognitive styles could ever be static. Nothing is. The values and understandings that are worth keeping because they enhance the quality of life of their adherents would endure. Those that don’t would die out. Good riddance.
But for as long as cultural stasis, overweaning focus on political correctness, ideological conformity, and promotion of silly but popular attitudes like “go with your heart, ignore your head” (read: follow your impulses, suspend your intelligence) continue to be the ideas that guide parents, schools, and the broad culture, we’ll be stuck with a hostility to rational approaches to many issues that affect humanity.
And we’ll continue spending a fortune degrading our societies by punishing something that should never have been a crime in the first place.
Posted by Kuya on May 22, 2006 at 2:17 AM > We can use the Netherlands as an example. They have rather nice Cafes there. . .
It is easy to get the impression that cannabis is legal in the Netherlands. It isn’t, though. The national Opiumwet prohibits the possession of cannabis in any amount. In areas where cannabis cafes are tolerated, local officials have chosen not to enforce the national law.
Posted by nemo on May 23, 2006 at 5:23 PM nemo - bummer. But i love the cafes that ignore the law!
Going way waaay off topic. ..
Kuya - i am a fan of science too (or at least a practitioner). But none of the things that matter are even addressed by science. Love. Life. Death. Meaning. How is found in science, but why is for each of us to define, apparently.
Posted by wolf on May 25, 2006 at 2:03 AM Study finds no marijuana-lung cancer link.
Click on the hyperlink. It reaffirms what John said, marijuana does not cause lung cancer.
Posted by David in Canada on May 25, 2006 at 8:17 PM Another reason for legalization and telling the truth about pot:
Lying about marijauna to kid’s is extremely dangerous. I’m 24 so I can tell you for a fact that all the lies I was told about pot made me and everyone I knew, at least back in highschool, second guess any of the information we were given about other drugs.
On tv, right, there’s one ad that tells you not to smoke cigarettes because it causes cancer, which is, of course, very true and another ad which tells you that smoking pot will make you get your fist stuck in your mouth, which is, obviously, very stupid.
Taken side by side it just makes kids tend to disregard it all as exagerated, especially when they personally know pot smokers who are captains of the football team, class leaders, and just about anything else you can think of.
Everything except smooshed or flattened imobile blobs, that is.
PLEASE READ the first section on pot in the book Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. It’s by Eric Schlosser, who also wrote Fast Food Nation.
In it he tells one story about a man who was given life in prison just for telling one guy that he could buy pot from another guy. A worse punishment than many rapists and murders get.
I hope it makes you as angry as it made me.
An unjust law is itself a species of violence.
Arrest for its breach is more so.
-Mohandas Gandhi
Posted by Backatchababy on May 26, 2006 at 6:36 PM Besides ignoring the research about medical cannabis, I think Americans also neglect another issue about cannabis: the outrageous prices.
I’m talking about the mediweed concept , a term coined long ago by the legendary Wernard (founder of the Mellow Yellow coffeeshop [the first ever] as well as the old Positronics grow shop in Amsterdam, the guy who discovered that plastic greenhouses tend to work better than glass). Mediweed is about supplying cannabis to patients at a reasonable price, based on the principle that the stuff is simply expensive.California’s Compassion Clubs were a great idea: get a prescription. Some of them even offered really powerful medicine (Bubble-Bagged White Rhino water hash and that sort of thing). Still, they charge(d) pretty much street prices ($20 for a gram, $50 for an eighth, sometimes even more). As I understand it, the mediweed idea is that it should be about half price when purchased for medical purposes.
I’m a Californian and used to live in the center of Amsterdam. I have never seen a real problem with either the coffeeshops or the Compassion Clubs. They are a good thing.
The article here is about U.S. government’s refusal to acknowledge the therapeutic value of cannabis. I think this comes from simple stubborness. All it really means that the government will have to admit that some people who are no longer in office were simply wrong for years.
Posted by TheoPapathanasis on May 27, 2006 at 11:55 AM During the mid eighties, when Reagan was President and Don Regan was his Chief-of-Staff, Regan ran afoul of Nancy and in so doing received a lot of heat from the media as well as the First Lady’s soldiers. Regan threatened to expose the “war on drugs” as the farce it is by saying that they knew damn well they could stop drugs and most other organized crime, quickly, cheaply and completely. He said all they had to do was periodically change the currency and force anyone with a suitcase, or more, of cash, to discuss whether or not they paid taxes on that cash. Try to get anyone to discuss that and you’ll learn, perhaps, that it is simply too destabilizing to our economy. Guess what that means.
Posted by hatch on May 30, 2006 at 8:45 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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