|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
US: OPED: Marijuana Is Less Evil Drug Than U.S. Protected Booze
Columbian, The (US) Thursday 08 Feb 2001 Pubdate: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 Source: Columbian, The (WA) Website: http://www.columbian.com/ Author: Jerry Epstein, co-founder and President of the drug policy forum of Texas MARIJUANA IS LESS EVIL DRUG THAN U. S. PROTECTED BOOZE One of the major reasons the drug war has been such a spectacular failure is the strange and selective nature of modern prohibition that grants a government-protected monopoly to a drug like alcohol and prohibits marijuana based on popularity and mythology rather than science. In 1968, the French National Health and Medical Research Institute and experts from other countries rated drugs by their danger. They established three groups. The "most dangerous" group included only alcohol, heroin and cocaine. Marijuana was in the "least dangerous" category. Last year, our government paid one million dollars for a report from 24 leading experts. This report from the Institute of Medicine said that marijuana is not a gateway but that making marijuana illegal does push users toward the use of more dangerous drugs, the exact opposite of our intention. The United Nations Bulletin on Narcotics in 1957 stated that "indulgence in (marijuana), unlike alcohol, rarely brings the habit into a state of extreme intoxication where he loses entire control over himself. As a rule, those who indulge habitually can carry on their ordinary vocations for long periods and do not become a burden to society or even a nuisance." For centuries in other cultures marijuana was eaten, drunk or smoked as a daily staple. Many American troops stationed in Panama after 1916 bean to use marijuana instead of alcohol. A special military panel examined the situation for 15 years and concluded there was no significant problem. The Dutch essentially have had legal marijuana for 24 years, and it has had little more effect on their society than the introduction of a new brand of beer. The fact that Dutch adults and children use much less marijuana than we do is an indication that non-coercive social norms are far more powerful than prohibition, which replaces personal responsibility with government paternalism. The war on marijuana has made the Salem witch trials look small and scientific by comparison. The witch trials were over in less than a year and took 19 lives, while the war on marijuana is in its 63rd year and has ruined the lives and families of millions. This one drug ties up a third of the criminal justice system. The 80 percent increase in marijuana arrests since 1993 has produced more annual arrests than for murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault all put together. Our hypocrisy relative to our own alcohol use and the use of false or exaggerated propaganda about marijuana has undermined the credibility of all drug education and grossly diminished respect for the law. False Criminals Incredibly, this one misguided law has placed the label "criminal" on over half our young adults. If we subtract the 30 percent of teens who rarely even use alcohol, then almost four out of every five high school seniors have already used marijuana--just as our nations political leaders did. 1995 and again in 1998, The Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals, editorialized in favor or legalized marijuana. "Based on the medical evidence available," it said, "moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill-effect on health...Sooner or later politicians will have to stop running scared and address the evidence: Cannabis per se is not a hazard to society, but driving in further underground may well be." Marijuana accounts for some 80 percent of all illegal drug use, and its prohibition has created dramatic public misperceptions about the size and nature of our drug problem as a whole. I assume that legalization would be much like that for alcohol but would include a ban on public use and advertising. The moment we clarify the problem and end this enormous drain on our money, energy and credibility is the moment we begin to deal with all the other aspect of drug policy far more effectively.
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!