2. HEAR SOME ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF LEGALIZING POT
Now, especially for those humming "legalize it, don't criticize it" while reading this, here are the key arguments in favor of legalizing marijuana:"Compared with cigarettes and alcohol, the health risks and societal costs associated with even chronic marijuana use are mild. Yet we don't ban those items, while we deny marijuana to seriously ill people who could get a lot of relief from it. This is misguided and cruel. "
The Argument: Ever wake up feeling really hung over from a night of smoking out? Thought not. Throw in some heavy drinking, though, and you'll awake feeling like death itself (in fact, alcohol poisoning is a real risk). No one overdoses on marijuana because it has a negligible therapeutic ratio; that is, you don't have to use much to get the desired effect. Why then is one drug available from corner stores and allowed to be promoted at bowling tournaments, whereas the other you have to get from a pimply guy with a mullet you knew vaguely in high school, who hands you something dodgy-looking in a sandwich baggie? Quit the hypocrisy and make these intoxicants equally available.
Anyone familiar with pot knows about the "munchies." So, too, do people weak from AIDS and anorexia that use marijuana to put on needed weight. Cancer patients smoke pot to dispel the nausea they get from chemotherapy, and doctors recommend it for epilepsy, arthritis, migraines and glaucoma. Synthetic forms of THC such as Marinol are ineffective substitutes because they often put patients to sleep before they start to eat, which is the whole point. And administering a proper dosage is even easier: once they've smoked enough to have an appetite, or once their pain subsides, they put down the joint. The federal government should follow the lead of voters in Arizona and California and at least allow the medical use of marijuana.
The Response: We can address the availability of cigarettes and alcohol elsewhere; but surely, adding marijuana to the list of harmful substances that are legal isn't the answer.
Synthetic alternatives are available for patients with these conditions. For patients who are wasting away, we have steroids to stimulate muscle growth; megace, too, has been shown to help patients put on weight. Marinol comes in pill form so patients needn't inhale a carcinogen to make them hungry. A study by The National Institutes of Health concluded that smoking marijuana isn't more effective than regular therapies. It is wrong for doctors to have patients figure out for themselves what the correct dosage should be, especially with a drug as impure as marijuana.
"Prohibition of marijuana doesn't work. It has only spawned an enormous black market, eroded our civil rights and corrupted our justice system."
The Argument: When corn sells for a few dollars a bushel and pot goes for $70,000 a bushel, guess which one cash-strapped midwestern farmers are going to grow? Add to this the fact that you don't exactly need a green thumb to grow basic varieties of marijuana, and the choice gets even easier. Ironically, we've returned to the image of the colonial hemp farmer, though the center of the production is now also the center of the nation: Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky. Marijuana has replaced corn as America's top cash crop, and is really tough to detect tucked away in fields of corn. A legal regime that turns ordinary farmers into the worst class of offenders (growers) has something deeply wrong with it.
The war on drugs will only be won if we're willing to turn our country into a police state, and that is what these draconian laws are doing for us. Owing to a quirk in the law, someone's property can be forfeited even though he's been found innocent in a drug offense. Stiffer sentencing has meant jails overcrowded with drug offenders, forcing the early release of violent criminals - inclluding murderers - to make room for guys who've been handed mandatory life terms without the possibility of parole for their "third strike." America is now the world's greatest jailor nation, with a prison population consisting overwhelmingly of drug offenders. On average, we sentence nonviolent drug offenders to five times more jail time than those convicted of manslaughter. Judges, disgusted with these injustices, are quitting the bench. When the severity of punishment is way out of proportion with the offense, the system is corrupt.
Americans - four million regularly - use marijuana more frequently than they do all other illegal drugs combined. They are no more criminals than people who like to have a drink to relax after work.
The Response: All the drug offenders in jail shows we're doing our job properly. The stiff penalties deter would-be growers, users and traffickers. Financial advantage has never worked as a criminal defense before, and farmers who knowingly break the nation's laws are as culpable as anyone else who does so. The shift of marijuana production to the Midwest proves that our efforts against pot entering this country from Mexico worked, so now we should concentrate our resources on the heartland and reap further successes.
