(Christian Science Monitor) The Obama White House has finally laid out its most thorough, reasoned rebuttal to arguments for marijuana legalization – countering a campaign that is gaining alarming momentum at the state level.
A thorough, reasoned rebuttal? Well, this should be interesting…
“Marijuana legalization – for any purpose – is a nonstarter in the Obama administration,” said Mr. Kerlikowske, a former police chief himself.
There we go. The people are demanding that we discuss marijuana legalization and the administration says, “No, we’re not even going to consider it.” That’s what passes for “reasoned” and “thorough”.
It’s almost certain that California voters will be asked in a November ballot initiative whether to allow local governments to regulate and tax marijuana (similar to taxes on sales of alcohol). Other states are considering similar proposals, which are really a backdoor way to legalize pot.
A “backdoor way”? We’re calling on states to regulate and tax marijuana and that’s a “backdoor” to legalization? No, that’s walking right through the front door! And 56% of respondents in California are supporting front-door legalization of cannabis for all adults!
The drug czar’s remarks are worth notice for two reasons. First, they provide needed talking points for those who oppose legalization but who can’t seem to make their message resonate in the face of a well-financed, well-organized pro-marijuana effort. Second, they help clear up confusion about the White House policy on legalization.
Our budget, in green, vs. their budget, in red. What's that, you don't see much green? Yeah, neither do we!
Well-financed and well-organized? There are at least six different national groups (NORML, MPP, DPA, ASA, SSDP, SAFER), each of which pursues a different agenda regarding marijuana legalization and whose budgets all totaled might approach $10 million dollars annually. The Drug Czar’s budget is $15.5 billion this year.
Does it seem odd that we’re outgunned 1,550-to-1 in dollars, not to mention being considered “a bunch of potheads” versus the might, power, and prestige of the federal government, but they’re having a hard time getting their message of prohibition to “resonate”?
The drug czar couldn’t have been more plain. On medical marijuana, which has strong public backing in opinion polls, the former Seattle police chief said that “science should determine what a medicine is, not popular vote.” As Kerlikowske pointed out, marijuana is harmful – and he has the studies to back it up. Read the footnotes in his speech; they’re sobering, especially No. 8.
ABC News / Washington Post Poll on public medical marijuana support
So the federal official who is mandated by law to oppose the legalization of marijuana is opposed to the legalization of marijuana? How surprising. By the way, that “strong public backing” is 81% nationwide, as well as the concurrence of the American Medical Association that “short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.”
Legalization supporters argue that no one has ever died from an overdose of this “soft” drug. But here’s what “science” has found so far: Smoking marijuana can result in dependence on the drug.
More than 30 percent of people who are 18 and over and who used marijuana in the past year are either dependent on the drug or abuse it – that is, they use it repeatedly under hazardous conditions or are imparied when they’re supposed to be interacting with others, such as at work. This is according to a 2004 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Imparied? Even this daily pot smoker knows how to use spell check. And also “The Google”, where I found the study from 2004. The study compared a population in 1991-92 and the same population in 2001-02. They found that “Among the adult US population, the prevalence of marijuana use remained stable at about 4.0% over the past decade. In contrast, the prevalence of DSM-IV marijuana abuse or dependence significantly (P = .01) increased between 1991-1992 (1.2%) and 2001-2002 (1.5%)…”
Even the survey instruments they used to determine “dependence and abuse” note that cannabis use is not subject to the withdrawals that accompany drugs:
(Comorbidity Between DSM–IV Alcohol and Specific Drug Use Disorders in the United States) For those DSM–IV substance use disorders for which withdrawal is a dependence criterion (i.e., alcohol, sedatives, tranquilizers, opioids, amphetamines, and cocaine), the withdrawal criterion of the diagnosis was measured as a syndrome…
Dependency rates for commonly-used drugs and cannabis
To determine if users were dependent or abusing cannabis, they have to fulfill three of the six criteria in the DSM-IV (with my snarky responses within):
1. Cannabis tolerance: Either need for markedly increased amounts of cannabis to achieve intoxication, or markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of cannabis. (Quick, raise your hand if you used to get high and giggly off one puff of a joint, but now you just get mellow smoking a few puffs. You must be a cannabis abuser!)
2. Greater use of cannabis than intended: Cannabis was often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended. (What does it even mean “than intended”? I intend to smoke a bowl and get high. If it is good marijuana, I do get high. If it’s bad marijuana, I may have to smoke more than I intended. Does that count?)
3. Unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control cannabis use: Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control cannabis use. (A few people may seriously have a problem quitting cannabis use. But most people’s “persistent desire” comes from external forces, like workplace drug testing or the courts, not because they really want to cut down.)
4. Great deal of time spent in using cannabis, or recovering from hangovers. (Oooh, the dreaded cannabis hangover! Does this “great deal of time” begin from the moment you’re calling “the guy”, waiting for “just fifteen minutes”, and end with all the post-smoking clean-up to avoid detection?)
5. Cannabis caused reduction in social, occupational or recreational activities: Important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced because of cannabis use. (So if my club, employer, or sports team rejects me for the inactive marijuana metabolites in my urine, I might be a marijuana addict, because I gave those up rather than my choice of the safest recreational relaxant?)
6. Continued using cannabis despite knowing it caused significant problems: Continued cannabis use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been worsened by cannabis. (If that “physical problem” is having your body locked up in a cage for using cannabis, then all of us who are using it are addicts.)
So all this worry is over an increase in the diagnosis of “marijuana dependence” among 0.3% of American adults from 1991 to 2001. Could it be that from pre-internet 1991 to post-internet 2001, more people are willing to talk honestly about their cannabis use? That maybe more clinicians became familiar with the DSM-IV diagnosis of cannabis dependence and therefore more people were asked about it?
Pot is also associated with poor motor skills, cognitive impairment (i.e., affecting the ability to think, reason, and process information), and respiratory and mental illness.
Carl Sagan - The genius behind Cosmos and a daily cannabis user
Poor motor skills? Remind me to mention that to indoor sprinter Ivory Williams, mixed martial artist Toby Grear, and swimmer Michael Phelps. Cognitive impairment? Well, I wish I could still mention that to Dr. Carl Sagan, the brainiac behind PBS’s Cosmos series.
Cannabis only affects your motor skills and cognition while high. Recent studies have “failed to reveal a substantial, systematic effect of long-term, regular cannabis consumption on the neurocognitive functioning of users who were not acutely intoxicated”
Regarding respiratory illness, the CSM just told us of Kerlikowske’s “sobering” footnote #8. I wonder if they realize that within that footnote is a citation of Dr. Donald P. Tashkin, the man who has most studied cannabis’ effect on the respiratory system, who stated, “What we found instead was no association [between long-term marijuana use and pulmonary disease and lung cancer] and even a suggestion of some protective effect” and “at this point, I’d be in favor of legalization.”
Regarding mental illness, not only did the largest review of a decade’s worth of cannabis use and psychosis diagnoses find no increase in mental illness despite a marked increase in cannabis use, but another one of Kerlikowske’s footnote #8 citations, The Beckley Foundation, noted “There is no justification for incarcerating an individual for a cannabis possession or use offense, nor for creating a criminal conviction.”
The recent “Pentagon shooter,” John Patrick Bedell, was a heavy marijuana user. The disturbed young man’s psychiatrist told the Associated Press that marijuana made the symptoms of his mental illness more pronounced. Mr. Bedell’s brother, Jeffrey, told The Washington Post that marijuana made his brother’s thinking “more disordered” and that he had implored him to stop smoking pot, to no avail.
Eric Harris shot up Columbine High School on 4/20/1999 after using prescription antidepressants. Shall we ban those drugs, too?
We agree that mentally ill people should not use cannabis. So, if you manage to find one mentally ill person whose cannabis use exacerbated that illness, leading to the harm of others, and you consider that reason enough to prohibit cannabis and imprison the 22 million adults who aren’t mentally ill and use it responsibly, can we then ban alcohol, benzodiazepenes, and opioids when/if mentally ill people use those and harm others? How many cases of murder/suicide involving those drugs do you think I can find in three minutes of Googling?
Kerlikowske also effectively knocked down the argument that regulating and taxing marijuana is a great way for states to make money in these deficit-dreary times. Indeed, NORML, the lead group in the legalization movement, is set to launch a digital ad campaign in Manhattan’s Times Square next week: “Money CAN grow on trees!”
Gosh, thanks for the compliment! The leading group!
It’s a claim that’s too good to be true, just as the exclamation point implies. Look at the nation’s experience with regulated alcohol. America collects nearly $15 billion a year in federal and state taxes from alcohol. But Kerlikowske says that covers less than 10 percent of the “social costs” related to healthcare, lost productivity, and law enforcement. And what about lost lives? Let’s not add marijuana to the mix of regulated substances.
Murder Rates before and after Alcohol Prohibition
Let’s look at the nation’s experience with regulated alcohol. We no longer have Chicago gangs firing Tommy guns indiscriminately in the streets. We no longer have people going blind or dying from impure moonshine liquor. We saw the murder rates plummet. We no longer have criminals controlling the alcohol manufacturing and distribution business, and alcohol employs thousands of Americans and contributes to our tax base. We have licenses and ID checks that make it tougher for kids to get alcohol than cannabis.
Murder rates before War on Drugs and after Medical Marijuana
Now, as for alcohol costing more than its taxes bring in? Well, that’s true, because alcohol is bad for your health, causes hangovers, and is addictive, leading to healthcare costs, lost productivity, and alcohol addicts who commit DUIs and violent acts. But it is better to bring in $15 billion in taxes to mitigate those dangers than to hand that $15 billion to criminal enterprises while still suffering the social harms of alcohol use plus the added harms of prohibition.
“The costs of legalizing marijuana would outweigh any possible tax that could be levied,” Kerlikowske explains. In the United States, illegal drugs already cost an estimated $180 billion annually in social costs, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. That number would increase as marijuana became more widely and easily available.
So, all illegal drugs combined cost $180 billion in costs (allegedly) but we’re bringing in $0 in taxes to mitigate that. If those costs were to increase, they’d have to increase more than the tax revenue we’d bring in for this argument to make sense. Considering that marijuana re-legalization could bring in around $30 billion in tax revenues, drug social costs would have to raise to $210 billion to hit the break-even point. That’s an increase of a sixth, meaning another 3.5 million people who don’t already smoke pot will have to take up pot smoking at current rates in order for this argument to make sense.
Even that assumption is flawed, because it lumps together “cost of illegal drugs”, including cocaine, meth, heroin, and others along with cannabis. Since all the other drugs are far more harmful to health and addictive, the social cost of a cocaine, meth, or heroin user must far exceed the costs of a cannabis consumer. In fact, a recent study of Canadian substance users found tobacco smokers cost Canada $800 each per year, alcohol drinkers cost $165, but cannabis consumers only cost $20 in health costs. I’d argue that if an increase of cannabis use correlates with a decrease in alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drug abuse, more cannabis use will actually save us money in social costs.
President Obama himself needs to get more involved than simply letting his drug czar reveal this critical stance below the radar. As a high-profile parent, he can help other parents who are struggling to prevent their children from going down the rabbit hole of drug use. If one message can resonate in this debate, it’s that America’s young people are most vulnerable to the threat of legalization.
Since 1975, despite (or because of) illegality, never less than four out of five 12th graders (red line) find it easy to get marijuana (green = 10th graders, blue = 8th graders)
Gasp! What about the children?!? Oh sure, 85% of them say that it is “easy” or “fairly easy” to get a hold of some marijuana right now (and have since 1975!) They consistently say it is easier for them to get marijuana than beer right now (and have since 2002!). But somehow, it’s changing the policy of prohibition that is a threat to the children, not keeping the system we have right now.
For the first time more schoolchildren in grades 8, 10, and 12 are smoking cannabis than cigarettes. It is not because cannabis smoking has skyrocketed; it is because tobacco smoking has fallen precipitously.
They are particularly sensitive to the price of pot (and prices will come down if pot is legalized). They’re the most influenced by societal norms (and public approval is growing). And they’re the ones most heavily engaged in studying and learning – a process that pot smoking can impair.
Is the Christian Science Monitor actually arguing that a primary way we protect children is through prohibition driving up the natural cost of cannabis to the point where Mexican drug gangs can murder 18,000 with impunity by buying off police and military officials with their ludicrous marijuana profits?
Individuals who reach age 21 without using drugs are almost certain to never use them. But according to a study by a leading source on young people and drugs, Monitoring the Future, marijuana use among teens has increased in recent years, after a decade of decline. Teens perceive less risk in use – not surprising when states approve of it as medicine. Risk perception greatly influences drug use among young people.
Is the Christian Science Monitor actually arguing that the only way to keep kids from using cannabis is to lie to them about cannabis’ medical utility? Which seems especially strange when studies of teen use rates following decriminalization and medical legalization in twenty states that have one or the other or both have all shown teen rates holding steady or declining?
The momentum, for now, is with those who want to legalize marijuana. They have been generously financed by a few billionaires, including George Soros, and make strategic use of the Internet and media.
Support in 2009 for marijuana legalization ranged from 38%-53%, depending on the poll.
Oooh, the scary George Soros! That’s all it is folks, a few billionaires funding the well-organized pro-marijuana lobby. That’s the only reason we’re seeing anywhere from 44% to 53% of the public nationwide supporting outright marijuana legalization, a figure that has been rising steadily about 1% per year for the past twenty years.
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The current Chief in the war on drugs was a cautious choice, but an incorrect one. Even though he is a politician and not a law enforcement official, his track record with the Seattle Police Department would have made me stop and think if I were OBAMA. Is it possible that a man with questionable character could lead this country in decreasing drug abuse? Probably not. If anything it will most likely increase the disparities of justice contemplated on the poor of our society. Crime statistics show that in the United States racial minorities are far more likely to be targeted by law enforcement for drug crimes, and receive much stiffer penalties and sentences than non-minorities. There are wide racial disparities in arrests, prosecutions, sentencing and deaths. African-Americans, who only comprise 13% of regular drug users, make up for 35% of drug arrests, 55% of convictions, and 74% of people sent to prison for drug possession crimes. Nationwide African-Americans sent to state prisons for drug offenses 13 times more often than white men, even though they only comprise 13% of regular drug users.
In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed laws that created a 100 to 1 sentencing disparity for crack vs. powder cocaine possession, which many consider to be a racist law which discriminates against minorities, who are more likely to use crack than powder cocaine. People convicted in federal court of possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine will receive a minimum mandatory sentence of 5 years in federal prison. On the other hand, possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine carries the same sentence. Even though black and white women have similar levels of drug use during pregnancy, black women are 10 times as likely as white women to be reported to a child welfare agency for prenatal drug use. Not to mention the impact the war on drugs will have on future generations. Penalties for drug crimes among youth almost always involve permanent or semi-permanent removal from opportunities for education, strip them of voting rights, and later involve creation of criminal records which make employment far more difficult, basically ruins their future for smoking a joint. Economically legalizing drugs would inject $76.8 billion a year into the U.S. economy — $44.1 billion from law enforcement savings, and at least $32.7 billion in tax revenue ($6.7 billion from marijuana, $22.5 billion from cocaine and heroin, remainder from other drugs). Recent surveys help to confirm the consensus among economists to reform drug policy in the direction of decriminalization and legalization. So Mr. President although you preached a time for change you still maintain the same status quo and will most likely reap the same results. The current drug czar will be as equally ill-equipped as the former ones, the only way to prevent drug abuse is through treatment and education, but the most expense way is to declare war on a highly evasive enemy. Drugs.
[...] Christian Science Monitor’s Reefer Madness Redux | The NORML Stash Blog [...]
I never liked obama I saw he didn’t have a plan all he was after was power and he has shown that His change is the same old on steriods Bring our country to a crisis to gain more control To take more freedom from the people Why would you continue to withhold the truth Legal hemp will destroy 100 yrs of control of the economy and control of our freedom This cause is about so much more than a weed And just messing with ya Russ I’d take it easy about Carl Did you see that clip with him saying Venus has a hot atmosphere and an Earth like surface Ya I know that was before they had the science to prove differently But WoW I remember smoking some of that stuff too Science
sooo 
It must be they are ignoring us as a group or that aids for Obama are not letting him hear our calls. With overwhelming support for legalizing, his best bet to squeak out a win in 2012 would be to listen to us and reform our drug laws.(he could do it with one stroke of a pen). But no he will let the ship sink and since he has lied to cannabis consumers one too many times, he will not win he will not have our support and HE WILL LOSE!
Do they not see any of that, do they not get “WE” got this man elected by our support, time and use of our internet skills, we were talking him up, that he was for reforming our drug policy, We were the reason he is there. Yet he has burned that bridge and now its over for him, and the one single thing he could do to change all this and gain our support back, he has no clue, or isnt told or just wont do it? I dont get it, just dont get it at all.
Something to note – the link to the czar’s words above on the “especially #8″ link AND the article itself from the Christian Science Monitor are not talking about drug abuse….they are talking about drug USE.
I noticed this through the whole article. The only usage of “abuse” found in the czar’s words were related to pharmaceutical abuse (4 times) and the ONE instance he used it in terms of marijuana:
“We know that over 110,000 people who showed up voluntarily at treatment facilities in 2007 reported marijuana as their primary substance of abuse.”
I don’t think this was accidental – I think it is probably core in the upcoming “strategy” that he promises will be released in the short term future.
Current terminology pretty much across the board (legally, medically, etc) uses the term “abuse” to indicate improper usage of a drug, but exclude proper uses (although clearly debatable what those uses may be – if any “acceptable” use even exists for a particular drug.)
But once we start talking drug USE, we remove any chance to argue that there are uses that do not meet the “test” for abuse. In fact, I would say we open a much larger problem by allowing the government to truly interfere with all our medical decisions regarding drug “use.”
It sounds to me like their new strategy is to reclassify the war to drug use and not just abuse. While I would like to see pharmaceutical abuse (and “use” in some cases of often over-prescribed drugs) go way down, I think this “strategy” will only make prohibition worse and more dangerous – not create the “safer” situation he seems to describe that this “will work to reduce drug use” and “protect public health and public safety.”
I definitely don’t like this terminology at all:
“Now let’s talk about what will work to reduce drug use.”
“The Office of National Drug Control Policy is pursuing a combined, coordinated public health and public safety strategy.”
“This strategy recognizes that the most promising drug policy is one that prevents drug use in the first place.”
He even goes on to say “…adolescence, which science confirms is the peak period for drug-use initiation” … I had to look back at it twice to catch it myself: drug-use initiation? “Science” studies such a thing as “drug-use initiation?” It sounds so cult-like – as though there is a preteen ritual to force a child into the “underworld” of pot smoking in a secret organization. I do believe that this is what they are suggesting organizations that are “pro-marijuana” are…..
Talk about propaganda….
Thanks again, Russ, for bringing this story to the blog. My biggest regret is that your message isn’t reaching the folks who need to hear it.
I don’t know what more we can do. The truth is the truth, but our government leaders publicly ignore it.
I suppose it’s all about the money. Big Pharma, the chemical industry, and countless others stand to lose profits with legalization, and the overwhelming desires of the citizens of America just don’t seem to count.
So, I’ll remain a public activist. I’ll pay my NORML dues, and contribute when I can to all the organizations fighting for the end to cannabis prohibition.
And, I’ll continue to listen to you, Paul, Keith, and others who work hard every day to find better approaches to addressing the issue.
I may be disappointed, but I’m not discouraged. We will eventually win this fight.
I only hope I’m alive to join in the victory celebration.