Recently, Attorney General Holder has made clear that federal resources will no longer be utilized to target or prosecute Americans seeking to manufacture or distribute marijuana unless they are breaking both federal and state laws. While this is fantastic news for many suffering individuals in need of medical marijuana and also signals a very sensible change in executive policy and perspective regarding cannabis, the plain and simple truth is: Mr. Holder has not gone far enough, and neither has anyone else in government save the Mr. Tom Ammiano, the California assemblyman who introduced the measure to fully legalize and regulate and tax cannabis like tobacco or alcohol.
Honestly, the fact that such MSM bastions as Time magazine are just coming around to the realization that legalization is the will of the people (well, the cool people at least) is truly perplexing to me. Are there no stoners in the mainstream media establishment? No wonder the blogosphere is all over it - exhibit A: awesome story on AlterNet.
And while I'm on the subject, I have to say, the faux-objectivity that is the hallmark of the MSM positively reeks out of Time's recent coverage of the subject. The main opposition argument is that if cannabis is legalized, a mysterious "social toll" will be exacted on society.
Allow me to respond, Sirs Joel Hay and John Lovell. First, the "social toll" is being taken whether marijuana is legal or not, my friends. Wake up and smell the weed. Seriously. Take a walk around your town or your apartment complex and see if you don't detect a certain distinct odor on the breeze, because chances are, some of your neighbors smoke marijuana. And this generalization, ironically, applies to many, many subsets of America. Weed is quite possibly as popular in the Deep South as it is on the West Coast, and the Northeast and Midwest have their own large regional markets as well. Sure, cannabis flows into this country across the border from Mexico (and Canada, incidentally) but chances are, you can find some good old American homegrown right in your town.
The same goes for Americans of every socioeconomic status, race, class, gender and even, at this point, generation. Damn near a majority of Americans support legalization in this country, and I'm willing to bet that with a reversal of decades-long government-funded propaganda campaigns and a serious look at the issue, that number would top 50 percent easily.
My point is, the status quo is unacceptable in a lot of ways. The bottom line is that marijuana in America is a reality; we need to deal with it rather than denying it. But clearly, the reality of the situation does not sway you. You claim that "easy availability would lead to a surge" in the use of marijuana. Yes, let's discuss this part of it, because this is where the deal gets sweet, and this is why Tom Ammiano is a hero and Eric Holder is only pretty cool.
As it happens, I tried a basic little pros-and-cons thought experiment today, pondering the likely effects of legalization, taxation and regulation policies, more or less properly implemented by the state governments, which is basically my optimal legalization scenario. Here are the cons: number one - perhaps more people trying the drug. Definitely a marginal increase in risk of general stonedness across U.S. population. No physical risks, since overdose is impossible and even long-term use has no link to cancer. (Tashkin is a cool dude, btw.).
Seriously, there would perhaps be a larger rehab burden because yes, there could potentially be more cases of abuse, at first. But, I would say those people would not only be better off in rehab than in jail (for their sake and the sake of our overcrowded prisons and overworked court systems), but would also represent a decreasing proportion of marijuana users as the drug became normalized into society and thereby subject to the rules of social norms. Honestly, if you want to convince people not to use marijuana, prohibiting it is shooting yourself in the foot before the race even begins.
The smarter way to go about it is to normalize the drug and bring it within effective social control, like alcohol or tobacco, more or less, except with less physical harm to people. Common-sense regulations like a smoking age and no smoking in public are easy to enforce and will go far to setting boundaries and limits of acceptable times and places. There is plenty of good medical literature about the physiological effects of marijuana, as well as the immediate effects of its use. Public education and public health campaigns regarding the drug would go a lot farther than those ridiculous ONDCP ads.
And that thing about ease of availability goes both ways, which is where the deal really gets sweetened. By legalizing cannabis, you allow those who would use it avoid patronizing criminals and arranging shady drug deals, providing them a safe, regulated option. By the way, we the people of this good land can also tax that option for a pretty penny. Guess what the number one cash crop in the United States is? Hello, Mary Jane!
You want to talk about big business in America? And if you're thinking gangs and black market cartels, think again. Think professional botanists and horticulturalists. Think co-ops and licensed distributors. Think about a brand spanking new domestic industry sprouting up smack dab in the middle of a depression. Look up Oaksterdam University; they're already handing out degrees. People can see this coming and they want to be legitimate about it. They know there are billions to be made and many, many direly sorely jobs in the pot as well. All they need is for their representatives to actually represent.
This is a basic cost-benefit analysis. It's not hard to do. One of the reasons I'm so impassioned about this issue, besides my opinion that it could make real, noticeable, positive changes in the country, is the fact that it's such an easy issue to decide and deal with. I mean, Prohibition Era, anybody? If there's one thing Americans know, it's that market forces dictate behavior. As long as there's money to be made in weed, and large money at that, there will be growers and there will be traffickers; it all depends on how they're treated by government and society as to whether the socioeconomics of the situation work in the national interest or against it.
The seeds of this revolution in American attitudes toward cannabis were sown long ago. Most recently, they've found fertile soil in an era of forward-looking and forward-thinking change. This administration and this generation seem poised to reap the bounty that legalization could bring; will we dare to act?
0 comments:
Post a Comment