It is difficult to keep track of the fallacies and straw men in your reefer madness rant. Start with the obvious: The federal ban on cannabis makes it impossible for legal, federally regulated e-cigarette makers to develop and market safe THC cartridges for vaping. Consequently, most THC cartridges are dangerous bootleg products sold on the black market. Federal legalization would lead to improved product safety for which manufacturers would be held accountable. The reason unlicensed dispensaries are flourishing in California relates to the state's exorbitant taxes and burdensome regulations. This isn't the case in Colorado and Washington, where an oversupply of legal cannabis outlets has driven prices down so much that state-based growers turn to California's black market in search of profits. [continues 101 words]
When tackling today's major issues we can learn a lot from history. For example, when Congress was debating marijuana prohibition in 1937, Dr. William C. Woodward, President of the American Medical Association, argued strenuously against it. Dr. Walter Musto, Assistant Surgeon General told Congress marijuana "does not produce dependenceĀ it probably belongs in the same category as alcohol." Sadly, as is often the case, Congress was more susceptible to political rather than economic and scientific considerations, so marijuana prohibition was enacted. [continues 527 words]
First the nation's drug czar, John Walters, comes to Phoenix and suggests that anyone who votes for Proposition 203, the "medical marijuana" initiative, is stupid. Then on Saturday, The Republic runs a column by Drug Enforcement Administrator Asa Hutchinson that turns the truth on its head in order to fool the voters. Hutchinson tells us the British people were very unhappy with their one-year marijuana decriminalization pilot program. But then he goes on to state that, when the year was up this summer, the British decided to make the program permanent. [continues 111 words]
This November, Arizonans have the opportunity to help advance the nation into what is now mainstream thinking on drug policy. Proposition 203 will bring Arizona up to date with virtually all of the developed world in its policy toward marijuana use. Most of Western Europe has come to the conclusion that they have more important jobs for their law enforcement personnel than arresting people who smoke pot - jobs like combating terrorism and arresting thieves, murderers and rapists. They have decided that arresting pot smokers is a poor use of valuable law enforcement resources. So they no longer do it. [continues 438 words]
After reading May 29 of the FBI's plan to reassign many of its personnel from drug war responsibilities to counter-terrorism duties, I couldn't help but notice yet another of the untended consequences of America's insane and futile war on drugs. It is already old news that this modern version of prohibition fills our prisons with hundreds of thousands non-violent drug offenders. It is also self-evident that it creates an astonishingly lucrative market for the criminal underworld--and helps anti-democratic guerrillas fund their campaigns in Colombia and other neighbors to the south. [continues 131 words]
