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A chemical substance used by tens of millions is tearing at the fabric of American society. Use of this substance by citizens has had catastrophic effects including and certainly not limited to:
1- Death due to over-dosing
2- Temporary alteration of the ability of the brain to properly function
3- Reckless if not criminal behavior often leading to the deaths of others
4- Thousands of motor vehicle, boating and ATV accidents every year
5- Domestic violence
6- Destruction of families and relationships
7- Loss of work productivity; loss of job
8 – Annual economic cost to society estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars
Worse news is that this substance is legal under federal and state laws. In fact, federal and state governments make billions of dollars annually by taxing its sale.
This chemical substance is alcohol.
I’ll bet each person reading this article has been negatively affected by alcohol during the course of his/her life.
While governments do not shoulder the costs of prosecuting the use of alcohol, society shoulders the costs of its fallout. The cost to society is evident in each of the eight areas of fallout listed above. From a personal perspective, my life has been affected as well as altered by numbers 2, 5 and 6. Barely a day passes where the news doesn’t report a tragic death due directly to the involvement of alcohol. The litigation resulting from these eight effects further bogs down an already overburdened court system.
This legal substance with the fallout enumerated above can be purchased at will in any quantity by anyone over the state’s drinking age merely with ID and a credit card. Attempts to ban alcohol, a substance consumed in a myriad of forms throughout history, have failed miserably. The classic example of such futility is in the United States Constitution where the 18th Amendment banned it in 1919 and then the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th in 1933.
A different chemical substance used by tens of millions of Americans has had far fewer areas of fallout, relative to those for alcohol. I don’t know if comparative statistics are available but you don’t hear a lot about Tetrahydrocannabinols, the “active ingredient” in marijuana plants, creating the havoc wrought on society by alcohol. Look for news reports prior to 1937 when marijuana was criminalized for reports of fallout comparable to that from alcohol.
Going further back to the days of cowboys & Indians, it was the cowboys who introduced alcohol (firewater) to the Indians. Prior thereto, substances used by Indians in North, Central and
My understanding of the fear of marijuana use is that it leads to the use of “heavier” drugs like heroin, cocaine, etc. The research on this bit of fear mongering is split on whether there is chemical or psychological linkage between the two. There is no conclusive answer one way or the other. If there is conclusive research linking marijuana use with a tangible disease similar to alcoholism, I haven’t heard of it.
People needing or wanting to try drugs heavier than marijuana (or alcohol) are going to get around to them whether the pot they smoke is legal or illegal, that is if they smoke pot at all. In fact, it could be the ease of obtaining illegal pot that propels those wanting heavier illegal drugs to see illegality as less of an issue.
If/when marijuana is legalized under both federal and state laws the costs of prosecution, trial and punishment are immediately eliminated. Under federal supervision, marijuana is sold by closely regulated state stores, similar to how it alcohol is sold in many states. Price is determined by quantity and quality. Revenues are used to purchase crops from marijuana growers and, along with state and federal sin taxes, pocketed by the state and federal governments. Billions in prosecution costs are saved while billions in sales and tax revenues are pumped into state and federal budgets.
Today President Obama is in
The international trend today is toward legalization of marijuana. It may not happen in the
Look again at the list of eight. Does that sound like marijuana to you?
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1 comment:
Interesting blog. A very relevant, yet underplayed component to the issue of marijuana legalization is generational, which might well be a gamechanger. Obama, and many of his key appointees, are members of Generation Jones-—born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. Many top national commentators (from Newsweek, NBC, CNN, etc.) have spoken about the importance and relevance of GenJones as the new generation of leadership; this could be a gamechanger re. the drug issue for at least two reasons:
1) Jonesers are by far the biggest pot smokers compared to the other generations. While Boomers are associated with pot, it was only a small, albeit very visible, segment of Boomers who actually smoked pot back in the day. Govt. and independent studies show that Jonesers as teens (in the 1970s) smoked 15 to 20 times more pot than Boomers did as teens. And not only did Jonesers smoke much more grass than any other generation of teens in US history, but still today--in middle-age--smoke it a remarkable amount. The data is really striking.
2) One of the key collective personality traits consistently attributed to Jonesers is their pragmatism. This is a generation which is far likelier to put aside ideology and deal with drugs in a realistic and practical way.
If ever there was a generation of leadership open to legalizing pot, it probably is Generation Jones. And if there ever was a time that the country might be open to this change in drug laws, perhaps it’s now…given the cash infusion that taxes on legalized pot might bring to this troubled economy, coupled with the easing of the escalating drug violence in Mexico legalization would likely bring.
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