A Case for Mary Jane

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.