Pubdate: Fri, 25 Feb 2005
Source: Tulane Hullabaloo, The (Tulane U, LA Edu)
Copyright: 2005 The Tulane Hullabaloo
Contact:  http://www.thehullabaloo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2803
Author: Daniel Mezzanotte
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

REEFER MADNESS

On a busy street in downtown London, I was once stopped by a news crew
from the Fox-owned British agency Sky News and asked what I thought of
Parliament's scheme to reclassify marijuana from a class "B" to a
class "C" drug. Unaware of this scheme, and generally confused by the
camera's lights and the unctuous newsman, I blurted out something to
the effect of, "Well it's still pretty illegal in my country, but that
doesn't really stop very many people." I could have given the same
answer if I were British.

Parliament's new scheme will lower the possible penalties associated
with being caught in possession of small amounts of marijuana. Since
the policy went into effect Jan. 29, possession of marijuana has
carried the same approximate legal gravity as being caught speeding in
America.

This is following a trend spreading across much of Europe that follows
the logic that criminalizing such drugs results for the most part in
wasting police resources and making outlaws of otherwise law-abiding
citizens. According to a YouGov.com poll commissioned by the UK Daily
Telegraph, 52 percent of Britons support the softening of marijuana
laws, compared to 43 percent against, as most Britons believe drug
legalization would reduce street crime.

This increasingly tolerant attitude toward marijuana is common
throughout Europe but meets tough resistance on this side of the
Atlantic. Traditionally a bastion of libertarianism - it was once
possible to buy morphine in America through the Sears Roebuck catalog
- - but since the era of temperance, the U.S. government has actively
sought to prevent its citizens from using narcotics and marijuana.

Conservative estimates place the spending on America's War on Drugs in
the tens of billions; the program has offered, at best, dubious
results. America's drug policy isn't working, and the United States is
quickly becoming a rather hypocritical backwater in the area of
substance control.

More specifically, the United States misspends an enormous amount on
drug education. Whereas this money could be better used for social
programs, hundreds of millions of dollars are funneled into the
illogical and inappropriate D.A.R.E. program and an absurd advertising
campaign run by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The ONDCP is using this year's $150 million budget to fund a media
blitz that took off during this year's Super Bowl. This is the same
organization that, during previous ad campaigns, linked marijuana use
to both pregnancy and terrorism, which is indicative of the anti-drug
campaign in America. Such a campaign may not be wrong-minded in
theory, but it operates by lying to the U.S. public.

Marijuana doesn't cause pregnancy; sex does, and marijuana doesn't
even particularly cause sex. Nor does it cause terrorism, which can
more rightly be blamed on religious fundamentalism and extreme
relative poverty.

The D.A.R.E. program's aim is to prevent children from experimenting
with drugs. It does this by misleading children who are, on a whole,
much too young to be exposed to much recreational drug use. Children's
essays on the value of the D.A.R.E. program are available on the
program's Web site and include creepy-sounding indoctrination.

"Tobacco + marijuana + alcohol + cigarettes = a miserable life,"
according to one young girl, who goes on to say, "See how terrible
smoking and drinking can be? Do the math. It all adds up to lives
going down. Once you start, you can't stop."

A young boy writes, "Drugs also mess up your mind so you do not think
right. Addicts become criminals who steal to get drugs and drugs
become the only important thing in their life."

They write with the conviction of the Hitler Youth. It's not
surprising, then, that when these same children learn that these
things are untrue, radical oversimplifications of the case, they rebel
against the message. Will smoking pot lead to the inevitable
destruction of everyone you love and everything you hold dear? It
won't; once that message is broken, it's only logical for children to
doubt the "Just say no" mantra the program purports. Ten years after
the fact, D.A.R.E can have little to no effectual success with
preventing anyone from experimenting with drugs, and it might even
have the opposite effect.

Drugs, particularly marijuana, are not bad things, and aside from
breaking a hypocritical set of laws, there is nothing wrong with using
them recreationally. Although this attitude is gaining popularity
throughout much of the world, the United States is loathed to give up
its puritanical upbringing.

This country, though with variations from state to state, refuses to
legalize harmless marijuana. That in and of itself is alright, but if
it looks for success in this asinine battle, the tactics must be
changed. Americans are not stupid and dislike being lied to. Only when
this is realized will America have a sane drug policy.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake