Pubdate: Fri, 31 Jul 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Authors: David W. Murray & John P. Walters
Note: Murray and Walters direct the Hudson Institute's Center for 
Substance Abuse Policy Research. They both served in the Office of 
National Drug Control Policy during the George W. Bush administration.

MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION MOVEMENT MAKES NO SENSE

A recent example of the logical abandon of today's backers of legal 
marijuana is the plan to defund the Drug Enforcement Administration's 
program to eradicate illegal marijuana (DEA/CESP), an $18 million 
program that eliminates millions of plants a year and arrests 
thousands of criminals, many of whom were brought here to labor for 
Mexican drug cartels controlling the marijuana black market.

Yet Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) wants to end the effort as a 
"ridiculous waste" of federal resources, when multiple states "have 
already legalized marijuana," use of which should "no longer be a 
federal crime." Clearly, the congressman has not thought this 
through. He is, in fact, arguing against his own legal marijuana case.

A central tenet of the legalization movement is that criminal 
marijuana was to be supplanted by "safe, regulated and taxed" 
marijuana under careful control. It is a contradiction of that 
principle to foster, by cutting the DEA program, the proliferation of 
unregulated, untaxed and "unsafe" marijuana plants controlled by 
violent criminals, thereby corrupting the entire point of a 
"legalized" marijuana market.

While a "regulated and taxed market" was the position sold to 
legislators, the real objective seems to be a dope-growing paradise, 
unregulated and unopposed. Congressman Lieu doesn't even try to 
explain how this is supposed to advance America's well-being.

For years now, Americans have been subjected to efforts by advocates 
for legalized marijuana to make their case. Today, the arguments 
often come from legalization lobbyists, often with legal or political 
training, seeking to legitimize what they hope will become a 
billion-dollar business in addictive toxins - repeat customers guaranteed.

Or consider the argument that marijuana is "safer to use" than 
alcohol. That alcohol is dangerous all acknowledge, costing the 
health of thousands. But the proper argument is that each intoxicant 
presents its own unique threats. It is not productive medically to 
"rank" them. But what is the logical implication of the alcohol talking point?

The regulation of alcohol is precisely the idealized model that 
lobbyists put forth for legal drugs. Hence, every time they insist 
that alcohol is the more damaging substance, what they are actually 
showing is that the model of legal, regulated sales of addictive 
substances produces widespread harm to adults and adolescents.

A major dimension of alcohol damage is the sheer prevalence of use, 
some six times greater than the prohibited marijuana, driving up the 
"disease burden." Were regulated marijuana to reach the proportions 
of use of alcohol, the public health impact would be staggering.

One cannot argue simultaneously that marijuana should be treated like 
alcohol in order to reduce societal harm, and then reveal this model 
fails as policy, as witnessed by the ensuing alcohol damage (to be 
compounded by vastly expanded cannabis use). Once again, one suspects 
that the regulated alcohol model is but a stalking horse, useful to 
advance the cause, but not to be taken as serious policy.

Further, advocates claim that a legalized regime will better keep 
marijuana out of the hands of children. Yet a recent pediatric 
journal reported on the nearly 147 percent rise in emergency episodes 
for children from marijuana "edibles" nationwide.

Marijuana lobbyists counter that poisoning happens "in all states," 
and therefore legalization in some states can't be blamed. But in 
states with medical marijuana dispensaries, the rate increase was 
four times greater (610 percent) than in states without.

Repeatedly, when such facts are presented, they are ignored by the 
marijuana lobbyists.

In like fashion you hear "marijuana is medicine" (case not made by 
medical standards); that the criminal element will be eliminated (the 
black market cartels are thriving in Colorado); that legalization 
will not promote nationwide smuggling of high-potency dope (it's 
rampant, even leading to interstate lawsuits); or that legal drugs 
will do more good than harm to America (What family is stronger or 
safer or healthier with drug use?).

If marijuana legalization were a good idea, the facts would support 
it, and the arguments of advocates wouldn't be so lame.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom