Pubdate: Wed, 11 Sep 2013
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2013 Boston Globe
Contact: http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Author: Tom Keane
Note: Tom Keane is a columnist for the Boston Globe.

THE DRUG WAR GOES TO MOLLY

It made for a disturbing and unfortunate juxtaposition. The week that 
the U.S. government decided to essentially legalize the use of 
marijuana, four died from ingesting another drug, Molly, a variant of 
the more commonly known Ecstasy or MDMA. The first, on Aug. 19, was a 
19-year-old woman at Boston's House of Blues. Days later saw two more 
at a music festival in New York City. And the drug is also blamed for 
killing a college sophomore in Washington, D.C., just a weekend ago.

Meanwhile, the prohibitions against marijuana, another psychoactive 
drug, fade away.

It's perhaps an overstatement to claim marijuana has been legalized, 
but not by much. Just last year, Colorado began allowing residents to 
use marijuana recreationally. Washington state will likely do so in 
2014. No longer will pot use be limited to medicinal purposes, as it 
is in Massachusetts, 17 other states, and Washington, D.C. No longer 
will users in Colorado and Washington state have to pretend they need 
a hit to soothe a backache or cure their insomnia, admitting instead 
to the obvious: Medical pot is just a subterfuge for getting high.

But just because a state permits something doesn't mean the federal 
government agrees. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, 
marijuana is a Schedule I drug, with "no accepted medical use" and a 
"high potential for abuse." The federal penalties are harsh - up to 
five years for mere possession, for instance. And since federal law 
trumps state law, in theory that means it doesn't matter what the 
states do. Marijuana - medical or recreational - is still illegal.

Unless it's not. Even as kids were dying from MDMA, Attorney General 
Eric Holder was telling states that control of marijuana is now up to 
them. If that position sticks - and there's a lot of blowback from 
law enforcement - then the criminalization of cannabis may well go 
the way of those odd, urban-legend laws (such as limits on Sunday 
hunting) that are supposedly still on the books yet are also entirely ignored.

In a way, the story of pot in America is starting to look much like 
the story of alcohol. When Carrie Nation and her followers forced 
through the 18th Amendment, the results were a rampant disregard of 
the law and the rise of organized crime. Prohibition's end did not 
actually legalize booze. It just pushed the matter down to the 
states, letting them make the call (and until recently, a few, such 
as Utah, essentially still banned the stuff ). So too, when Harry 
Anslinger in the 1930s crusaded to make pot a federal crime, the 
consequences were the same as Prohibition: Millions paid the law no 
heed and organized crime found a new market.

Now it looks as if we're taking the next step: abandoning federal 
proscriptions and letting the states legalize or not, as they see 
fit. Colorado and Washington today. Soon, one suspects, there will be 
many more.

Holder's decision marks a dramatic shift in philosophy and public 
policy, and there are many reasons to support it. A decision to get 
high is a personal one, perhaps unwise but not deserving of jail. The 
resources spent and lives wasted in stopping pot could be put to far 
better use. A smarter approach, many say, is to manage drugs through 
a combination of education, regulation and taxation. Make sure people 
understand consequences, ensure quality and safety, put in place 
restrictions on age and use (as we do with tobacco), and, of course, 
tax the stuff because, after all, Leviathan wants its cut.

But then one runs headlong into Molly and her siblings and wonders 
where to draw the line. The lessons from Prohibition and the war on 
drugs are that, in the long run, bans don't work. If anything, they 
backfire. Yet the rash of deaths and hospitalizations from Molly are 
horrifying and the almost instant reaction is to want to impose even 
harsher restrictions and tougher penalties. One can intellectually 
understand the argument about education, regulation and taxation, but 
what chance to learn does a 19-year-old woman have if merely one dose 
of MDMA puts her in a morgue? Should the consequence of a single 
mistake be death?

Thus the conundrum: Even as one war ends, the calls for a new one may 
be beginning.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom