cannabisnews.com: Medical Marijuana a Step Toward Reforms










  Medical Marijuana a Step Toward Reforms

Posted by CN Staff on December 02, 2004 at 23:25:18 PT
By Jonathan McGlumphy, Columnist 
Source: Collegiate Times 

The consideration of state medical marijuana laws versus federal anti-drug laws by the United States Supreme Court has sparked nationwide debate on the subject. The arguments by the federal government on the issue of medical marijuana are merely a subset of our national drug policy as a whole, which sounds something like this: Drugs are bad. If you do drugs, you’re bad, and you should be punished.
I have long opposed the War on Drugs as a matter of principle. You, as an adult, have the right to do whatever you wish to your own body so long as you are not harming someone else; you should be held fully responsible for the consequences if you misuse your substance of choice.Unfortunately, we live in a country with two predominant mentalities that cannot seem to accept this simple premise. I’ll call them the “red” and “blue” points of view. The reds are against it because it’s immoral or some other such quasi-religious nonsense. The blues are against it because they cannot accept the idea of individual responsibility and accountability for one’s own actions. Tossing principle aside for the moment, I’ll make some practical arguments against the War on Drugs.First, it’s not accomplishing its intended goal. After spending $25 billion over the past 25 years, the amount of illicit drugs available in the United States has not been reduced by one iota. So, if nothing else, we’ve been throwing money into a bottomless pit.The United States now has a prison population of over 2 million people (hardly the mark of a free society), with nearly one-quarter of that being drug offenders. Don’t get me wrong, if you commit a violent crime, you should be locked up, but too often it is the nonviolent user or low-level dealer that is arrested, prosecuted and sent to jail. As an example, in 2000 over 700,000 people were arrested in the United States for “simple possession” of marijuana. Could we not have better used the police and judicial resources to deal with more of the muggers, rapists and murderers?I know what some of you may be thinking: “Drugs cause crime.”Wrong. The anti-drug laws create an environment that encourages crime. In exactly the same manner that Prohibition gave rise to gang violence over the control of liquor, the War on Drugs fosters a black market that is dominated by whoever is willing to take the biggest risk. And because it is a black market (indirectly created by our government), the payoffs are very high.You don’t see Jack Daniel’s sending pushers into schools, do you? Or maybe Philip Morris shooting it out with R.J. Reynolds? Of course not, because they are engaged in a legal trade where their products can be sold in stores and regulated to be kept out of the hands of youngsters. Sure, a few will slip through the cracks, but it’s a lot easier to get marijuana in schools than it is to get alcohol. Why?Because the people who deal drugs are automatically criminals, thus they don’t care about the age of their users. I’d rather see cocaine on the shelf at Wal-Mart where you get identified than hear of another child killed by gunfire over drug territory in the inner cities.Speaking of the inner city, let me point out what the War on Drugs really is: racist. According to a 1998 Federal Housing survey, 15 percent of illicit drug users were black, yet blacks comprise almost 58 percent of those in state prisons for drug felonies. That aside, if a white man and a black man walk into a court room for the same drug charge, and they have identical records, who do you think is going to get the better treatment?I could go on about the egregious violations of our Fourth Amendment rights due to car searches, “no-knock” home raids and drug tests, but I think the message is clear: The War on Drugs is a failure on all fronts and needs to end.We need to stop treating drugs as a criminal problem and start treating them as a health problem. Many users have few difficulties associated with their substance of choice, and those that do should not live in fear of prosecution just because they legitimately need help.I recognize that we cannot make the necessary changes overnight, but the legal use of medical marijuana is a step in the right direction toward sensible drug policy. May good sense and compassion prevail in the Supreme Court.Source: Collegiate Times (VA)Author: Jonathan McGlumphy, ColumnistPublished: December 03, 2004Copyright: 2004 Collegiate Times Contact: comments collegiatetimes.com Website: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:Angel Raich v. Ashcroft Newshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/raich.htmOur Right To Be Free from Painhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19954.shtmlSupreme Court Looks at Medical Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19952.shtmlMed Marijuana Case Tests Limits of Federalismhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread19951.shtml 

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