It may be time to legalize marijuana,
and California may lead the way.
The humble weed was legal in this country until the late 1930’s. It was at about that time that the hemp fibers from the weed were growing in popularity for commercial purposes including the manufacture of paper, petroleum and pharmaceuticals, among others.
At that time there were other powerful business men like William Hearst and the DuPont Brothers who had a vested interest in squelching any interest in developing hemp products. Hearst was a powerful newspaper tycoon and the DuPonts just got a patent for making paper out of wood pulp. Those fellow aligned with Mellon of Banking fame and together they persuaded the director of the Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger, that something needed to be done. Anslinger had a special hatred for jazz musicians and he later testified that use of marijuana caused people to go crazy and get violent.
Interestingly, as time passed and more qualified experts rebuked Anslinger’s position, he admitted that the drug probably did not lead to insanity or violent crimes after all. Then he made another irresponsible statement suggesting that smoking pot leads to the use of opium.
Around that time, the classic movie Refer Madness was produced and concepts like “gateway drug” were popularized. If you would like more background information, you might find the following article to be very compelling. http://www.iahushua.com/Hemp.html
Another interesting dynamic was taking hold in our society in those same years: namely Mexicans and other minorities used marijuana as an intoxicant, just as alcohol was used by many Americans. But some government officials saw the drug as a means to suppress and control these people. This article will fill you in on some of the details.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/interviews/schlosser.html
(In that article, you’ll also read about some of the ridiculous penalties that have been imposed on “drug criminals” For instance, “In the state of California, the average prison sentence for a convicted killer is about 3.3 years…. But under federal law, you can get the death sentence for a first-time marijuana offense even if there's no violence involved.”)
As all of these false reports were swirling around, Marijuana was declared illegal in 1937 and those laws are still draining our society of opportunities. At this time, the drug runners aren’t the only ones who gain by keeping the drug illegal. So does our criminal justice system, and companies that produce products that are threatened by competition from hemp products, such as the manufacture of paper.
But given the current economic conditions people are beginning to rethink the powerful opportunities that might be unleashed by reversing some old biases. These ideas are not new but they seem to be gaining in popularity right now. However, whenever such ideas start to gain legs, the same old tired opposition resurfaces. One such recent article is making its rounds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/fashion/19pot.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&pagewanted=all
I don’t know if anything new will come from current discussions but it will be interesting. Those who have a vested interest in keeping drugs illegal (law enforcement, counselors, rehab centers, organized crime, lumber companies, oil companies, and drug companies who profit from other, more expensive drugs) have always told stories like this.
Meanwhile millions of consumers and other people would rather live with the problems of legalizing it than the problems we have by keeping it illegal. Speaking for myself, I am tired of gangs and border thugs exploiting the drug and its consumers as a means to fund all of their criminal activities. Legalizing it would cut back or eliminate drug running, violence, and illnesses from tainted products plus crowed courts and jails. In the mean time criminals get rich and we turn otherwise good citizens into criminals.
Since marijuana is essentially a weed, it could be grown much cheaper than tobacco as an example, and by making it more affordable there would be fewer people turning to burglaries and other crimes to get some of it.
Many Greenies love Maryjane as a bio-fuel.
I will freely admit that legalizing it would lead a few people to try it who would not if it was kept illegal and that some of them will have problems such as the lady cited in the last article, but those people already exist and we have treatments for them. Their lives certainly matter but so do the lives of the people who would benefit by reversing past foolishness; and that means everybody else. This is clearly a “greater good” issue.
As far as California is concerned, I have heard it said that legalizing marijuana and taxing it as we do cigarettes, alcohol and gasoline could single-handedly solve all of their financial woes. I suspect the same is true of our national economy.
But somebody (the President, the media, the Secretary of Agriculture, etc) needs to have the back bone to seriously talk about it.
What about you? Would you like to see stricter laws and more enforcement or leave things about the way they are or more freedoms even if that means a new set of problems?
Why?
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9 comments:
You know, I have over the many years, debated this, thought on it and laughed about it with friends. I say laugh about it because my back up plan to job loss, zombies, collapse of American government, insert disaster here, is to retire with some close friends/family to a trailer in the hills of Tenesse/Arkansas and be a hillbilly pot grower. While this is more a funny fantasy shared amongst friends there are some many truths to its potential. I firmly believe that the N.W.O. exists and is actively seeking to make a world economy. Its also interesting to find that known members of the masons (DuPont and Mellon)who are closely associated with NWO rumours, were even at this time in our country shaping us to financialy screwed and dependent on those other Masons products and services. Also interesting that Mellon and his wife were major share holders of the Guiness Brewing company? I do not think America will legalize Marijuana for the simple fact that for the NWO's agenda to succeed of creating a one world slavery pool, i mean economy, American and Canada have to become closer to Mexico's economic level and right now, we are on the right track. All they have to do is teach Americans not to care, just like the Mexican government has done to it's people for over 200 years and viola the NWO has succeeded. We are on the road to slavery folks, its that simple.
When I first went to Alaska in the early 70's posession of less than 3 ounces of Marijuana for personal use was legal. In the summer it was not too unusual to pull up to a traffic light with your windows down and smell that distinctive aroma. Occasionally an entire cloud would be emitted from a vehicle in a kind of Cheech and Chong moment.
The ability to possess for personal use continued until sometime in the mid 90's I think when then Bill Bennet ,in what ever Federal post he held at the time noticed the incongruity between state and federal statues and essentially blackmailed Alaska into repealing the personal possesion law by threating to remove a great deal of Federal funding from the state.
The alcohol industry must have a great deal at stake in keeping another competitor out of their leisure time market and certainly must have the funds to influence legislation.
What if all the money spent on enforcing marijuana laws was redirected into ,oh say white collar crime for instance. How much of the current economic collapse would have been averted,particularly the Bernie Madoff style of Ponzi scheme. I guess the only thing that really annoys me is that I always seem to hear about the Ponzi/multilevel marketing schemes well after the train has departed. Therefore I want either better enforcement or earlier information.
But I digress.
Have you ever driven through rural Kansas or Missouri and noticed all the wild pot by the road side? I have not since the early 70's but I suppose it is still there and the amazing thing to me is how big these untended plants get in a single growing season. 10ft. is quite usual and the amount of biomass per acre is huge. The biomass ,so I have read in an infamous book titled something like, The Emporer Has No Clothes, on a per acre basis can approach 20 tons and is more efficiently converted into ethanol than corn. That would of course threaten AMD, Monsanto and the other large agribusiness entities so one can start to detect a pattern of vested interest acting to surpress competition.
Marijuana prohibition is just one more example of something that is so useful but unpattentable(not that there aren't patenable processes that have been surpressed)that it has to be surpressed to keep big business, big. We just can't have nature running wild and putting huge bonus's on the line.
I think all of those reasons are valid enough reasons to legalize it. Each one on its own basis is powerful enough to overcome all of the reasons for it to remain unlawful.
Most importantly though, I think it is just one more example of our representative government failing to represent the people that provide it its' power and authority. As Uncle Dave points out, the politicians were more interested in representing a few big business interests than they were in representing the citizens. Unfortunately, as typically happens, the result is a loss of freedom suffered not by the politicians and industrial magnates, but suffered by the people whose inalienable rights are justly supreme. It should not be an issue of rejoicing for the restoration of our rights, it should be an issue of condemnation of extended withholding of them.
Now, I agree with those that say the Constitution doesn't explicitly afford the right to smoke pot. The Constitution was not intended to provide the people with rights and freedom. The Declaration of Independence is what declares what it means to be free. The Constitution is a document that lays the foundation, execution, and the limitations of a government. The Bill of Rights does not provide any rights to the citizens; the citizens be nature of being alive have those rights. The Bill of Rights aggressively restricts the power of the government, easily understood by reading its preamble. It would have been more appropriate to call it The Bill of Government Restrictions. By the intent of the Founding Fathers, the constitution does not need to list all of the rights and freedoms of the people. Whatever power is not explicitly given to the government is implicitly the inalienable right of the citizenry. The Congress does have the power to enact laws to protect the well being and security of people, but it is hard to argue that marijuana being illegal has helped much, if any.
What I find very interesting is the people who argue that legalizing marijuana would be a great idea because of all the tax revenue that it would generate. To me that is essentially telling the government that it is okay to be charging us for our FREEdom. Why should we allow them to tax what should be and should have always been our lawful right. Would you allow the government to charge you to speak your mind? Would you allow them to charge you for the right to not have soldiers use your house as barracks? Would you allow them to charge you to not have your house searched and your property seized without a warrant? How many of your rights are you willing to be charged and taxed to retain?
Two additional thoughts after reading these great replys:
1.) Foley, its interesting to me that you mention the more rural states where MJ grows naturally. This is interesting because 5 or more years ago, I read a great article on what the gov. was then calling "slash and burn" missions that are carried out by military personal still stationed in the states. Esentially there are millitary task forces setup to spend the summer traveling around rural America, hunting down wild pot crops (and planted) and then torching them. They estimated at the time of the article that they burn around 100 billion worth of dope in a summer. The sergent that gave the interview to the magazine mentioned that the buds are frequently larger than a cantalope and when plucked the juice runs down the arm. So why is it that the gov. sees fit to spend 100s of millions of dollars rounding up stray weeds? And why cant they kill the damn dandelions in the city owned ditch across from my house?
2.) Justin, those are some brilliant comments! I think it is interesting how far as a country we have come to behaving like children. I see this more now that I am a parent and as soon as I describe the situation you will too. The child wants something, so they come to the parent and they bargain, "Mom, I will play outside all week if you buy me that video game." I feel like as a collecitve group thats what Americans do as well. We go to the people we should have power over and beg and plead and trade one freedom for another to get our way.
All that said, I have thought for a long time that what the majority of America sees as far as "politics" goes is a giant smoke screen, something to entertain the eye, like at a carnival, while the midgets go through the crowd and pick everyones pockets.
abortion, gay marriage, legalizing pot, wars, whatever it takes, look over here at my right hand so I can clean out your pockets with my left. My point here is that I have very little faith left that no matter what these great papers were orriginally stated to say or that there were people alive that new them and understood them and believed in them, they were always set in place to give the appearance of control and freedom. They are, to steal from hollywood, our own personally American matrix. Our government for many many years, has had a real good time of saying it does one thing, like operating under the constitution, the bill of rights and for our best interests as its citizens and doing something completely oppisite or at least different. And because we dont/cant question them, we dont know better. Talk about a ponzi game being played, the goverment is the greatest ongoing game ever, you will pay it money until the day you die, and then your death will be taxed as well and for what gain and to what end?
Pot has one major drawback. It's not potent enough to kill with an overdose. We need to legalize cocaine, meth, heroin, morphine and all the other good stuff so the morons that would contaminate their bodies with that crap will self-terminate. That's less people to tax, but would relieve some of the entitlement burdens.
While I agree with most everything that has been said, I do tend to think that my generation is apathetic enough without adding more drugs to the mixture...
Add tot he mixture? They are in the "mixture" now. Do you think there are a substantial number of people in your generation who avoid the drug now, but who would be willing to indulge if it was legal?
Thanks for posting such an interesting historical summary, Dave. There is so much mis-information out there about all drugs, legal or not. I just heard an interesting point recently - Americans are rushing to medicate their children for ailments that are a normal part of childhood - feeling down, being stressed, and being a kid with a short attention span (read: depression, ADHD). I'm not saying there aren't kids legitimately in need of medications for legitimate ailments. However, we medicate kids so much now (twice as much than 10 years ago) and still grow puzzled when they start using illegal drugs.
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