Pubdate: Wed, 03 Apr 2002
Source: City Paper (MD)
Copyright: 2002 Baltimore City Paper
Contact:  http://www.citypaper.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/610
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n589/a04.html
Author: Myron Von Hollingsworth
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

Weed Killers

Cannabis has no lethal dose, and its pharmacological effects have never 
caused a single death in over 5,000 years of recorded history. The (unseen) 
driving force against medical (or unrestricted adult) legalization of 
cannabis ("Grass Roots," March 27) is the fact that cannabis can't be 
patented. This precludes the need for big business to be involved, and that 
fact makes cannabis commercially unattractive to the pharmaceutical, 
tobacco, and alcohol industries (lobbies). If it can't be made profitable 
successfully, the government can't justify legalization, even for the sick 
and dying.

Furthermore, the war on cannabis drives the war on drugs. Without cannabis 
prohibition, the drug war would be reduced to a pillow fight. This is the 
politics and the economics of cannabis prohibition.

Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party 
line of cannabis prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison- 
and military-industrial complex, the drug-testing industry, the "drug 
treatment" industry, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the CIA, 
the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the politicians themselves, 
et al. can't live without the budget justification, not to mention the 
invisible profits, bribery, corruption, and forfeiture benefits that 
prohibition affords them. The drug war also promotes, justifies, and 
perpetuates racist enforcement policies, and is diminishing many freedoms 
and liberties that are supposed to be inalienable according to the 
Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Myron Von Hollingsworth

Fort Worth, Texas
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