John English II: Reefer Madness Boogaloo

My favorite locksmith-turned-prohibitionist, Portland’s own John English, has penned four more anti-pot screeds in the online Examiner.  Some people cringe when they read tripe like John’s, but I jump for joy.  Not only does John provide irreplaceable blog fodder, but the idiocy of his writing and fallacy of his reasoning illustrate how desperate prohibitionists are becoming.  Anyone who tortures logic and the English language as John does should be brought up on war crimes charges (or at least given a job app for the CIA).

In “Medical marijuana and the rule of law“, John delivers the tired “snake oil salesmen” argument that medical marijuana is akin to the bottles of “cocaine toothdrops” from 1885 and Bayer Co. heroin bottles from the same era.  Yes, John, cocaine, opium derivatives, and even cannabis were sold for medicinal purposes around the turn of the 20th century… just as they are now.  Cocaine is a Schedule II drug; doctors in any state can prescribe it.  Morphine, oxycodone, and other opioids (admittedly, not heroin) are also Schedule II and Schedule III, prescribable by physicians.  These drugs have safety ratios between 1:6 and 1:20, meaning they’re therapeutic (medicinal) if you take dosage level “1″, but if you take six-to-twenty times that dose, you’ll likely die.

Only cannabis, marooned in Schedule I (but not its synthetic 10x more potent cousin, Marinol, which is in Schedule III) is not prescribable by doctors in any state (not even medical marijuana states; it is only “recommended”) and its safety ratio is 1:1000.

But that’s not the shocking stuff…

The rule of law is intrinsic to the survival of the society in which people function.

Hedonists, pursuing their lusts, often step over the lines … not only of propriety, but of legality as well, becoming criminals.

Pedophilia, as well as drug use are examples of this. Society has determined that these practices are so destructive that they must remain illegal, yet there are groups that disagree; both groups have organized and also attempted to change the laws by hiring lobbyists in D.C.

One issue, obviously more repugnant, yet in ways, pedophilia and the pro-legalization movement are not so different. Both harm the innocent and those unable to foresee the ramifications of their actions.

Yes, NORML and NAMBLA*, ideological equals in John English’s mind.  NORML wants to smoke joints, NAMBLA wants to fuck boys.  Could it be any more obvious?

I can’t even wrap my mind around rebutting that.

In “Marijuana smoking: pulmonary and respiratory complications“, John does a lengthy cut-and-paste of the study “Effects of Marijuana Smoking on Pulmonary Function and Respiratory Complications” in order to explain to us why society needs to lock people up to protect them from a cough.  He begins by noting:

Although I understand that druggie websites have tons of bogus studies for you to refer to, and that they seem to contradict the legitimate science, but these doctors, Ph.D.’s, and Research Scientists are not like some of the “doctors and research scientists” who were and currently are drug users themselves, and – therefore have an axe to grind.

Unlike, say the doctors, Ph.D.’s, and research scientists working for or funded by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, who can only get research funding for their marijuana studies if they present a grant request explaining how they plan to prove the dangers of marijuana, and get turned down if they ask for money to prove cannabis’ medical efficacy. No axe there.  (I guess now I have to refer to my Cannabis Science guest as “Dr.” Mitch Earleywine now.)

Funny thing, though, the study John pastes into his article (is it really your article when 90% of it is a paste job?) has this citation:

Some of the known tobacco smoking–related adverse effects include cough, chronic bronchitis, impairment of gas exchange, and airway obstruction that leads to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.³

³ Tashkin DP. Smoked marijuana as a cause of lung injury. Monaldi Arch Chest Dis. 2005;63:93-100.

Funny, because that’s the same Dr. (or is it “Dr.”?) Donald P. Tashkin of the UCLA Medical Center, who has been engaged in thirty years of research using the largest case control study of marijuana smokers in history.  He was originally attempting to document his hypothesis that marijuana smoking leads to lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).  Not only did he find no association between even heavy, chronic marijuana smoking and lung cancer and COPD, but he stated just this year:

“Early on, when our research appeared as if there would be a negative impact on lung health, I was opposed to legalization because I thought it would lead to increased use and that would lead to increased health effects,” Tashkin says. “But at this point, I’d be in favor of legalization. I wouldn’t encourage anybody to smoke any substances. But I don’t think it should be stigmatized as an illegal substance. Tobacco smoking causes far more harm. And in terms of an intoxicant, alcohol causes far more harm.”

In “The medical marijuana scam“, John opens with the picture of the ten-stage “Faces of Meth” deterioration of a young meth addict’s series of mug shots (point taken, John: don’t do meth!) and an incorrect explanation that THC is a Schedule I substance to “debunk” one of his commenter’s correct assertions about Schedule III Marinol.

But the gist of this article is a return to the mid-90′s footage of former NORML Director Richard Cowan explaining how acceptance of medical marijuana will lead to eventual legalization of recreational marijuana, which, of course, will turn us into a nation of heroin addicts.  I agree with Cowan – once people find they’ve been lied to about cannabis’ medical uses, they’ll question other prohibitionist lies, which will lead to overturning prohibition – but even if I didn’t, how does we “legalizers” support of medical marijuana make the relief a chemo patient feels after smoking a joint any less real?

In reading now nine of John’s articles, I’ve found an interesting dichotomy he creates.  On the one hand…

Like most users, he cannot see what it’s doing to himself and his loved ones; that’s part of the pernicious aspect of using marijuana. … the hedonistic, immature and irresponsible seeker of highs, cannot see the subtle steps into drug use and that users sometimes grow up and somehow quit, normally they grow old and damage their mental acuity, or push the envelope and die prematurely. … Users make bad decision. Because of the bad decisions, users violate the laws and contribute to every social ill of the land. Users put others at risk. Users try to get others to be like them, sucking them into the lost world of criminality, life without hope, disability and prison. They believe all this justifies what they do. It doesn’t! The lengths to which they’ll go, the lies they’ll tell to get their own way, is pathetic! The society they’re attacking is ours; and they want our children, to be like them! Don’t forget that! Protect your children at all costs! Like it or not, just like the narco-terrorists they purchase their drugs from, they are at war with us . . . . and kids push the envelope; it’s part of growing up and breaking away!

But on the other hand…

The American public has been scammed, … intentionally!  … The legalizers made their presentations, (feigning desperate need) and demanded to be able to smoke their “medicine.” As the public heard the pleas, from so many, seeming to suffer pathetically, … from all sorts of maladies, and that their “condition” would be helped by smoking marijuana, (as anticipated) the public began to have compassion agreeing, ‘why shouldn’t people be able to use a substance if they were dying anyway?’ … The people bought it and therefore, we were all scammed and California’s proposition 215 was the outcome, which has taken us deeper into this whole mess.

So, then, marijuana users are the scourge of society seeking to lead your children into an abyss of despair, and yet these same people were able to fool 70% of the American public, a majority of voters in nine states (83 out of 83 counties in Michigan on our last go at it), and the legislatures of four states (six if you count MN and NH this year, stymied by veto) into believing marijuana’s medical efficacy and supporting legalization for medical use.  It’s like Bill Hicks once said, “George Bush says ‘we are losing the war on drugs’. Well you know what that implies? There’s a war going on, and people on drugs are winning it! Well what does that tell you about drugs? Some smart, creative motherfuckers on that side.”

By the way, John, I’m still waiting for that class action lawsuit from medical marijuana patients against NORML for defrauding them into thinking the pot they are smoking is somehow helping them.

Finally, in “To marijuana users“, John explains how his experience as a locksmith led him to seeing the horrors of drug use – the beaten wife whose locks he has changed, the parents locking their teenager out of the home for smoking pot, etc.  But the real cause of his reefer madness, as John finally writes something with some honesty:

I can recount for you my own history, and how my beloved children followed my example into drugs, when, my only drug use at that time was marijuana. My using had come because of a great loss – divorce; I’d lost the only thing of import to me – my family.

I can also tell you that not only do children follow in their parents and older siblings’ footsteps, … as mine and their mom’s did. Our role modeling, as parents, sometimes inadvertently, guides when we’re not aware of it. But also, almost invariably all children which begin with pot, also “push the envelope” and proceed into other and harder drugs.

I can tell you of the heartbreak when I realized how I had laid the groundwork for my children’s grief. My son, whom I love(d) with all my heart, made subsequent bad choices … ended up not only in jail, but in prison, … in what, I found out later, are called the ‘gladiator academies’ of the prison system.

I sincerely am sorry for the terrible turns your life took, John, following your use of marijuana.  My father was an alcoholic.  Up until age 12, my life was severely impacted by his drug abuse.  He, like you, had a moment of clarity and realized his life had become unmanageable and that he needed to stop his use of that deadly drug.  He’s been clean and sober now for 29 years – longer than he had been a drunk (25 years).

However, you don’t see me advocating for a repeal of the 21st Amendment and locking up beer drinkers for the sake of the children.  Not “invariably” do children who smoke pot use harder drugs, in fact, by the government’s own statistics, there are 100 million people 12 and older who have tried marijuana, but only 2 million current regular (monthly) cocaine users and 135,000 current heroin users.  By far, most people who use marijuana don’t go on to use other drugs; for every 104 people who have tried marijuana, there is only 1 person you could classify as a cocaine “addict”.

It sound like you and your children made some bad decisions.  But take that finger you’re pointing at marijuana and try pointing it in the mirror.