So Now Marijuana is a Threat to Marriage?!
By Paul Armentano
Over the weekend the Christian Science Monitor newspaper published the latest installment of their ‘one minute debates’ series. The subject of the
debate: “Should California Legalize Pot?” I authored the ‘pro’ argument, which you can read here, and longtime, professional prohibitionist Calvina Fay penned the ‘con’ side.
Now anyone who is familiar with Calvina already knows of her propensity toward lunacy — Here’s just one example, “Truly sick people who deserve legitimate medical treatment have been duped into believing that marijuana will help them, while in reality it is hurting them.” — but this time, in her vitriol against California’s Prop. 19, she really outdoes herself, arguing that regulating the adult use of cannabis is a threat to… marriage!
Should California legalize pot?
via The Christian Science MonitorNo: legalization means more costs
Legalizing marijuana use would substantially increase its already formidable costs to society. That’s because the initiative would allow individuals to possess up to about 120 joints and cultivate 25 square feet of plants, capable of yielding up to 240,000 joints.
Legalization would also create an influx in drugged-driving fatalities, more deteriorated neighborhoods, more divorce, more domestic violence, more child abuse, and more addiction!
Whoa — 120 joints per ounce?! As NORML Outeach Director Russ Belville writes, that’s some fuzzy math. (A more realistic conversion might be 30, or at most 60, joints.) However, such hyperbole is par for the course for our opposition. They are well aware that they can not win this debate on merit, and as a result they now have only the most foolish fear-mongering to fall back on. Fortunately, the polls show that this tactic is also doomed to fail.
(FYI, for those wishing to weigh in on the CSM debate, you can post your comments on Yahoo News here.)
And speaking of fear-mongering, I have an op/ed in today’s online version of The Hill rebutting claims of various Prop. 19 detractors, including California Senator Diane Feinstein and Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske. Here is an excerpt:
Proposition 19 is the right direction
via The Hill.comSo then why are Sen. Feinstein and the drug czars so worried about adults consuming it in the privacy of their own home?
California lawmakers criminalized the possession and use of marijuana in 1913 — a full 24 years before the federal government enacted prohibition. Yet right now in California, the state Board of Equalization reports that some 400,000 use marijuana daily. Self-evidently, cannabis is here to stay.
It’s time to reject the drug czar’s tired rhetoric, and abandon the failed federal policy of criminal marijuana prohibition. Let’s stop ceding control of this market to unregulated, untaxed criminal enterprises and put it in the hands of licensed businesses. Let’s stop sanctioning adults for private behavior that is engaged in absent of harm to others. …Proposition 19 is a first step in this direction.
Read NORML’s full commentary here.
The Hill’s ever-popular Congress blog ‘is where lawmakers come to blog.’ It’s also where legislators and other politicos — such as staffers at the Drug Czar’s office (hint, hint) — come to gauge the pulse of the public. Given that this is a paper of record in these folks’ backyard, why not send a message to those in Washington that their opposition is out of touch with voter sentiment. You can make your voice heard by leaving your feedback here.
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Passage of the CA Proposition 19 will deal a serious blow to the Mexican drug cartels and to the "drug war" in general. It will also restore sanity to the California State budget by collecting sizable Cannabis revenues and eliminating the wasteful spending on the so-called anti-Cannabis "enforcement". It is established by the science of addiction medicine that the so-called "gateway drug" theory, advanced by the opponents of the measure is a complete fantasy, as is the assertion that Cannabis is "physically addictive". Cannabis is NOT physically addictive, as there is no clearly definable and reproducible PHYSICAL withdrawal syndrome, associated with its use, as opposed to truly physically addictive substances such as opiates or alcohol. In fact, the latest addiction medicine research reveals that Cannabis may serve as an "exit" substance with the potential of helping former alcoholics or hard drug users to abstain from alcohol, hard drugs, or even dangerous and physically addictive prescription drugs! It is also being established that Cannabis use may help prevent such serious illnesses as cancer and Alzheimer's disease! Cannabis use also suppresses violent urges and behaviors. Let's not be intimidated by the scare-tactics of the "opponents", but be motivated instead by science, reason and understanding of these issues, and this means voting YES on California Proposition 19 on November 2!
Lots of predictions coming from both sides, but no one knows for sure.
The best crystal ball is to look backward to the years following 1933 when we re-legalized alcohol after 13 years of National Prohibition trying to stamp it out. So, what did happen?
Families were not destroyed, as had been predicted. The murder rate plummeted, not to reach National Prohibition's levels for several decades. Hundreds of so-called "drugstores" got out of the medicinal alcohol business. A few bootleggers(e.g. Sam Bronfman) stayed in the now-legal liquor business; others (e.g. Joe Kennedy) went into politics; some went into legal businesses, including inventing Las Vegas. A few moved into less desirable work like loan sharking, prostitution, extortion, and selling illegal drugs. Many Prohibition agents hit the street until they found jobs again enforcing the "Marihuana Tax Act of 1937". Liquor regulation was left to the "laboratory of the states", and it works. In the 77 years since 1933 there has not been one serious proposal to go back to National Prohibition.