cannabisnews.com: Stop Blowing Smoke at America's 'Pot Problem'





Stop Blowing Smoke at America's 'Pot Problem'
Posted by CN Staff on September 26, 2002 at 07:57:12 PT
By Jonathan Zimmerman
Source: Newsday
Do the Mets have a drug problem? I don't know the answer to that question, and neither do you. But I do know that our entire culture has a problem, and not just with drug use. We have a problem discussing the whole subject with anything that resembles intellectual honesty. In short, we are liars.Every single day, Americans tell their children that all illegal drug use is dangerous and immoral. Parents tell it to them at home; teachers tell it to them at school; advertisers tell it to them on television.
But that doesn't make it true. Nearly 80 million Americans have used marijuana - 20 million of them during the past year. That makes pot our third most popular recreational drug, trailing only alcohol and tobacco.Granted, some marijuana smokers develop a health or social problem as a result of their drug use. But all of them? Come on. Given how many of us have smoked pot, it's simply absurd to assume that every drug user has a drug problem.That's why 12 states - including New York - have enacted some type of marijuana decriminalization since 1973. In each of these states, users are no longer imprisoned for possessing small amounts of pot. Oregon voters recently upheld their marijuana decriminalization law by a 2-1 margin; this fall, Nevadans will decide whether to increase their legal pot limit to three ounces, or enough to roll about 100 joints.Which brings us back to the Mets. Last week, Newsday reported that "at least seven" members of the team had allegedly smoked marijuana this season. Nobody knows how much any given player possessed; if it was less than 25 grams, it wasn't enough to earn jail time in New York. Nevertheless, one player allegedly had an accomplice smuggle pot into Shea Stadium inside peanut butter jars, to evade drug-sniffing dogs.First came the predictable jokes about "munchies," courtesy of late-night television and shock-jock radio. Then came the equally predictable outrage. Some fans quickly presumed that drug use had caused the Mets' awful performance this year. Others said the ballplayers had set poor examples for children, who must be shown that all drug use is - you guessed it - dangerous and immoral.Is it possible that pot smoking contributed to the Mets' dismal season? Sure, it's possible. But it's highly unlikely. The three team members who were named in the Newsday story were role players; one is no longer even on the squad. Nobody has identified the other four players, but it's hard to believe that they smoked enough dope to account for the Mets' woes. Remember, we're talking about a team that went the entire month of August without winning a single home game.What about the other complaint - that the Mets forsook their role as "role models" for our young? Without much evidence, this argument presumes that kids mimic athletes' off-field antics as well as their on-field maneuvers. Even more, though, it presumes that any pot smoker-regardless of occupation - is a reprehensible person.Listen to Mets owner Fred Wilpon, who took care to emphasize that most of his players did not smoke marijuana. "I know many of those guys in that locker room," Wilpon said. "They are good citizens, they are good fathers, they are good husbands . . . and they are not involved in any illegal kind of things."Translation: If you do smoke pot, you are not a good citizen. Or a good father. Or a good husband.Just ask the family of Darryl Kile. Remember Kile? Earlier this summer, the Cardinals pitcher was found dead in a Chicago hotel room. An autopsy confirmed that Kile died of coronary artery blockage. It also found traces of - surprise! - marijuana.That's right: marijuana. Smoked by an All-Star, who won more than 130 games over the last decade. Smoked by a consummate family man, who bought a home in suburban St. Louis so he could spend more time with his 5-year-old son and infant twins.After the Newsday story broke, the Mets' Wilpon says, his 8-year-old grandson asked him about it. Wilpon told the boy "that his role models should be people who live good, clean, lives."Fair enough. But let's suppose that the kid had gone on to ask, "Like who, Grandpa? Like Darryl Kile? Wasn't he a good man? And didn't he use drugs?"Wilpon seems like a good man, too, and I think he would have told his grandson the truth: Kile was a fine person and a marijuana smoker. So are millions of other pot-smoking Americans. They go to work, pay their taxes and raise their families. And sometimes they even become professional baseball players. Jonathan Zimmerman is the author of "Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools" and also teaches history in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University.Source: Newsday (NY)Author: Jonathan ZimmermanPublished: September 26, 2002Copyright: 2002 Newsday Inc.Contact: letters newsday.comWebsite: http://www.newsday.com/Related Articles: Mets’ Trouble With the Grass http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14192.shtmlTesting for Pot Left Out of Pacthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14184.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by Jerr-man on September 27, 2002 at 23:41:13 PT
 sometimes they even become pro baseball players
What if I want to be president of the U.S. ?
Wait....Al Gore inhaled...Bill Clinton did not....Bill was prez....Al was going to win Flordia...then he got high..never going to be prez while toking...(nevermind JFK)..maybe I'll just be mayor of NY....to late ....hey I can play baseball...yippeee! 
jm
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Comment #2 posted by karkulus on September 26, 2002 at 12:33:38 PT
Bill Bennett vs. Jesus
Ex drug czar Bennett used to say that the most dangerous pot smokers are the successful one's: they want us to be brain-dead "Beavis & Butthead" types.Just more "circuitous logic"..like the"forced rehab" thing,or the "no better than codeine"(but a gate-way leading TO codeine(one of my favorites)..But Jesus sez: "(but) if your eye is DISEASED,your whole body will be dark.If therefore the light that is in you is darkness,how much greater will be your darkness."MATTHEW 6-23 (direct translation from the spoken Aramaic as in 'Peshitta version bible').The soul of the prohibitionist is diseased!
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Comment #1 posted by kanabys on September 26, 2002 at 09:14:44 PT
So darned true!!
If there was a scope that you could look through and you would see a glow or something around the people who used cannabis, I'd bet the whole darned country would look like a supernova. I, for one, am a whole hearted american who pays taxes, am a good husband & father, never missed a day of work in 12 years & do a darned good job and am respected by my peers. No one has and probably ever will suspect my "dark little secret". It's a shame we "good" cannabis lovers have to hide in the closet. A bloody shame, I say!!!
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