Why Drug Policy Reform?

Legalizing marajuana, a mature discussion

** Every 2 hours a teenager dies in a car wreck on our roads & highways
** Every 4 minutes there is an alcohol-related death in our country
** Every 2 minutes a rape occurs somewhere in the United States
** Every 1.5 minutes there is a tobacco-related death in America
** Every minute someone dies from a heart attack
** Every 45 seconds someone has a stroke

and get this -

** Every 36 seconds we bust a pot head in this country.

We are 33 days into the new year and our government has already spent over 3.5 BILLION on the war on drugs. . . .

. . . it is safe to assume that many, many of the offenses that the 3.5 BILLION has gone toward arresting, sentencing, and then supporting throughout the convicted pot felon’s prison stay was marijuana related. . . .

. . . even though . . . .

. . . in the 5,000 years of known use, no one has ever died from a marijuana overdose.

In a recent article, Kingsley Guy, Columnist for the Florida Sun Sentinel, suggested that California has considered great revenue-raising ideas, one of them being – can you believe it – the legalization and taxation of marijuana.

Guy then imagines how the self-anointed Florida "conservatives" would react to the idea:

"Are you nuts? We'd be turning the state over to drug-crazed, hippie, liberal, Godless reprobates. Anyone advocating such a course of action would be doing the work of the devil."

His answer to the predictable reaction of Florida conservatives? A brilliant, annotated statement:

"Those who have argued for an end to the un-winnable drug war include the late William F. Buckley, the intellectual godfather of the modern conservative movement; the late Nobelist Milton Friedman, the free-market economist whose economic thinking laid the foundation of the modern conservative movement; and George P. Shultz, Ronald Reagan's venerable secretary of State."
–Kingsley Guy, Columnist, Florida Sun Sentinel, “War on drugs: Time for Florida to legalize and tax marijuana,” January 24, 2010.

"Let's develop some sensible guidelines about how much marijuana a person can legally possess. The tax money wasted on arresting, prosecuting, imprisoning, and the forced 'treatment' of marijuana users costs the U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars every year, billions that are therefore NOT available for schools, health care, repairing our roads and bridges, and a hundred other vitally important areas. Surely no one believes that imprisoning Americans for using a plant is a better use of our limited resources than educating our children, maintaining our infrastructure, and keeping our families safe from foreign terrorists?"

"Let's put the drug dealing criminals out of business and free up our tax dollars to meet America's real needs. Let's tax and regulate marijuana, and let's let ordinary Americans grow a little marijuana in their own back yards; maybe $100 a year for a permit to grow a dozen plants. It's a win-win"

When deciding if you should support ending the prohibition on marijuana, there are definitely things to consider. One important thing to consider is that if legalized, there should be the tightest regulations imaginable, yet loose enough (for lack of a better adjective there, sorry) which allow adults of 21+ the right to purchase, be possibly licensed to grow and/or sell, and partake of marijuana legally.

I know there are many truthful claims out there about the medical benefits of marijuana, how it is less likely a person will develop lung cancer from it than from tobacco, yadda, yadda, yadda. But there are "cons" to those "pros" as well.

Take, for instance, recent findings that suggest a young person is more likely to develop schizophrenia if they begin smoking the drug at too early of an age. It has been found that teenagers who start smoking marijuana before the age of sixteen are four times more likely to become schizophrenic. A startling conclusion, but one that some of the world's top schizophrenia experts have now made public. Their research is featured in the new documentary The Downside of High.

Also, scientists' landmark efforts on determining a connection between pot and mental illness revealed that, for all young adults, smoking Mary Jane almost doubles the risk of developing recurring psychosis, paranoia, delusions, hallucinations – the main characteristics or symptoms of schizophrenia.

This documentary can be viewed Thursday, February 4, at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC News Network. I believe this is a Canadian News Channel, so if you cannot view it, you can order home copies of the documentary: mailto:info@dreamfilm.ca

I am not familiar with the price, shipping, or quantities available, but I am sure they can get that information to you.

 drugsense.org
“Letter of the Week”
By Kirk Muse

Dear Editor,
While Nebraska and many other states are trying to figure out how to close their massive budget shortfalls, the Dutch are trying to figure out what to do with their (unused, unfilled) prisons.

While the Netherlands has a total population of about 16.5 million, it has only about 12,000 prisoners. On the other hand, the United States has greater than 2,300,000 total prisoners.

If my math is correct, we in the U. S. have 18.2 fold the Dutch general population and 191.6 fold their prison population.

Why the glaring disparity? I suggest it's our drug policies.

In the Netherlands, adult citizens can use, buy and possess small amounts of marijuana without criminal sanctions. In the United States, adult citizens are subject to arrest, and jail or prison for buying, selling or possessing various amounts of marijuana.

Kirk Muse, Mesa, Arizona
Pubdate: Wed, 20 Jan 2010
Source: McCook Daily Gazette (NE)