Should Marijuana Be Legalized? Ethan Nadelmann Debates Stephen Baldwin
Last week California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger became the latest and most high-profile U.S. elected official to call for a debate on legalizing marijuana.
On May 12th, CBS News.com ran pro and con marijuana legalization opinion pieces by Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance and actor Stephen Baldwin.
Here is what they have to say on marijuana legalization. What do you think? Who do you support?
Make Marijuana LegalBy Ethan Nadelmann, founder, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance
Marijuana should never have been made illegal in the first place.
Ask why it was made illegal -- by many state governments and eventually the federal government during the first four decades of the past century -- and the answer cannot be found in expert medical testimony or any objective assessment of the costs and benefits of prohibiting marijuana.
In many western states, it was simply a matter of prejudice against Mexican-Americans and Mexican migrants, with whom marijuana was popularly associated. Rancid tabloid journalism also played a role, as did Reefer Madness-like propaganda and legislative testimony.
We know the result. Marijuana became dramatically more popular after its prohibition than it ever was before. Over one hundred million Americans have tried it, including the three most recent occupants of the Oval Office. Billions, perhaps tens of billions, of dollars are spent and earned illegally on it each year. Marijuana is routinely described as the first, second or third most lucrative agricultural crop in many states. And taxpayers are obliged to spend billions of their own dollars each year in support of futile efforts to enforce an unenforceable prohibition.
Clearly marijuana prohibition is unique among American criminal laws. No other law is both enforced so widely and harshly yet deemed unnecessary by such a substantial portion of the populace. Police made roughly 800,000 arrests last year for possession of marijuana, typically tiny amounts. That's almost the same number as are arrested each year for cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, Ecstasy and all other drugs. Meanwhile recent polls show that over 40% of Americans think that marijuana should be taxed and regulated like alcohol; and it's closer to 50% among Democrats, independents, adults under age 30, and voters in a growing number of western states.
This is an issue on which politicians can be counted on to follow, not lead, public opinion. But some at last are saying publicly that legalizing marijuana needs to be on the table. For California Governor Schwarzenegger, it's the prospect of new tax revenue and costs savings when the state's budget deficit has never been larger. For Arizona Attorney General Terry Goodard and the City Council of El Paso, Texas, it's the realization that legalizing marijuana would help reduce the violence and profits of Mexican drug gangs.
Others point to the fact that marijuana prohibition is a remarkable failure in the eyes and ways of young people. Over eighty percent of high school seniors say that marijuana is easy to obtain -- and even easier to buy than alcohol. It's hard to see how making marijuana legal for adults would make it any more available to young people than it is already.
Is marijuana addictive? Yes, it can be, in that some people use it to excess, in ways that are problematic for themselves and those around them, and find it hard to stop. But marijuana may well be the least addictive and least damaging of all commonly used psychoactive drugs. Most people who smoke marijuana never become dependent. Withdrawal symptoms pale beside those of other drugs. No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose, which cannot be said of most other drugs. Marijuana is not associated with violent behavior and only minimally with reckless sexual behavior. And even heavy marijuana smokers smoke only a fraction of what cigarette addicts smoke. Lung cancers involving people who smoke marijuana but not tobacco are virtually nil.
It's no surprise that the Drug Enforcement Administration's own administrative law judge, Francis Young, came to the conclusion in 1988 that "marijuana may well be the safest psychoactive substance commonly used in human history."
But when all is said and done, the principal, and most principled, argument in favor of ending marijuana prohibition is this: whether or not I or anyone else consume marijuana should be none of the government's business-so long as I'm not behind the wheel of a car or otherwise putting others at risk. It's time to get the government off my property and out of both my pockets and my body when it comes to marijuana. Enough is enough.
Common Sense Says, "No Thanks!"Guest Column: co-written by Stephen Baldwin & Kevin McCullough
America doesn't want its pot...American potheads do!
Sure the debate is raging presently, but it's as fictional in its need as whether pigs can fly or whether Superman was or was not faster than that bullet.
In the modern trumped up controversy over whether marijuana should be legalized for the masses, the biggest canard of all is the supposed demand that exists. As a team that produces a weekly talk radio show now heard on 195 stations, we can earnestly say one thing is definitively true in the discussions we've launched about the revival of the "Should pot be legal?" question: "America doesn't want its pot...American potheads do!"
Almost to a person, callers to our broadcast who have asserted the need for weed's legality are also toking up on a regular basis.
Considering that Stephen starred in "Biodome," one of the more famous marijuana movies of all time, and that he has testified to smoking enough of the substance prior to his conversion to Christianity to fund a third world junta or two, we are able to compare the pleas of the modern marijuana movement and measure them for what they are -- cries of economically struggling potheads who want to get high cheaply, next generation be damned.
Nothing could be more foolish and nothing could be more unnecessary.
We have no desire to prevent doctors from prescribing specified care, or authorizing specific treatments for patients that simply cannot find any more compassionate or effective means. We do, however, also recognize that the medical community has expanded its array of treatments in instances for cancer and other diagnoses that might render the need for marijuana completely useless.
What we oppose with ferocity is making it as common for children to obtain as alcohol and cigarettes are now.
Legalizing it across the board creates easier access for children who we suppose would still be legally prevented from "purchasing" it. This doesn't even preface the fact that cigarettes are now thought of as a greater evil to children than sex offenders.
Marijuana proponents claim that the benefit to society would be enhanced by fewer offenders being sent to prison, tax revenues that would be generated, and the establishment of marijuana farming systems.
A major untruth that they spread is that for every criminal it would prevent from being sent to prison, dealing with the increasingly prevalent use by underage users would be doubled or even tripled.
What they also will not tell you is that for every ounce of tax revenues raised, a ton of cost is exacted upon society by intoxicated drivers, child addicts, counseling, rehabilitation, etc.
And the farming argument is just dumb.
What the rabid dealers and addicts will not admit is that the primary reason they are making this push is multi-purposed. First, they believe having a former user in the White House will give them the cover they need to make this process speedy, efficient, and successful. And second, they are convinced that it will give them easy access to the "high" they want, as well as give the pushers a new line of clientele.
The pot-heads of America believe that their new day has dawned.
But for the sake of our kids and the generations to come, it is still not too late to "just say no!"
(Stephen Baldwin & Kevin McCullough produce Xtreme Radio with Baldwin/McCullough, heard on 195 stations nationally. They can be reached at BMXRadioNow@gmail.com, or at 903.200.HOPE.)
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I just hope that Baldwin's lazy thinking doesn't get blamed on cannabis. I love how he brings up cigarettes. What an opening. Thanks Mr. Baldwin. Let's talk cigarettes/marijuana and kids. In my home state of Massachusetts, only one drug program has really had widespread success. The tobacco program and nobody was arrested over it. Not even those caught selling to minors! In Massachusetts over the last 30 years, tobacco use has dropped big time with both adults and children. During the same period of time, with many arrests, what happened on the cannabis front? Higher rates of use for both children and adults. Funny how only the potheads can grasp these facts? Not. Because 65%, 1,900,000 people in MA recently voted for decriminalize cannabis. Not even half of them use cannabis. If Mr. Baldwin wants to pretend that 65% of voters smoke cannabis, well that just goes to show how much a failure the war on cannabis users has become. No way do 65% in MA use cigarettes!
When you read an article by an anti-prohibitionist, it almost always makes a coherent point supported by historical data, medical studies, and statistics. Prohibitionists (like the above two) always argue with blind emotion.
The fact that they cannot support their position any other way should tell them something!
There is mounting evidence that prohibition of marijuana is unfounded and based on pure politics, not compassion or common sense. A few of us who regularly comment here at Huffington Post have put together a site to help spread the truth and shed a light on the propaganda masquerading as facts:
http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/
Hopefully the louder we can be with the truth, including the fact that the US government holds a patent for medical marijuana use while simultaneously categorizing it as a schedule 1 drug, meaning it has no medicinal value, the shorter the time we have to fear jail for using a medicine / enjoying an herb that is safer and less intoxicating than alcohol...
Wow, my post didn't make it here - should have been second one. Hmmm.
My point was that Mr. Baldwin's and Mr. McCullough's argument is simply that everyone who thinks cannabis should be legal are potheads. That's it. No facts, no research, no evidence. No concern for legitimate medicine, industrial hemp uses, Constitutional rights. Just name calling.
Marijuana should be legalized, taxed, and regulated.
End the war on marijuana.
Marijuana prohibition has been a total failure and is perhaps this country's greatest mistake. Not only has it created criminals out of nearly a third of the country's populace, it costs our society billions of dollars every year, creates a strain on our prison system, and has little or no effect on marijuana use in the US. In some cases, prosecuting marijuana use has turned non-violent, middle class kids into violent and unpredictable, career criminals. Once a person has a criminal conviction on their record, they are far less likely to find a good job and become a useful member of society. Other countries with more liberal drug laws have much lower rates of drug addiction among their people. I invite you to my web-page devoted to raising awareness on the assault on our civil liberties: http://freethegods.blogspot.com/
I support Ethan Nadelmann.
I think that the opposition is solely reliant on a celebrity calling people potheads, and is supported only by his misguided opinions.
Making marijuana legal does not stop anyone from the ability to "Just say no." Further, "Just say no" was never "just" saying no. It was just say no or else we will use draconian and expensive law enforcement strategies to MAKE you say no... And, more importantly, it was an utter failure, even for Baldwin, as he seems to admit, since Biodome came out in 1996, while "Just say no" was from the eighties (while he was giving enough money to "fund a third world junta or two." And he probably DID buy a lot of criminals their guns).
The argument that legalization, control and taxation would make it easier for minors to obtain cannabis is just plain wrong. Alcohol and cancerettes are both legal for adults to purchase and by restricting their sale through outlets which are required to check ID and imposing fines and loss of business license to violators has made both harder for minors to obtain than any illegal substance. It is easier for school children to obtain cannabis than either alcohol and cancerettes.
Legalization with a fair tax would also undercut the drug cartels and their biggest cash cow, and that has been proven in a number of surveys.
Other benefits from legalization would include meaningful research into clinical applications which are currently highly restricted due to the idiotic classification of cannabis as a schedule one substance.
Add to that an estimated tax revenue of 14 billion dollars and the money used to purchase cannabis staying here in the USA, rather than flowing south of the border along with asssault weapons, makes all the sense in the world. Legalize cannabis and end the miserably failed and failing drugwar.
Over one trillion dollars has been wasted on this moronic endeavor which has done nothing to decrease drug use and has fed the cartels and an obscenely bloated Prison Industrial Komplex!
Milk is easily the most widespread gateway drug.
From the anti-pot essay: "What we oppose with ferocity is making it as common for children to obtain as alcohol and cigarettes are now."
Do these people even have a cursory understanding of reality?
You have to wonder what Baldwin and McCullough are smoking. The CHILL-dwen, ladies and gentlemen, we must protect the CHILL-dwen. Baloney. You wanna score a bag, shake down a kid.
"Legalizing it across the board creates easier access for children who we suppose would still be legally prevented from "purchasing" it."
Mmm hmmm....and letting in alcohol sales raises crime rates. :sigh:
Interesting that the anti-pot column has no facts or references. It also believes that under age usage will double or triple, where research shows usage going down or staying even after legalization.
I'm curious - how would legalization using the liquor store approach make pot more accessible to children than the current environment, where any ninth grader can get pot anytime they want?
Agreed. The legalization argument here quotes facts and statistics, while the prohibition argument uses anecdotes about Stephen Baldwin's film career and non sequiturs about cigarettes and sex offenders.
Many of the arguments for continued prohibition are easily shot down. For example, marijuana is often described as a so-called "gateway drug", the use of which leads to use of harder drugs. While there may be some relationship between marijuana and harder drugs, it's because they're both sold by the same people. If marijuana were available for purchase from a state office similar to a state liquor store, while harder drugs were still sold by the drug dealers, the role of marijuana as "gateway drug" would be dramatically reduced or eliminated.
To quote Mr. Baldwin and Mr. McCullogh: "What we oppose with ferocity is making it as common for children to obtain as alcohol and cigarettes are now. " I would be interested if a prohibition supporter could answer this. Given that alcohol has greater associated health risks than marijuana, has a far more serious risk of overdose, contributes to more highway fatalities, and is certainly a dangerous drug that is, as stated above, "common for children to obtain", if you feel that marijuana should be illegal, do you agree or disagree that alcohol should also be illegal? If not, why not, and if you do think that alcohol should be illegal, what are you doing to get the 21st Amendment repealed?
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