The Road to China Begins With That Weed In Your Backyard Matt Harrison
After the Reich v. Ashcroft decision was read, John Walters, our fearless drug czar, gloated, "Today's decision marks the end of medical marijuana as a political issue...Our nation has the highest standards and most sophisticated institutions in the world for determining the safety and effectiveness of medication. Our national medical system relies on proven scientific research, not popular opinion."
It was an interesting point, in the sort of way that a Fidel Castro speech is full of interesting points.
Let's analyze. Proven scientific research? Well, presumably the Federal Government thinks highly of its own authority when it comes to proven scientific research. It is, however, the federal government who has, exclusively in scientific studies, offered the greatest evidence for reform.
"There is little proven danger of physical or psychological harm from the experimental or intermittent use of natural preparations of cannabis...Existing social and legal policy is out of proportion to the individual and social harm engendered by the drug." - National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, (The Shafer Commission), 1972
I could go on, but I figured citing the government's most comprehensive and conclusive marijuana study ever conducted would be sufficient.
More than that, Mr. Walters is engaged in a little excessively optimistic zeal. The Supreme Court's making a enforceably weak affirmation of precedent as it did cannot possibly be construed to represent any meaningful surcease for medical marijuana as a political issue.
Why's that? For one, medical marijuana laws in all states that had them are still on the books. That's right, it's still legal in California to smoke cannabis with a doctor's prescription, you concerned glaucoma patients. Assuming Mr. Walters and his special forces aren't stalking around in your backyard with binoculars while you're puffing a spliff in your living room, you just engaged in a completely legal activity at the state level.
As a matter of aside, had Alaska passed its referendum last fall on the virtual legalization of marijuana, this Supreme Court ruling would have no power to take that law off the books, either. Think about that, and Mr. Walters' assertion that medical marijuana is no longer a political issue, and you begin to see that he is slightly overestimating his victory. It's sort of like the kid who created a six-inch hole in the sandbox and later told his friends how he successfully dug to China.
Governments all over the world and throughout human history are remarkably adept at elongating their own demise. Why is marijuana decriminalization so disgusting that it is basically a non-issue in Washington and a principle with nearly no rational non-supporter outside the Beltway? It was same reason that America was able to create responsible democratic government years before our European brethren could modify their leviathans; it was the same reason that Prohibition lasted nearly a full fourteen years longer than did its justifiability. Governments move slowly.
However, when justifiability is their enemy, they always lose.
Justifiability has nothing to do with public opinion, either. Public opinion vacillates, equivocates and undulates, but justifiability is eternal. Public opinion is the myriad protests and marches on Washington; justifiability are the monuments there. Public opinion revolts sometimes are nice to read about in history books while others are public embarrassments; justifiability is permanently indexed in the civics textbooks of every American high schooler. They may merge, such as when Martin Luther King inspired his million men with the eloquent quotation of Jefferson's enumeration of human liberty, but they are different beasts.
Cannabis decriminalization is now awaiting induction into the Hall of Fame that is justifiable libertarian reform. It's opposition has dwindled from Reefer Madness and "Marihuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes" (yes, our government really said that) to the fact that even Pat Buchanan has admitted to blazing up back in the day.
Bill O'Reilly floats into my mind as a prominent political figure to whom the concept of exploitative criminalization is just too big to wrap his head around, but I don't feel the need to pollute the article by elongating the subject. However, one can read all about his inability to sail his own ship.
In other promotional news, Maryland recently passed a law reducing the maximum fine for medical patients caught with small amounts of the herb to a Lilliputian $100. That type of reform is the political equivalent of leaving your waitress seven cents as a tip. We could decriminalize it completely, but let's leave a infiniesimal fine to highlight the manifest absurdity of the situation. Nice!
Unless history is a bald-faced liar, we will win this conflict of individual and state. The government eventually acquiescence, and we can only hope that day will come soon.
Perhaps medical marijuana creates its own difficulties by its method of reform. Prohibitionists accuse medical marijuana proponents to be concealers of a political Trojan Horse. Can we deny it? The ultimate goal is legalization, in the same way that the ultimate goal of the civil unions proponent is gay marriage and the ultimate goal of the deregulation proponent is privatization.
Also, the justifications lend themselves to criticism. If we argue marijuana is an effective drug and thus should be decriminalized, the social totalitarians proudly whip out seven prescription drugs that outperform cannabis in the alleviation of most symptoms. Decriminalization proponents insist that marijuana use causes no serious long-term side effects, and then the statists rebut with obscure data about memory loss and other social ills.
Perhaps it's time that decriminalization proponents stop trying to promote cannabis as a flawless panacea and rather defend the liberty that says we have the right - not contingent upon the approval of Mr. Walters - to use a substance that affects only the individual.
Perhaps marijuana has small dangerous side effects. However, these side effects should have no more bearing on my right to engage in the activity any more than the potential to die in a flaming car crash keeps me from my right to drive a car, the potential for misuse keeps me from my right to drink, or the potential for a weakened immune system keeps me from fast food and junk food. Once upon a time in the United States, a liberty wasn't granted; it was assumed. Once upon a time in the United States, legislation wasn't prior to activity; it required absolute proof that it was necessary and proper. This beautiful Zeitgeist comprises our Constitution; it's time someone took some time to defend it.
No, I won't jump through hoops, pass tests, or satisfy prerequisites to expect freedom. I simply expect it.
It is rather amusing to watch members of Congress fumble around for their talking points statistics about how marijuana causes harm to the user. Hello, Congress. Tobacco, a substance whose relative legality is staunchly defended by you, has proven long-term effects sufficient to, well, kill five million people a year around the world. Marijuana has yet to kill one.
Quibble all you want over memory loss and reduced ambition, and then at the end of the day tell me how that is more socially dangerous than millions of coffins created by lung cancer and emphysema.
For what it's worth, I'm in favor of full freedom. If someone feels cigarettes are worth the risk, I have no sufficient moral authority to deny him that preference. At the same time, cannabis should be decriminalized. However, no matter how you feel, the hypocrisy and philosophical tergiversation is nothing short of maddening.
It's time someone woke up Washington. It's time we stand up for every individual who wants freedom as a birthright, not as a hastily gift-wrapped stocking stuffer from Uncle Sam.
The above work is the opinion of the author,
and not necessarily that of the Prometheus Institute.
