Pubdate: Fri, 10 Jun 2016
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2016 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Scot Lehigh

THE MIND-ALTERING ARGUMENTS ABOUT LEGAL POT

Marijuana may soon be coming to your neighborhood. You may smell its 
aroma wafting over from the deck next door or from a backyard party 
down the block. Why, it's even possible that a cannabis cafe could 
open on Main Street.

A question proposed for the fall ballot would make marijuana a legal 
recreational drug and regulate it like alcohol. Although that 
initiative petition faces a long-shot legal challenge and needs a 
second round of certified signatures, Massachusetts citizens will 
likely get to vote on the question in November.

I've already read and heard any number of reasons about why it's a bad idea.

It's a gateway drug, some say.

It will entice our teens, others fear.

Edibles will be everywhere, and some may be ingested inadvertently.

It could even lower worker productivity, some business leaders have 
warned. (Think slumping State Domestic Product!)

Why, I haven't been so confounded since Question 1, back in 2006, 
which proposed letting (more) grocery and convenience stores sell wine.

To me, that seemed like an eminently sensible idea, one that worked 
just fine in any number of other states where I've lived or visited. 
And voters initially thought so too. But then the beer and wine 
distributors and the package stores, worried about losing leverage 
and gaining competition, stepped in. They put on a TV ad in which the 
acting captain of the Somerville Police Department warned that if 
such an earth-shattering change were allowed, calamity would ensue. 
Given that calamity hadn't ensued in the states where one could buy 
wine in a wider array of stores, that, to me, seemed like a silly argument.

No, silly me. Once that ad had run its course, a measure that had 
looked like it was on its way to passing went down to defeat, 56 
percent to 44 percent. So brace yourself: I'm sure we'll see a 
cavalcade of similar arguments this time around.

Actually, however, marijuana use is a classic example of what John 
Stuart Mill, the philosopher of liberty, called "self-regarding 
action" or behavior. Even if one believes that marijuana use is 
harmful - and the evidence is hardly persuasive; the chances of a 
fatal overdose, for example, are minuscule - the person one harms is 
himself or herself.

Meanwhile, it's hard to think of a mind-altering substance that has 
fewer worrisome side effects on others. It doesn't make a user 
violent, the way alcohol or some drugs do. It's doesn't cause major 
health problems that will take a toll on one's family or loved ones. 
There are some effects on driving skills, but research is 
inconclusive about whether marijuana use actually leads to increased 
crash risks. Despite marijuana's increased availability to adults, a 
new study by the Centers for Disease Control shows a slight decrease 
in teen use.

Will it be a challenge for state government to set up the proper 
regulatory structures and oversight? If past is prologue, probably. 
But some initial public-sector confusion is hardly a reason to say no.

In short, this is an instance where the risks as we know them don't 
rise to a level that justifies keeping people who choose to use 
marijuana from being able to do so legally.

At least that's the way I view it. But then again, I'm the wild-eyed 
radical who thought it would actually be OK to let people buy a 
bottle of Chardonnay at Stop & Shop. Which is to say, the 
Massachusetts electorate may take more convincing than I do.

And if cannabis is legalized?

Well, if we as a polity survive that great leap into the unknown, I 
still hold out hope that, someday, I might be able to buy a bottle of 
wine in the same store where I get my groceries.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom