Legalizing Marijuana Now More Popular than the Republican Party

Actually, now, in crisis time, would be the best time to do this. Obama could act all sad about the "necessity" of stopping spending billions on interdiction and capturing all that tax money, thereby turning a liability into a benefit. He could call it "the audacity of dope."

Add a 50-cent tax on breakfast cereal, and economic crisis over.

A pamphlet entitled "10 Things Every Parent, Teenager and Teacher Should Know About Marijuana" produced by the Family Council on Drug Awareness tells us marijuana is not physically addictive. The 1980 Costa Rican study, the 1975 Jamaican study and the 1972 Nixon Blue Ribbon Report all concluded that marijuana use does not lead to physical dependency. The FBI reports that 65 to 75 percent of criminal violence is alcohol-related. On the other hand, Federal Bureau of Narcotics director Harry Anslinger testified before Congress in 1948 that marijuana leads to nonviolence and pacifism. In a message to Congress on August 2, 1977, President Jimmy Carter insisted: "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself." Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Law Judge Francis L. Young wrote on September 8, 1988: "Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." After years of suppression by the government, the truth about medical marijuana is finally coming out. Dr. Tod Mikuriya, former director of marijuana research for the entire federal government, wrote in 1996: "I was hired by the government to provide scientific evidence that marijuana was harmful. As I studied the subject, I began to realize that marijuana was once widely used as a safe and effective medicine. But the government had a different agenda, and I had to resign." Tobacco kills about 430,700 each year. Alcohol and alcohol-related diseases and injuries kill about 110,000 per year. Secondhand tobacco smoke kills about 50,000 every year. Aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs kill 7,600 each year. Cocaine kills about 500 yearly alone, and another 2,500 in combination with another drug. Heroin kills about 400 yearly alone, and another 2,500 in combination with another drug. Adverse reactions to prescription drugs total 32,000 per year, while marijuana kills no one. A November 4, 2002 Time/CNN Poll found that eighty percent of those polled felt marijuana should be legal only for therapeutic purposes. 72 percent felt recreational users should get fines rather than jail time, which is essentially decriminalization. The complete legalization of marijuana was favored only by 34 percent of respondents, but this figure is twice as large as it was in 1986. Marijuana is safer than alcohol and tobacco, and our drug laws should reflect this reality. Throughout history, the legal and moral status of psychoactive drugs has kept changing. During the 17th century, the sale and consumption of tobacco were punished by death in much of Europe, Russia, China and Japan. For centuries, many of the Muslim domains that forbade alcohol sale and consumption simultaneously tolerated and even regulated the sale of opium and cannabis. Each year, the U.S. government spends more than $30 billion on the drug war and arrests over 1.5 million people on drug-related charges. Over 318,000 people are now behind bars in the U.S. for drug violations, greater than the total number of people incarcerated for all crimes in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined. Our government is calling for billions of dollars to fight a drug war it can't win. Roughly 75 percent of this money goes to enforcing laws and regulations, but only 15 percent goes to drug education and prevention, and a only a meager 10 percent goes to treatment for addicts. During the 1950s, long-term prison sentences against drug users choked the courts, strained and disrupted prisons and drove black-market prices even higher. The latest casualty in the drug war has been our civil liberties: mandatory drug testing so we can all be “drug free”. Some of these tests have been struck down by the courts, where the government is the employer. But others have been upheld. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia denounced these drug tests as “an immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use.” Even putting America under martial law will not solve the nation's drug problem. Iran executes hundreds of drug offenders. Malaysia has hanged dozens of drug users in the past few years. In neither country has the drug problem receded. In fact, in Malaysia, the addiction rate continues to rise. On the other hand, the Dutch government, with its liberal social and political philosophy, tolerates drug use, and the addiction rate is declining. According to a 2003 Zogby poll, two of every five Americans say “the government should treat marijuana 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 over half of those between the ages of 18 and 50, have tried marijuana at least once. Military and police recruiters often have no alternative but to ignore past marijuana use by job seekers. In 1996, California voters passed a law to regulate medical marijuana within the state. In 2000, voters in California approved an initiative allowing people who are arrested for simple possession of drugs to go through a rehabilitation program rather than through the court process that would result in prison. Since the program began, most agree it has been very successful. It results in less recidivism and is considered cheaper than imprisonment. Richard Posner, Chicago's chief judge of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and one of the nation's leading legal scholars, says marijuana use should be legalized as a way of reducing crime. Posner, a Reagan administration appointee once described by American Lawyer magazine as “the most brilliant judge in the country,” explained his views on marijuana in The Times Literary Supplement, a British publication, and in later interview: “It is nonsense that we should be devoting so many law enforcement resources to marijuana," says Posner. "I am skeptical that a society that is so tolerant of alcohol and cigarettes should come down so hard on marijuana use and send people to prison for life without parole.” Posner is the highest-ranking judge to publicly favor the repeal of marijuana laws. Several judges of the federal district court, a level lower than the appeals court, have made similar calls, including Robert Sweet of New York and James Paine of Florida, both Carter Administration appointees. New York University law professor Burt Neuborne said it's significant that “one of the leading intellectuals in the judicial system recognizes that the laws don't seem to be working well.” Posner and other federal judges have complained that sentencing guidelines force them to give unjustly severe prison sentences to relatively minor drug offenders. Says Posner: “Prison terms in America have become appallingly long, especially for conduct that, arguably, should not be criminal at all. Only decriminalization is a sure route to a lower crime rate. It is sad that it appears so far below the horizon of political feasibility.” Rufus King, a Washington, DC lawyer who has served on the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, calls the drug war, “A worthless crusade.” According to King, drug use is a social problem, not a law enforcement problem. He observes: “Cigarette use is declining through changes in cultural values in the population. Like most smokers and alcoholics, most users of illegal drugs poison themselves because they want to be intoxicated. No human force can do them much good until they want help.” King is optimistic that the current anti-drug hysteria will subside, and responsible and reasonable drug law policies will be adopted.