Obama's Marijuana Prohibition Acid Test

The parallels between the 1933 coming of Franklin Roosevelt and the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama must include the issue of Prohibition: alcohol in 1933, and marijuana today. As FDR did back then, Obama must now help end an utterly failed, socially destructive, reactionary crusade.

Marijuana prohibition is a core cause of the nation's economic problems. It now costs the U.S. more than tens of billions per year to track, arrest, try, defend and imprison marijuana consumers who pose little harm to society. The social toll soars even higher when we account for social violence, lost work, ruined careers and damaged families. In 2007, 775,137 people were arrested in the U.S. for mere possession of this ancient crop, according to the FBI's uniform crime report.

Like the Prohibition on alcohol that plagued the nation from 1919 to 1933, marijuana prohibition (which essentially began in 1937) feeds organized crime and a socially useless prison-industrial complex that includes judges, lawyers, police, prison guards, prison contractors, and more.

A dozen states have now passed public referenda confirming medical uses for marijuana based on voluminous research dating back 5,000 years. Confirmed medicinal uses for marijuana include treatment for glaucoma, hypertension, arthritis, pain relief, nausea relief, reducing muscle spasticity from spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, and diminishing tremors in multiple sclerosis patients. Medical reports also prove smoked marijuana provides relief from migraine headaches, depression, seizures, and insomnia, according to NORML. In recent years its use has become critical to thousands of cancer and AIDS sufferers who need to it to maintain their appetite while undergoing chemotherapy.

The ban on marijuana has been extended in the U.S. to include hemp, one of the most widely used agricultural products in human history. Unlike many other industrial crops, hemp is extremely prolific in a natural state, requiring no pesticides, herbicides, extraordinary fertilizing or inappropriate irrigation. Its core uses include paper, cloth, sails, rope, cosmetics, fuel, supplements and food. Its seeds are a potentially huge source of bio-diesel fuel, and its leaves and stems an obvious choice for cellulosic ethanol, both critically important for a conversion to a Solartopian renewable energy supply.

Hemp was grown in large quantities by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and many more of the nation's founders, most of whom would likely be dumbfounded to hear it is illegal in the United States (based on entries in Washington's agricultural diaries, referring to the separation of male and female plants, it's likely he and his cohorts raised an earlier form of "medicinal" marijuana as well).

The growing of hemp was mandatory in some circumstances in early America, and again during World War II, when virtually the entire state of Kansas was planted in it. The current ban on industrial hemp costs the U.S. billiions of dollars in lost production and revenue from a plant that can produce superior paper, clothing, fuel and other critical materials at a fraction of the financial cost and environmental damage imposed by less worthy sources.

In 1919, fundamentalist crusaders help pass the 18th Amendment, making the sale of alcohol illegal. The ensuing 14-year Prohibition was by all accounts a ludicrous failure epitomized by gang violence and lethal "amateur" product that added to the death toll. Its only real winner was organized crime.

FDR's support was critical to passing the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition. It ended a period of gratuitous social repression and gave the American economy a substantial boost.

Marijuana prohibition has escalated substantially since Richard Nixon's 1970 declaration of the War on Drugs. There was a brief reprieve when Steve Ford, the son of President Gerald Ford appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone barefoot and claiming that the best place to smoke pot was in the White House. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter's last year in office, only 338,664 were arrested for marijuana possession. Following Reagan, President George Herbert Walker Bush recorded a low of 260,390 marijuana possession arrests.

Ronald Reagan renewed the War on Drugs and declared his "Zero Tolerance" policy, despite his daughter Patti Davis' claim the Gipper smoked weed with a major donor. This utterly failed reactionary crusade has resulted in millions of incarcerations costing billions of dollars with, again, whose only real beneficiaries have been organized crime and the prison-industrial complex that is its twin.

On a percentage basis, more American high school students (who report virtually unlimited access to marijuana and a wide range of other drugs) smoke more pot than students in Holland, where it is legal. Because so many Americans use it, and it is so readily available, marijuana prohibition can only be seen as a virtually universal assault on the basic liberties of our citizenry.

In a 2005 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey, more than 97 million Americans admitted to having tried pot, like Barack.

Barack Obama has made it clear in his book Dreams From My Father, he has smoked -- and inhaled -- marijuana (he is also apparently addicted to a far more dangerous drug, tobacco). In the long run, marijuana should be taxed. Like alcohol and tobacco, a minimum age for legal access should be set at 21.

Comments

[fredamae]

Long Story of Prohibition Cut Short;

The Most Dangerous Element Surrounding The Use Of Cannabis Are The Laws, Rules And Policies Governing It's Use.

We Tax Payers Are Losing The Benefit of More than $30,000,00­0,000.00 Annually!

Those Precious Tax Monies Could Be Funding Something Else That Would Actually Give Us Some Return On That Investment!

Sick People Are Denied Access To This Efficacious Medicine, Everyday!

[fredamae]

Long Story of Prohibition Cut Short;

The Most Dangerous Element Surrounding The Use Of Cannabis Are The Laws, Rules And Policies Governing It's Use.

We Tax Payers Are Losing The Benefit of More than $30,000,00­0,000.00 Annually!

Those Precious Tax Monies Could Be Funding Something Else That Would Actually Give Us Some Return On That Investment!

Sick People Are Denied Access To This Efficacious Medicine, Everyday!

[joebhed]

From the article:

""Marijuana prohibition is a core cause of the nation's economic problems. It now costs the U.S. more than tens of billions per year to track, arrest, try, defend and imprison marijuana consumers who pose little harm to society.""

On top of all of that, and of some import to the 30 million marijuana users in this country, is the savings that would come from reducing the street cost of their means of choice from presently around $250 per ounce (so I am told) down to the more rational $25 per ounce.

Somebody ought to do a calculation of the boom that we might see if that chunk of change went from the black market of the forced illegal underground culture and into the green market of legal mainstreet toking on demand.

Think of what that little boost might do for our current depression.

[brood6363]

I've lived in Holland for almost ten years, and the decrim of the weed has not seemed to cause too many social issues here.

[libcharisma]

The funny thing I notice from talking to my conservative friends who are younger than 40 is that they also agree the benefits of legalization far outweigh the costs.

Irony would be Obama ushering in bipartisanship through the real GREEN economy!

[davism97]

I smoked pot quite a bit in high school and for a few years after. I went on to become a college graduate and a productive tax paying citizen. If I had been caught and thrown in jail during those early years, though, my life probably would've been ruined instead. Throwing our youth in jail for marijuana possession is cruel and unusual punishment. Most of them will go on to contribute to our society if we don't treat them like criminals.

[strugglingstudent]

If you want to let the incoming administration know how you feel about this issue, go to the website for the transition at change.gov then register and voice your opinion or vote on the existing issues.

The Citizens Briefing Book that the website is putting together currently ranks ending the prohibition on marijuana as its highest ranked issue.

Top 10 from citizensbriefingbook.change.gov

#1 36140 Points "Ending Marijuana Prohibition"
#2 35560 Points "Bullet Trains & Light Rail"
#3 32920 Points "An end to the government sponsored abstinence education to be replaced by an introduction of age appropriate sex education.­"
#4 30870 Points "The permanent closure of all Torture facilities. (Facilities such as: Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib)"
#5 30260 Points "Revoke the George W. Bush tax cuts for the top 1 %."
#6 29950 Points "Commit to becoming the “Greenest” country in the world."
#7 29810 Points "Stop using federal resources to undermine states' medicinal marijuana laws"
#8 28900 Points "Get the Insurance Companies out the Health Care"
#9 26330 Points "Boost America's Economy with Legal Online Poker"
#10 26310 Points "Increase MPG requirements now!"

[KeithMoon24]

Obama, nor anyone else, has the guts to even mention legalization.

[SillyGit]

You're his official spokesperson then?

[davism97]

no but I'm not getting my hopes up with Obama. Politicians generally don't have the guts to directly challenge the crazy religious right.

[PATina]

I agree. Especially after the article here yesterday about a US Congressman "blackmailing" El Paso's city council from voting on having a "discussion" about legalizing marijuana.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/14/drug-legalization-debate_n_157798.html

[omahkohkiaayo]

My mother, a Blackfoot Indian, had severe glaucoma (20/400 vision) and would have been blind without using marijuana. She also used to say: "The Creator does not make mistakes and no human being, a creation of the Creator, has the right to ban another natural creation of the Creator.

I worked with cancer patients in the 1970s when chemotherapy was much more brutal than it is now and saw patients wh would have wasted away to nothing without using marijuana both to stop vomiting and to stimulate appetite.

Also study the history of why it was banned in the 1930s. In order to ban hemp, which has nothing to do with cannabis sativa, because hemp threatned the wood-pulp to paper monopolies (you can produce eight times more paper per acre with hemp than with wood pulp) and the synthetic fiber monopolies (hemp makes stronger fiber for clothing and rope which it was used for in parachute rigging and think ropes on ships in WWII) and because marijuana use was assocated with musicians (said to be colored and immoral by the racists of the time) they banned marijuana to get to hemp. Check out the history.

[SillyGit]

It was also a convenient reason in the South-West to arrest Mexican-Americans for being Mexican-Americans.

[JasmineWolfhawk]

But have no doubt, chemotherapy is a living hell still today, and those patients need marijuana desperately. Its perfectly legal to give them mega-doses of opiates such as morphine and oxycodone, which are very dangerous,and coveted on the streets. Its simply insane to deny them marijuana, which is much safer, and helps many of the symptoms that morphine and other drugs cannnot touch.

[Marcus01]

"Marijuana consumers pose little harm to society"? Tell the truth. Marijuana consumers pose no threat to society. It's the Drug War that harms society.

The most dangerous aspect of using cannabis is getting caught doing it. Get caught and you're f****ed. In many cases your whole life is down the tubes for using a substance that increases your awareness. Makes sense, doesn't it?

DOD has announced that Mexico could collapse due to drug cartel activity and drug-related violence. Recently Mexico tried to change this through legalization, but the oh-so-smart (read: stupid) government to the north persuaded them not to.

[JohnFromCensornati]

Don't hold you breath for the Dems to act on this. We're broke, but they'll be slashing education, SS, and Medicare before they'll give up their War on Drugs.

[psychlotomic]

If we were serious about eliminating drug-related violence, conserving energy, saving our soil, prison reform, etc., we would legalize marijuana and allow hemp to return to its rightful place in our economy. Vested interests will fight tooth and nail to prevent this, claiming a supposed moral high ground. What a waste. What a travesty.

[TedB]

Prohibition did not work with alcohol, nor does it work with marijuana. Also, think about how many crimes were committed last night involving alcohol: domestic violence, fights, vehicular deaths etc--and alcohol is legal. Contrast this with marijuana: probably the worst crime committed last night attributable to marijuana involved somebody sneaking into the kitchen and finishing off all his room mate's pop tarts.

[JustThisGuy]

There certainly is a shortage of hemp fiber. If I understand correctly, one rope maker has bought out the entire Romanian Hemp supply last year, just to make rope, and is still looking for more...

[doriath22]

Like George Clinton said, "There's a hell of a lot more money to be made pretending to stop it than there is in selling it" Law enforcement makes far too much money through its' war on American citizens for this to happen anytime soon. Prisons bring jobs and tax revenue into impoverished rural communities, police officers have union jobs with great benefits, local jurisdictions rake in billions every year through the theft (sorry, Forfeiture)of real estate and other goodies. Therefore, we will always be told that legalization is wrong.

[liberalsux]

I totally agree