New Jersey Reefer Madness from David H. Kerr

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It’s always helpful to get out your Reefer Madness Bingo Cards before we start debunking the latest prohibitionist columns.  This one comes from David H. Kerr in New Jersey.

Marijuana Legalization – a Growing Debate

Posted by David H. Kerr July 20, 2009 9:43PM

… California’s “top tax collector estimates that taxing pot like liquor could bring in more than $1.3 billion annually.” …”the sheer scale of the overall pot economy has some lawmakers pushing for broader legalization as a way to shore up the finances of a state that has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.”This apparently compelling fiscal argument comes at a time when economies are busted and all eyes are on new revenue sources. But, it also comes at a time when we are beginning to see evidence of the harmful nature of pot smoking. Studies now report “carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons smoked in pot are the same chemical compounds that are found in automobile exhaust, industrial emissions and smoke from burning wood, charcoal and tobacco and other things your lungs don’t want.”

Question, David?  How many “carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons” are there in a pot brownie?  Or a vaporizer bag?  Here’s a hint; it’s a number equal to the number of people killed by pot smoking – ZERO.

Nobody here at NORML is ever going to tell you that inhaling smoke from burning vegetable matter is a healthy thing.  The question is how far you’re willing to go to protect my lungs.  You’re not arresting close to a million people every year for standing around campfires, BBQs, or the smoking section, are you?

In fact, four “joints” are equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes, and we now know, after hundreds of years of smoking and research, that cigarette smoking is harmful to your health.

Bait and switch.  First of all, four joints don’t equal 20 cigarettes.  This factoid comes from a study pointing out the similar tar and carcinogens found in pot smoke, cigarette smoke, and any burning vegetable matter smoke.  What it ignores is that (a) you rarely find someone who smokes four joints a day every day like you find pack-a-day smokers, (b) 30 years of long-term case studies at UCLA Medical Center found no link between chronic marijuana smoking and head, neck or lung cancers, emphysema, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and (c) delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol found in pot smoke has been shown to have an anti-tumoral effect that seems to mitigate any carcinogenic effect of the rest of the smoke.

Yes, cigarette smoking is harmful, and we got ourselves down to the fewest teens and adults smoking ever through public education and treatment options, not by arresting them and ruining their lives.  And after 5,000 years of people smoking cannabis, we have found that it is the safest choice of recreational substance on the planet

Alcohol is also a harmful addictive substance to the extent that some people can’t stop, even though it costs them their families, their jobs, their freedom and the lives of others through auto accidents on our highways.

Yes.  Yes it is.  Your point about marijuana?

Why not tax pot and alleviate the financial burden of our cities and states? We tax alcohol sales and it earns billions. “The latest studies show that the U.S. collects about $8 billion yearly in taxes from alcohol.” However, this is not the end of the story. “The problem is, the total cost to the U.S. in 2008 due to alcohol-related problems was $185 billion, and the government pays about 38% of that cost (about $72 billion), all due to consequences of alcohol consumption, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism.”

Ah, so if we continue to reap $0 yearly in taxes from marijuana, and continue to spend billions more trying to eradicate it and arrest its users, while 22 million adults will be using it anyway, that’s better than reaping some amount of tax and saving law enforcement money we could earmark for treatment.  Are you drunk?

It’s also fallacious to imply that marijuana use creates social costs akin to alcohol.  Ask a policeman whether he’d want to take a call at an alcohol party or a pot party, based on the social problems being caused.  But if there are some social costs to marijuana, we are feeling the burden of those costs already, because 22 million adults are smoking pot NOW and pulling in zero dollars and spending billions more to stop them.

… You have to understand addiction to understand the complexity of the disease and effective treatments. People want to get high and have been getting high for 3,000 years. Pot legalization is offering the drug with controls, which addicts don’t want, and more importantly, won’t abide. They’ll go to the black market if necessasry or they will make claims about loosing their medicating to get more.

Oh, those desperate pot addicts, knocking over liquor stores, robbing little old ladies, and ripping metal off bridges to buy another dimebag.  C’mon now, David.  Your average pot smoker is your average American – law-abiding (except that law) and responsible.  We just want to buy our bag of weed like we buy a bottle of wine.  We want to know how it was grown, what flavor it is, its relative potency, and a guarantee that it’s pure and unadulterated.

No question that those in pain or dying are in another category and deserve every measure of our help. However, our own history shows and will continue to show that pot legalization for those with pain is a false panacea.

For… whom… those dying people in pain?  I hereby offer the “Radical” Russ Million Dollar Medical Marijuana Challenge.  If you can find me a registered medical marijuana patient who will sign my petition to repeal medical marijuana in their state, I will pay you one million dollars*

California is following this failed model with its legalization of pot {for medicinal purposes.} Its legislators now see the fiscal bonanza of taxing pot and the extraordinary financial resources from pot’s legalization statewide – no conditions. The wool is slowly covering more and more of the truth about the possible consequences of what they are doing in California. Many young people will become attracted to the drug and will accelerate its use. The legalization of pot will run a similar course, as did the legalization of narcotics in this country early in the 20th century, as well as the legalization of alcohol. It will fail in the same way, and there will be victims in the millions as there are with alcoholism.

Are you arguing to repeal the 21st Amendment?  Do you think we need to arrest the victims of alcoholism and lock them up for mandatory minimum sentences?

Marijuana use rates among teens and adults in the Netherlands, where marijuana is quasi-legal, are half what they are in the United States.  They also have lower rates of hard drug use.  As medical marijuana has exploded in the past dozen years, marijuana use rates by teens have fallen.

The question is simple: Do we use pot as a revenue source regardless of the most likely deleterious effects, such as damage to DNA and other carcinogenic effects?

Damage to DNA?  That must explain all those mutant hippies with three arms and five eyes.  Or maybe somebody slipped me the brown acid.  Let’s repeat: marijuana is non-toxic to cells and organs in vivo and in vitro.  It does not damage DNA and it certainly doesn’t cause cancer; in fact, lab tests on certain brain cancers found THC killed the cancerous cells and left healthy cells around it intact.  Marijuana may actually hold the secret to curing cancer!

Legislators should ask themselves, “What if my child starts smoking pot regularly and his/her health is seriously compromised?” Worth it? Even with the information we have about pot right now, it is clearly harmful – more so than cigarette smoking. The answer that I would offer is let’s find another revenue source other than pot. California is our pilot state and we can watch what happens, but once the government is locked into pot taxation as a revenue source, there will be no turning back.

Like alcohol.  Like gambling.  Two adult activities that government once banned but are now legal, taxed, and regulated in the states to varying degrees.  Yes, it would be a shame if your child became an alcoholic problem gambler, but we don’t shut down casinos, cancel state lotteries, and bring back Alcohol Prohibition to protect your kid; that’s your job.  Let adults be adults, regulate their activities where they may affect others, leave them alone where they don’t, and try to raise some tax revenue in the process to cover possible social costs.