Bob Weiner’s Reefer Madness: DOJ memo means use may explode for healthy people!

It’s fun to watch prohibitionist ideologues thrash about as the polls show ever-increasing support for cannabis re-legalization.  This recent memo by the Obama Administration declaring a hands-off policy for state-compliant medical marijuana operations has whipped up Clinton Admin Drug Policy Spokesman Bob Weiner.

“Be careful about the new lax enforcement policy for medical marijuana,” former White House Drug Policy Spokesman Bob Weiner is telling the Department of Justice and the Obama Administration. “Prescription marijuana use may explode for healthy people.”

Unfortunately, as many as 90% of purchases at clinical distribution centers are “false defenses”, some law enforcement agents report – “which means individuals are not really sick but simply want the pot,” Weiner asserts.

Again with the supercops who can discern someone’s relative health on sight alone.

“Medical marijuana is not as effective as other healing mechanisms for many illnesses such as glaucoma, pain, or nausea that users try it for because of false hype leading to false hope. Just as laetrile was legalized in the 1970′s in 27 states to cure cancer but was found to be useless apricot pits, leading Senator Kennedy in a Senate hearing to decry the ‘false hope’ delaying true treatment, ‘medical’ marijuana today could be a placebo delaying far better treatments,” according to Weiner.

Unfortunately, there was no hope for that run-on sentence which perished in a tragic head-on collision with a false analogy.  The difference between laetrile and medical marijuana is that 850,000 people a year don’t get their lives permanently affected by an arrest for laetrile.  Medical marijuana is far more popular and effective as judged by the millions who use it, some of whom are only alive today, like Cathy Jordan, because of medical marijuana.  Laetrile was indeed a false hope, thus few people seek it out anymore, even though it is an unscheduled substance.  Marijuana is the third most popular substance behind alcohol and tobacco because lots of people continue to seek it out even after a century of prohibition.

“Many medical marijuana advocates press its use for pain killing and appetite enhancement,” Weiner asserted, “but you might feel just as good after a shot of gin. Science, not politics, must drive what is determined to be safe and effective medicine in America. The medical marijuana advocates never mention the potentially better applications of THC in marijuana from suppositories, jells, aerosols, or the already approved pill Marinol — they just want the high from the smoked version.

You might feel good after a shot of gin.  But you’d find yourself feeling worse later and find the alcohol exacerbating your problems, unlike cannabis.  And Bob Weiner has obviously never tried Marinol, which got me higher than any marijuana I’ve ever tried, or heard us drone on for years now about vaporization, tinctures, and edibles.

“There is a real danger that if marijuana is made essentially a prescription drug, its abuse and usage explosion could parallel other prescription drugs over the last decade, such as OxyContin, which have tripled nationally and quintupled in many locations because of the ease of availability.”

A real danger, perhaps, if marijuana were as addictive and deadly as OxyContin.  Using Weiner logic, I could say there is a real danger that if badminton is made into a televised sport, its ratings could match the NFL.

“No one wants to deny a dying cancer patient a hit of grass, if that’s what he or she wants.”

Well, unless he or she fools the supercop into thinking he or she looks too young and healthy.  Why is it OK for the dying cancer patient to enjoy “the high from the smoked version” but not the “healthy people”?  Is the notion here that pot’s going to scramble your brains, corrupt your morals, and destroy your body, but, eh, fuck it, you’ll be dead soon anyway, so what? At least the cancer patient got a little slice of joy amidst all his or her suffering.  But you healthy person… no joy for you!

I really think that is part of the prohibitionist’s mindset.  Alcohol is OK because even though it gives you joy, it kicks your ass with a hangover the next day and it slowly kills you if you keep it up.  Cigarettes are OK because even though they give you joy (or at least relieve a craving) you’re punished by standing outside in the cold and it slowly kills you if you keep it up.  But cannabis gives you joy, and then the next day, week, month, year, and decade, you feel fine and still get joy from it.  There’s little downside to pot use, except for the illegality.  There’s no payback of misery in exchange for your joy.