Today people in the state of Michigan will find the ballot measure Proposition 1 when they step into the voting booth. This concerns the legalization of medical marijuana. I don’t live in Michigan and will not suggest how they should vote, but I support this measure based on simple facts. It would benefit our nation, not just the state of Michigan.
For those of you conjuring an image of me as a longhaired Berkley-ite hippy traipsing about with flowers in my hair singing folk songs, I applaud your originality, but truth is stranger than fiction. I have short hair, I live in Texas and for the record, I have never nor do I ever plan on using marijuana. I also abstain from alcohol tobacco, and any other harmful and addictive substance. That is a personal choice based on my health and moral values. I also, in no way endorse their use. So on what paradoxical conundrum do I support proposition 1? None of the arguments against this particular weed stand scrutiny.
The first fallacy is that Marijuana as a harmful drug. It is true that smoking pot is far from intelligent, but looking at statistics it is far less of a danger than many legal substances sanctioned and subsidized by our Federal government. According to the CDC there are approximately 440,000 annual deaths each year that are smoking-associated within the USA. That figure is 1.2 million deaths in Europe according to the European Heart Network. The WHO states that smoking is estimated to cause 10 million deaths per year worldwide by 2020. Those are grim butchers bills for a legal substance sanctioned by our government.
How about Alcohol? Over than 100,000 deaths in the U.S. are caused by excessive alcohol use annually. Causes of death are direct and indirect. They include drunk driving, falls, cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, and stroke. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse states that Alcohol kills 6½ times more youth than all other illicit drugs combined. Once again, a very bleak substance that is lethal to thousands yearly.
So naturally, in order to merit illegality, marijuana must have catastrophic figures representing an epidemic of death and dismemberment. The truth is far different. The US Drug Abuse Warning Network states that ”An exhaustive search of the literature finds no credible reports of deaths induced by marijuana. (DAWN) records instances of drug mentions in medical examiners' reports, and though marijuana is mentioned, it is usually in combination with alcohol or other drugs. Marijuana alone has not been shown to cause an overdose death.” So once again, in case you missed it that number was zero. Cigarettes kill 440,000 Alcohol kills 100,000 and the nefarious cannabis kills 0. Which one do you think should be illegal?
The next argument is that marijuana is a terrible gateway drug that leads to harder substances like heroin or cocaine. Once again lets look at the facts. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Youth who drink alcohol are 50 times more likely to use cocaine than those who never drink alcohol. Similar statistics could be said of cigarettes. We could infer that experimentation of stimulants of any kind in some instances leads to curiosity about more dangerous ones. However, a 12-year University of Pittsburgh study alleges that marijuana is not a “gateway” drug or that it predicts or eventually leads to substance abuse. Again, tobacco and alcohol seem to be greater proliferates of hard drugs.
The issue that marijuana is associated with criminal behavior and violence is actually a case for its legalization. The prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s created an environment in which organized crime thrived. Upon its repeal all crime related to alcohol trafficking naturally ceased and along with it all the liquor wars fought between gangs.
There is a financial toll levied by our drug laws. The FBI statistics show that arrests for marijuana possession -- not sales or trafficking, just possession -- totaled 738,916. By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined. Those 738,916 people would not be burdening our criminal justice system if we legalized marijuana. It is estimated that in California alone marijuana related offenses cost the state over $100 million dollars annually.
Further statistics indicate the cost of our drug war at $42 billion. This figure comes to us according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. Our current marijuana laws cost us $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. This astronomical cost could completely avoided if we realized that this drug is far less dangerous than its legal counter parts.
The moral argument is more abstract than others that can be assailed with statistics. It is clear, however that we are duplicitous in regard to concerns over health. Our misguided hypocrisy clearly favors industries with lobbying power in our legislative branch. Still doesn’t legalizing marijuana seem to send a mixed signal to our youth if we don’t want them experimenting? I affirm that this is a moot argument. We as parents should be actively engaged in teaching our children about the dangers that exists in the world regardless of what our government thinks. We should stop having our government legislate morality and make sure that it’s addressed in under our own roofs rather than under the rotunda. I don’t want my family constrained under someone else’s morality, and neither should you.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
People Be Heard!
I am glad to say that I voted early and avoided the long lines at this historic moment in time. As you might have guess I did not vote for the good senator from Arizona, I also didn't vote for "that one" ( the glib McCain reference to the honorable Senator Barack Obama). I took Dr. Ron Paul's advice and went third party! Unfortunately there really was no organized movement behind a singular candidate and our tiny voice will be crushed if not all together ignored by the greater public. Oh well, I still let my diminutive whisper float into the torrent of the shouting amongst the Dumbpublicans or the Repuliscrats. I suggest you do the same, VOTE!
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Once and Former Republican
As the eight-year catastrophe of the Bush administration rides with their patented willful obliviousness into the hazy sunset; it is advantageous to remember that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
Eight years past, I found myself impassioned for the idea of a smaller less intrusive government. This was seemingly echoed in the rhetoric of George Bush's overall platform in 2000. His critique of President Clinton's involvement in nation building in Serbia and Bosnia resonated with my desire for America to focus on America. The cries for fiscal conservatism and prudent government spending looked like the responsible course of action. His apparent straight forward language, although rustic, appeared genuine; as if honesty could find it's long lost way to the steps of the white house. He appeared to cherish the constitution and planned to uphold the true ideals of democracy. Naturally this registered Republican voted in his very first election for the man from Texas. After the dust had settled over the long and arduous electoral battle, he reign victorious, and the rest is history. We stayed out of world conflicts and wisely invested our money on our own failing schools, roads and bridges. We respected the constitution and reduced the wasteful spending on the federal level then reveled in the financial benefits that made us all prosperous. Well, it would have been nice.
Now, I sit in mystified bewilderment. What happened to all the promises and talking points? Today the Executive Branch enjoys power never before extended to the branch. They have made precedents for disregarding the constitution and civil liberties of American citizens. They've condoned torture, lied to their own party members to engage in a foolish war, and wildly spent taxpayer money on thinly veiled imperialist endeavors that would make some mild dictators cringe. This doesn't even begin to mention the doubling of the national debt since Clinton, and the recent nationalizing of banks complete with billions of dollars for them to horde as they please. This president has done more to increase the size, spending, and debt of this government than any executive in the recent past, without leaving us with reasonable positive results. We are much closer to becoming a socialist state because of this "conservative" president. In short everything they have done is almost the exact opposite of what they promised.
Vote for us, were conservatives! ( muffled laughter erupts)
So the question then becomes who abandoned whom. I find that my ideas on the free market and small government have not changed. I still oppose expanding our international empire while ignoring our own failing infrastructure to be reprehensible. I think nationalizing banks is not only a temporary band-aid but also an example of the incompetence of this administration and it's party. So, if this system operated under any semblance of the laws of reason and logic, I would still be a conservative, but Bush wouldn't be. I feel like Don Quixote the seeming lunatic in a story full of real ones. Speaking of that...
The good Senator from Arizona has adopted all of those wonderful hollow promises once uttered by the current President. He must have found them in a waste bin somewhere on Pennsylvania Avenue. Commitments of reduced government spending plume like billowing clouds of promise from the Senators aged lips. Staunch orations of smaller government and hunting down of pork barrels, fills every last sound bite. Yet the simple truth is they will continue the standard operating procedures of the last occupant of the oval office. This serves to color me somewhat skeptical. Not withstanding the emphatic rejection that Sen. McCain is a carbon copy of George Bush, his current line of policy proposals serve to only perpetuate the unreasonable abandon of reality that holds Washington like vice. So, should I vote for McCain? Well, Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, uh well uh you can't fool me again.
Eight years past, I found myself impassioned for the idea of a smaller less intrusive government. This was seemingly echoed in the rhetoric of George Bush's overall platform in 2000. His critique of President Clinton's involvement in nation building in Serbia and Bosnia resonated with my desire for America to focus on America. The cries for fiscal conservatism and prudent government spending looked like the responsible course of action. His apparent straight forward language, although rustic, appeared genuine; as if honesty could find it's long lost way to the steps of the white house. He appeared to cherish the constitution and planned to uphold the true ideals of democracy. Naturally this registered Republican voted in his very first election for the man from Texas. After the dust had settled over the long and arduous electoral battle, he reign victorious, and the rest is history. We stayed out of world conflicts and wisely invested our money on our own failing schools, roads and bridges. We respected the constitution and reduced the wasteful spending on the federal level then reveled in the financial benefits that made us all prosperous. Well, it would have been nice.
Now, I sit in mystified bewilderment. What happened to all the promises and talking points? Today the Executive Branch enjoys power never before extended to the branch. They have made precedents for disregarding the constitution and civil liberties of American citizens. They've condoned torture, lied to their own party members to engage in a foolish war, and wildly spent taxpayer money on thinly veiled imperialist endeavors that would make some mild dictators cringe. This doesn't even begin to mention the doubling of the national debt since Clinton, and the recent nationalizing of banks complete with billions of dollars for them to horde as they please. This president has done more to increase the size, spending, and debt of this government than any executive in the recent past, without leaving us with reasonable positive results. We are much closer to becoming a socialist state because of this "conservative" president. In short everything they have done is almost the exact opposite of what they promised.
Vote for us, were conservatives! ( muffled laughter erupts)
So the question then becomes who abandoned whom. I find that my ideas on the free market and small government have not changed. I still oppose expanding our international empire while ignoring our own failing infrastructure to be reprehensible. I think nationalizing banks is not only a temporary band-aid but also an example of the incompetence of this administration and it's party. So, if this system operated under any semblance of the laws of reason and logic, I would still be a conservative, but Bush wouldn't be. I feel like Don Quixote the seeming lunatic in a story full of real ones. Speaking of that...
The good Senator from Arizona has adopted all of those wonderful hollow promises once uttered by the current President. He must have found them in a waste bin somewhere on Pennsylvania Avenue. Commitments of reduced government spending plume like billowing clouds of promise from the Senators aged lips. Staunch orations of smaller government and hunting down of pork barrels, fills every last sound bite. Yet the simple truth is they will continue the standard operating procedures of the last occupant of the oval office. This serves to color me somewhat skeptical. Not withstanding the emphatic rejection that Sen. McCain is a carbon copy of George Bush, his current line of policy proposals serve to only perpetuate the unreasonable abandon of reality that holds Washington like vice. So, should I vote for McCain? Well, Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, uh well uh you can't fool me again.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Shut off your TV and read a book!
Recently I've had the dubious pleasure of having access to cable once again. I spent several years without the amenity. I have to say that I didn't pine for it during it's absence. Now that it's returned I find myself drawn as a moth is to the flame. I suppose there was something in my generation that swapped the warm glow of the hearth with the blue flicker of the idiot box. It made us feel comfortable. I can't say that my comfort can be sustained much longer by this strain of media. I will openly admit that there are many entertainment programs that I profusely enjoy. That being said, utilizing the television for your primary source of information is a severe error in judgment. The Walter Cronkites and Edward R. Murrows have long left us to be prayed upon by the ringmasters of infotainment. News has become a circus with flying snappy graphics, theatrical music, Ken dolls and most damaging of all, half informed attempts at transmitting facts and informed opinions.
The obvious culprit is Fox News, but the blame should not be placed with them alone. CNN and MSNBC also share in the ridiculous antics that have become what Americans have come to accept as reputable news. We focus on the fact that Fox is too Right wing or that CNN or MSNBC is too far to the left. These are essentially non-issues when confronted with the fact that these stations invest their time and effort into making the news a veritable orgy of exploding logos and bellicose arguing guests. It's no longer a healthy debate, it's a boxing match that doesn't require pay per view. The defense to this new trendy style of news is that Americans have shorter attention spans and perhaps the unwillingness to utilize their centers for reason. They want the short sound bit that's quick crisp and delivered by a sharp suited beau with perfect teeth. The problem with that is issues are almost never simple, that's why they are called issues. Abortion, the Iraq War, the Economy, and a long list of other important issues are complex and deserve to be studied and carefully analyzed. To simplify them into absolutes is not only wrong but an insult to rational human thought.
The obvious culprit is Fox News, but the blame should not be placed with them alone. CNN and MSNBC also share in the ridiculous antics that have become what Americans have come to accept as reputable news. We focus on the fact that Fox is too Right wing or that CNN or MSNBC is too far to the left. These are essentially non-issues when confronted with the fact that these stations invest their time and effort into making the news a veritable orgy of exploding logos and bellicose arguing guests. It's no longer a healthy debate, it's a boxing match that doesn't require pay per view. The defense to this new trendy style of news is that Americans have shorter attention spans and perhaps the unwillingness to utilize their centers for reason. They want the short sound bit that's quick crisp and delivered by a sharp suited beau with perfect teeth. The problem with that is issues are almost never simple, that's why they are called issues. Abortion, the Iraq War, the Economy, and a long list of other important issues are complex and deserve to be studied and carefully analyzed. To simplify them into absolutes is not only wrong but an insult to rational human thought.
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