Take a couple of deep breaths and then read this closely: it isn’t dangerous to use marijuana.
by Erich Vieth - Saturday, July 5th, 2008 12:50 pmIt is awkward for me to argue that adults have the right to smoke marijuana. Whenever I make this argument, I suspect that people think that my arguments constitute a thin and self-serving façade for my own personal desire to smoke marijuana.
I have never smoked marijuana, though, and have never desired to do so, even though I worked as a rock musician in the 70’s. I don’t know why I have never desired to use marijuana or any other street drug. Maybe it’s because I fear the loss of “control”—life is already a bit out of control, it seems. Perhaps I have been cowed by the existence of criminal laws prohibiting possession even possession of small amounts. Nor do I smoke or drink. I try to find my personal high through things like talking with friends, exercising and by exploring ideas.
When discussing the potential legalization of drugs, personal prejudice and flimsy anecdotes have a way of driving the conversation. That’s why I wanted to say a few things about my own attitudes toward marijuana before preceding.
This topic of the illegality of marijuana arose at a gathering of acquaintances yesterday. For those opposed to legalizing marijuana I suspect that their main argument was that marijuana use is morally wrong. In “mixed company” (involving people for and against criminalization of marijuana), this moralistic argument is left unarticulated, however, because it is a rare day when a simple claim that something is “immoral” convinces anyone of anything. In such gatherings, then, “health” arguments often serve as proxies for this unspoken bigger battle. For instance, in my experience, conservatives embellish the health risks of marijuana to justify their moral concerns in the same way that they embellish the health risks of abortion (the claim is that “abortion increases the risk of cancer”) to justify their moral concerns in that area.
What’s ironic is that so many people who oppose the legalization of marijuana based on “health” arguments would NEVER refer to the much more serious health concerns pertaining to tobacco and alcohol to argue for criminalization of tobacco or alcohol. So it’s not really about heath issues, right? In fact, many of the people who want to keep marijuana criminalized personally use tobacco and alcohol (including using alcohol to an excess) as do many of their friends and family members. We wouldn’t want to make criminals out of my good friend Bob or my Aunt Mary, would we?
Conservatives hammer the “health” issues to attempt to drive a clear wedge between marijuana and those legal mind-altering drugs. They argue that marijuana is dramatically different than legal drugs and that this difference justifies turning users into criminals. I find it interesting that conservatives use this same tactic to concoct a wedge between human animals and all of the other animals in an effort to find a special place for humans, in an effort to lambaste scientific findings based on biological evolution.
I do want to engage in one more digression . . . . It is astounding to me that conservative churches raise huge alarms regarding the use of illegal drugs but often say nothing about legal mind-altering drugs. Consider this quote by Tim Wu:
Over the last two decades, the pharmaceutical industry has developed a full set of substitutes for just about every illegal narcotic we have.
It would seem, then that obedience to authority is a big factor in why many conservatives oppose drugs. Obedience is one of the well-documented pillars of conservative morality. Haidt’s approach dovetails with George Lakoff’s conclusions that the government metaphorically serves as a “strict father” to conservatives. This invites a chicken and egg issue. Is marijuana “bad” because the government says that it’s bad, or is it just “bad” and the government just recognizes this “truth?” The bottom line is that the government is certainly on board that marijuana is “bad,” and Wu/Haidt/Lakoff have given us reason to suspect that conservatives latch onto that government position to justify their own moral views. I suspect that this is exactly what is happening with regard to marijuana. The anti-marijuana folks are holding themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Now, back to my gathering of acquaintances. During our conversation, I heard from a proud conservative that marijuana should remain illegal because it is a gateway drug. However, tobacco has been well documented as a better gateway drug. I didn’t hear any of the anti-marijuana folks say anything about criminalizing that famous gateway drug, tobacco, so I was not convinced that this gateway “reason” to keep marijuana criminalized was genuine.
At the gathering, I also heard an argument that was new to me. I heard that people shouldn’t smoke because smoking marijuana “causes cancer.” Read the rest of this entry »
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