Pass Joints, Not Bucks
06.07.2005Paul Krassner
States' rights -- it's not just for racists any more.
Just as we now consider barbaric the tradition of human sacrifice by priests at the ancient Inca temples who cut the hearts out of their own innocent worshippers, anthropologists of the future will surely declare that the Supreme Court’s decision on medical marijuana was incredibly inhumane. The war on drugs is really a war on some people who use some drugs.
Last year, the White House anti-drug campaign spent $170 million on insidious propaganda, working closely with the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which was founded and funded by tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceutical companies. Prescription drugs annually take 100,000 lives across the nation, but as long as any government can arbitrarily decide which drugs are legal and which drugs are illegal, then all those individuals who serve time behind bars for illegal drugs are actually political prisoners.
According to Dr. James West, outpatient medical director at the Betty Ford Center, “Smoking cigarettes is probably the most difficult addiction to break. Most recovering alcoholics who quit smoking will say that it was harder to quit smoking than to quit alcohol. About 70% of alcohol-dependent individuals are heavy smokers--more than one pack of cigarettes per day--compared with 10% of the population. Alcoholics eventually die from lung cancer more often than from alcohol-related causes.”
The priorities are insane. Cigarettes cause 1200 deaths every day in this country alone, not to mention 2.41 million deaths annually in the developing countries. Nearly 2,000 young people under the age of 18 become smokers every day in America. And yet, although the World Health Organization spent three years working out an agreement with 171 countries to prevent the spread of smoking-related diseases, particularly in the developing world, the United States opposed the treaty, including the minimum age of 18 for sales to minors. Around the globe, tobacco now kills almost five million people a year. Within a generation, predicts WHO, the premature death toll will reach ten million a year.
Whereas, with marijuana, the worst that can happen is maybe you'll have a severe case of the munchies and proceed to conduct a raid on your own refrigerator.
John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, stated at a press conference that surveys in 15 cities have found that more teens smoke marijuana than regular cigarettes. However, the drug czar added, “More kids are seeking treatment for marijuana dependency than all other drugs combined.” And in March 2005, Associated Press reported, “Treatment rates for marijuana nearly tripled between 1992 and 2002, the government says, attributing the increase to greater use and potency. ‘This report is a wake-up call for parents that marijuana is not a soft drug,’ said Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. ‘Its a much bigger part of the addiction problem than is generally understood.’”
But both Walters and Riley neglected to mention how many young “addicts” have sought treatment for marijuana dependency as their only option to prison.
Dennis Peron, co-author of Proposition 215 (California’s medical marijuana referendum) has said--not as a joke--that “all use of marijuana is medical.” In a Q. & A. session with the late Peter McWilliams for my book, Impolite Interviews, I asked if he agreed with Peron. McWilliams, suffering from AIDS and cancer, replied: “In the general sense thaat everything we do for our health--both curative and preventative--is medical, I’d agree. Even a perfectly healthy person who smokes pot once a month purely for its euphoric effects could be said to be doing so to prevent becoming ill, for I believe that euphoria is both healing and health-maintaining....
“Something a lot of people don’t realize is that when you smoke marijuana regularly--relief of nausea, pain (physical or emotional), spasticity, excessive eye pressure (glaucoma), and so on--but the euphoric effects go away....While I was using marijuana to treat my nausea, I can’t tell you how much I missed getting high. Although I’d smoke it several times a day, the averge high school student ws getting high more times a month than I was. That’s because after the first month, I never got high, and I really enjoy marijuana’s high. Simply put, recreational marijuana you use to get high; medical marijuana you use to get by.”
Recently, on HBO’s Real Time, Bill Maher asked Jane Fonda if Ted Turner is a pot-head. Fonda turned the question right back on Maher, who cheerfully admitted that he smokes “tons of marijuana.” So, remember when Ellen Degeneres was on the cover of Time magazine, saying, “Yep, I’m gay.” Well, now I’m waiting for Newsweek to feature Bill Maher on the cover, saying, “Yep, I’m stoned.” |
