Here they are, culled from all the crazy, misinformed, and outright lies spouted by media and government regarding cannabis, our Top Ten Reefer Madness Stories of 2008! It was tough to cut it down to only ten, so I concentrated on presenting the craziest story in each subject (for example, only one “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” story out of dozens.) Again, like Dave Letterman, it makes more sense to read from bottom to top.
- “Stoners in the Mist” – More prejudiced propaganda from ONDCP: While it didn’t debut in 2008, I first discovered it and covered it in 2008, and it’s my list. This is more shocking waste of taxpayer dollars and a grossly disturbing, deeply offensive bit of drug czar propaganda that casts “stoners” as wild game to be tracked in their habitat by a pith-helmet-wearing Marlin Perkins wannabe and a tracking-collar wielding assistant. Various segments spread lies and distortions about cannabis users while continually degrading us as filthy, dangerous, inhuman beasts that should be rounded up like vermin and subject to experiments. A new low, even by Reefer Madness standards.
- Black girls using marijuana prone to riskier sex, higher STD rate: See, for white girls, it’s wine coolers and a Girls Gone Wild cameraman. This study found that young African-American women who take the risk of using marijuana also seem to take the risk of having sex. They make no effort to address other factors than might lead to higher STD rates, like less health insurance or health care access or health education. They also find no difference in condom usage, so it seems obvious something else is at play here.
- Senator Tom Harkin: Marijuana Makes People Sell Their Children: A NORML member wrote to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and asked about marijuana legalization. Harkin’s reply included such laughers as: ”Marijuana is often the drug singled out for legalization. However, marijuana is not the recreational drug that many believe it to be…. The victims of the drug war are many – the small child whose parents are so addicted to illegal drugs that they sell everything including perhaps their own children to obtain a fix…”
- Oral sex and marijuana use linked to throat cancer: Where does one sign up for these kinds of studies? This was a study that explored the human papilloma virus (HPV), and found that those who used more marijuana and had more oral sex partners had more cases of HPV. This may explain why President Bill Clinton never inhaled. I guess the moral to this story is that if you’re going to smoke a lot, stick to one or the other.
- Florida Rep. proposes “bong tax”: Rep. Rouson of Florida just slipped in yesterday to nab the #5 spot with his ridiculous idea to add a “sin tax” to “drug paraphernalia”, which Florida law defines so loosely as to not only include bongs and pipes, but alligator clips, two-liter soda bottles, and duct tape. Rouson then gets loonier by suggesting he’d amend the bill to only tax “drug uses” of duct tape, not legitimate handiworkers… how, exactly? By length of hair?
- Marijuana in Molalla: Return of the ‘Gateway Drug’: A billboard paid for by your tax dollars just outside of Portland, Oregon:
- Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts: Like I said at NORML CON, at least it doesn’t shrink any other parts! Again those Australians, this time they found that fifteen blokes who smoked five or more joints a day for twenty years had slightly smaller amygdala and hippocampus volume in the brain than non-smokers. They never consider that perhaps 15 blokes who had smaller brain parts were self-medicating to deal with this deficit, which they claimed leads to poor memory, mild psychosis, and paranoia
- Cannabis drove UK mother insane and to suicide!: The actual headline is “Cannabis-smoking mum stabbed herself to death”, and it’s about a psychotic woman who’s been actively suicidal since age 14 and hears the voice of her dog commanding her. The weeks before she stabbed herself repeatedly in the chest with a 5″ knife she had slashed her wrists and hung a noose in the attic. What you don’t learn until you read deeper into the article is that the woman was also a daily speed freak.
- Lithium may help kick marijuana habit: Australian researchers noted that giving “pot addicts” the heavy psychotropic drug lithium, usually used for severe bi-polar disorder. I noted that when the lithium gives you the side effects of nausea, vomiting, trembling, twitching, loss of appetite, or headache, at least you could treat that with medical marijuana.
- Cannabis on sale in Ireland now eight times stronger: One of many of the “Pot 2.0″ / “skunk” scare stories out there, which have estimated the THC potency of cannabis to be anywhere from eight to 400 times more potent than the “grass” of the sixties. Even the European governments say potency has remained stable at about 6%-8%, and their US counterparts say it’s doubled from about 4.5% to 9.6%. Nobody ever seems to address why 100% potent sythetic THC pills are legal, though.
Which of these Reefer Madness Stories would make your Top 5 for 2008 (vote for up to five)?
- Tom Harkin: Marijuana Makes People Sell Their Children (62%, 63 Votes)
- “Stoners in the Mist” - More prejudiced propaganda from ONDCP (50%, 51 Votes)
- Cannabis drove UK mother insane and to suicide! (38%, 39 Votes)
- Lithium may help kick marijuana habit (35%, 36 Votes)
- Marijuana in Molalla: Return of the ‘Gateway Drug’ (34%, 35 Votes)
- Oral sex and marijuana use linked to throat cancer (31%, 32 Votes)
- Florida Rep. proposes “bong tax” (26%, 27 Votes)
- Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts (25%, 25 Votes)
- Black girls using marijuana prone to riskier sex, higher STD rate (25%, 25 Votes)
- Cannabis on sale in Ireland now eight times stronger (21%, 21 Votes)
Total Voters: 102
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What I don’t understand is how Harkin, who is otherwise a pretty decent guy from what I’ve seen, is such a rabid, bloodthirsty hawk when it comes to pot. This isn’t the first time he’s spewed some ridiculous crap that has no basis whatsoever in reality. You want to know what really makes people sell their children? Poverty. The kind of poverty that more and more people are getting closer to in this country every day, while Washington does little or nothing to fix the root causes of this growing myriad of problems. Why don’t you fight you war against poverty instead? Invest in communities instead of SWAT teams to raid and destroy greenhouses, homes and lives. Strive for constructive, positive change instead of destructive, oppressive warmongering.
Senator Harkin, if you don’t like pot, stop fighting it and just put a nice big tax on it instead. That seems to have been pretty effective with cigarettes, why wouldn’t that have a similar effect on pot? Besides, think of the amount of money that would be raised by sales, to cover budget shortfalls at all levels of government, not to mention the benefit of utilizing law enforcement personnel to actually protect and serve our country, instead of persecute its citizens. Asset forfeiture must stop as well, after all, who’s gonna have either money or credit to buy any of those seized assets these days? I don’t imagine a whole lot of hands are going up.
The fact of the matter is that prohibition is an utter and complete failure and it will never be able to achieve its ultimate goal, resulting in a never-ending predatory war against millions of people worldwide every year. Do we want to continue the mistakes of the past, of hunting other humans beings like hyenas stalking their prey, all for this insane war on drugs? I, for one, say as Barack Obama did: ENOUGH! Enough of this madness, we need to return to sanity. It is time to pursue a new, decriminalized, harm-reduction-based drug policy and signal the start of a more constructive, productive and ultimately beneficial chapter in our nation’s history, and hopefully the history of the world as well. THIS – this is the change we need.