cannabisnews.com: Reefer Gladness Reefer Gladness Posted by CN Staff on June 15, 2003 at 07:16:56 PT By Jacob Sullum Source: San Francisco Chronicle The case of Ed Rosenthal, the East Bay medical marijuana grower who escaped a heavy federal jail sentence earlier this month, suggests one rationale for legalizing pot: It comforts the sick and dying. The case of corporate tycoon Peter B. Lewis suggests another -- one that involves many more people. Lewis, who stepped down in 2001 after 36 years as CEO of Progressive Insurance, is widely admired as a hard-driving, innovative executive who transformed his company from a tiny player into the nation's third-largest auto insurer -- "a prodigiously growing, solidly successful stock market standout," as Fortune magazine put it. Originally specializing in coverage for high-risk drivers, an area where it quickly became a leader, Progressive later moved into other types of auto insurance, making a name for itself through direct sales, candid price comparisons, and fast claims service. Between 1990 and 1999, the company had compounded growth of more than 23 percent, compared to an industry average of less than 5 percent. Progressive was the first insurer with a Web site and the first to sell policies online, pioneering forays that paid off dramatically. Its revenues jumped from $3.5 billion in 1996 to $9.3 billion in 2002. Lewis, the man who accomplished all this, remains Progressive's chairman and owns more than a tenth of the company's shares, making him a billionaire. Observers call him a perfectionist, "an extraordinary businessman," and "an absolutist about untiring effort." They also call him "a functioning pothead." Although he declined to comment on the question while he was CEO, friends said Lewis was a regular marijuana smoker. In 2000, these reports were confirmed in a very public way: Lewis was arrested for marijuana and hashish possession at the Auckland, New Zealand, airport. The authorities released him after he made a donation to a local drug rehabilitation center. The next year, when he was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about his financial support for drug policy reform, he observed, "My personal experience lets me understand and have a view of the relative effects of some of these substances. " With his remarkable record of achievement, Lewis does not quite fit the pothead stereotype promoted in taxpayer-funded public service announcements: the lazy, stupid loser who can't get it together. A knowledge engineer in his early 30s who smokes marijuana about once a week summed up the official message this way: "Pot will destroy your life, and you'll end up sitting in a room, not caring about anything, watching TV, unemployed and broke." Most marijuana users do not become billionaires, of course, but neither do most of them lead empty, unproductive lives. As misleading as it may be to hold Peter Lewis' career up as an example of what marijuana can do, it is equally misleading to cite users who never amount to anything as evidence of the drug's effects. The typical pot smoker lies somewhere between these two extremes. Yet it's the failures who spring to mind when people think about marijuana, mainly because they're conspicuous. They call attention to themselves through excessive, ostentatious indulgence that gets them into trouble at school and work. Responsible users, by contrast, have something to lose and therefore tend to be circumspect. As a pot-smoking MBA in his mid-30s put it, "If I had to staple it to my resume, I wouldn't get any jobs." Others worry about losing professional licenses or about negative reactions from relatives or acquaintances. The upshot is that the most noticeable pot smokers, who tend to be the most dysfunctional, are the ones who come to represent the whole class in the public mind. Well-adjusted, high-achieving pot smokers tend to keep their drug use private, so they're not even recognized as marijuana users -- unless, like Peter Lewis, they happen to get arrested. More generally, people who use illegal drugs in a controlled, inconspicuous way are not inclined to stand up and announce the fact. Prohibition renders them invisible, because they fear the legal, social and economic consequences of speaking up. The illegal drug users who register with the general public are the ones who get into trouble or make a nuisance of themselves. We see the drug users who get hauled away by the police, who nod off in doorways and on park benches, who beg on the street or break into cars. We do not see the drug users who hold down a job, pay the rent or the mortgage, and support a family. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, people naturally assume that most illegal drug users are like the ones they notice, who are apt to be the least discreet and the most anti-social. This is like assuming that the wino passed out in the gutter is a typical drinker. In my book, "Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use," I try to correct this kind of misperception by describing people who lead responsible, productive, fulfilling lives despite their politically incorrect choice of intoxicants. These people include: Snipped: Complete Article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/15/IN273583.DTL Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: Jacob SullumPublished: Sunday, June 15, 2003 Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Chronicle - Page D - 1 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles & Web Site:Ed Rosenthal's Pictures & Articles http://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htm'Guru of Ganja' Sees Cracks Developing in Lawshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16597.shtmlReefer Madness: Our Current Prohibitionhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16587.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #3 posted by FoM on June 15, 2003 at 11:36:09 PT Thanks ekim I'll make sure I watch it! [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by ekim on June 15, 2003 at 09:27:21 PT Reminder C-Span 8et Reffer Madness Booknotes will talk to Eric Scholessor about his book Reffer Madness. I called C-Span today they were talking about Howard Dean I was the last caller -- I asked the reporter that was doing the talking about Mr Dean how Canada and ten States have voted for MMJ and would he change his stance on the issue -- the reporter MR Hemmingway said that Mr Dean has been dragged kicking into the issue of methadone and thought he has asked for more studies on the Med issue of marijuana.---For me that is not good enought if Mr Dean wants the people to believe that he is for civil rights then he better start acting like that. The reporter said that Mr Dean is for civil unions for the Gay community especially now that Canada has moved in this direction. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo MD on June 15, 2003 at 07:39:05 PT: The Rest-- -- A pioneering software designer in his 50s who smoked marijuana nearly every day for about 15 years, generally taking a puff or two in the evening while reading the paper or drinking a glass of wine. -- A neuroscientist in his late 20s who uses LSD and other psychedelics to gain self-insight and take stock of his life. -- A retired professor who calls MDMA (a.k.a. ecstasy) "wonderful" for achieving "a kind of spiritual intimacy, a loving relationship, an openness to dialogue that nothing else can quite match." -- A marketing specialist in her 20s who used to crush and snort Ritalin in college "when I had a lot of reading to do, I had slacked off on my schoolwork, and I had a big final coming up." -- A factory production manager in his 50s who snorted cocaine around 100 times at parties and found that "it gave a very pleasant high," helped him think, and made him more talkative. -- A horticulturist in his 40s who takes morphine pills at the end of the week as a way of unwinding and relieving the aches and pains from the hard manual labor required by his landscaping business. -- A social worker in her 50s who uses heroin from time to time as a complement to rest and relaxation. Survey data indicate that people like these are far more typical of illegal drug users than are the aimless potheads, thieving junkies and murderous speed freaks who populate anti-drug ads, TV shows and movies. Only a small minority of people who take illegal drugs are heavy users. This is true not only of marijuana but of such reputedly powerful substances as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. Surveys that ask about drug-related problems -- for example, financial strain, impaired health, difficulty using the drug in moderation, trouble at work or home -- likewise find that, as with alcohol, only a small minority of users have habits that seriously disrupt their lives. According to the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (the very name of which reflects the government's refusal to acknowledge the distinction between use and abuse), something like 94 million Americans, more than two- fifths of the population over age 12, have used illegal drugs. More than 12 percent -- 28 million or so -- have used them in the last year. Marijuana is by far the most popular prohibited intoxicant, consumed by three-quarters of illegal drug users in the last year, compared to less than 2 percent who took heroin. Around 12 percent of the people who use marijuana in a given year, and about 3 percent of those who have ever tried it, report smoking it on 300 or more days in the previous year. Even this level of use does not necessarily signify a problem, since daily users include people who smoke a little marijuana in the evening, in much the same way as others might enjoy a beer or a cocktail, as well as people who are stoned all the time. Of the 28 million Americans who have used cocaine, only about 1.7 million, or 6 percent, have used it in the last month. For crack, said to be more addictive than cocaine powder, the percentage is about the same. In a 1993 survey of young adults, only 7 percent of past-month cocaine users were taking the drug every day. The picture is similar for users of prescription-type stimulants generally and methamphetamine in particular: Only a small percentage have used them in the last month, and only a small percentage of past-month users take them every day. Likewise, the vast majority of heroin users could not reasonably be described as addicts. The household survey indicates that about 3 million Americans have used heroin, 15 percent of them in the last year and 4 percent in the last month. These numbers suggest that the vast majority of heroin users either never become addicted or, if they do, manage to give the drug up. A 2002 survey of high school seniors found that 1 percent had used heroin in the previous year, while 0.1 percent had used it on 20 or more days in the previous month. That finding jibes with a 1976 study by the drug researchers Leon G. Hunt and Carl D. Chambers, who estimated there were 3 or 4 million heroin users in the United States, perhaps 10 percent of them addicts. During the last few decades, researchers such as Norman Zinberg at Harvard and Craig Reinarman at UC Santa Cruz have investigated how people manage to use drugs in a controlled way. Zinberg emphasized the importance of "set and setting" -- the user's personality, expectations and emotional state, coupled with the physical, social and cultural environment -- in shaping a drug's perceived effects. He drew attention to rules about how, when, where and with whom drugs are used. Reinarman and his colleagues found that "a stake in conventional life" -- work and relationships that the user does not want to jeopardize -- helps keep drug consumption under control. My conversations with controlled drug users confirmed these insights. They generally follow rules that limit their drug use to certain occasions or circumstances: never at work, only at the end of the week, never when depressed, only with friends, and so on. They use drugs for particular purposes. To relax, to socialize, to promote creativity or self-insight, to boost concentration or ward off sleep, to enhance music, movies, food, sex or a walk in the park. They do not use drugs constantly for the same reason most drinkers do not choose to be drunk constantly: They have other things to do. Without much trouble, they manage to balance drug use with other activities they value and enjoy. The fact that responsible drug use is not only possible but typical has important implications for the drug policy debate. Honest supporters of the drug laws have to acknowledge that the case for prohibition rests on a morally questionable premise: that it's acceptable to punish one group of people for the sins of another -- in this case, that the majority of drug users, who do not harm others or even themselves, should suffer because of a minority's failure to exercise self-control. The drug laws can be defended only in the way that alcohol prohibition might have been defended by someone who acknowledged that the typical drinker was not an alcoholic: by claiming that the burden imposed on the innocent majority is justified by the harm that a minority would otherwise cause to themselves and others. Such a policy will strike many people as fundamentally unjust. Certainly it seemed that way to Clarence Darrow. "Prohibition," the renowned attorney remarked, "is an outrageous and senseless invasion of the personal liberty of millions of intelligent and temperate persons who see nothing dangerous or immoral in the moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages." Temperate users of other drugs have at least as much cause to be outraged. Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason, is the author of "Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use" (Tarcher/Putnam). [ Post Comment ] Post Comment