Declaring War on Marijuana

[Guest guest]

http://www.libertyforall.net/2003/archive/april12/declaring-war.html Declaring War on Marijuanaby Michael Van WinkleWith all of the media focus on the war with Iraq, another war is quietlyraging. In the two long years since the Bush administration was inaugurated,the war on drugs has steadily intensified. What is unusual about thisparticular intensification is that it is directly aimed at the leastinsidious of all illicit drugs, marijuana. "It's more harmful than wethought" a recent high quality, TV ad warns, ironically inspiringindependent (and anti-prohibition) minds to question the invasive methodsand curious media the new anti-marijuana campaign employs.The first shots of the marijuana war were fired in 2001, when Ashcroft,contradicting his "states' rights" reputation, intervened to stopCalifornia's medical marijuana program, which had existed since proposition215 passed in 1996 with 56% of the vote. Ashcroft insisted that federal lawhas superiority over state law when it comes to controlled substances. Whilelegally accurate, the rhetoric and philosophy of states' rights is acomplete contradiction to this federal supremacy. We can apparently exemptdrug laws from the scrutiny of Jeffersonian principles, or can we?Just a few months later during the Super Bowl the country was introduced tothe media campaign. The first commercials were an attempt to connect thepurchase of marijuana and other drugs with abetting terrorists, tapping theoverflowing reservoir of concern already weighing on the post 9/11 Americanpsyche. "Today I helped a terrorist," the ads told us as it presented howordinary drug users' money falls into the hands of terrorists. The tenuousconnection was supposedly this: by buying drugs on the black market you givemoney to all sorts of sketchy types, arm dealers, drug dealers and, ofcourse, terrorists.Later in 2002 and into 2003 the media war became more focused, setting itssights clear on marijuana. A series of not just anti-drug but anti-marijuanacommercials appeared blaming the drug for everything from accidentalshootings to teen pregnancy and date rape. Incidentally, these are the firstcommercials I recall ever seeing targeting one specific drug.Several of these commercials were egregious in their exaggeration of thedangers of marijuana. One depicted two teenage boys in the den of a home,choking and laughing as smoke pours from their mouths. One boy finds a gunin the desk at which he is loafing and points it at the other. "Hey look atthis!" he exclaims lethargically. "Is it loaded?" his friend queries."No" .POW! A shot rings out and the screen cuts to black. Almost satiricallythe words "marijuana can distort your since of reality" appear superimposedon the black screen. The satire: We are supposed to imagine that thistragedy wouldn't have occurred without an herbal catalyst. We are, Isuppose, to overlook the outrageous fact that there was a LOADED GUN lyingaround on the desk, waiting to be found by unsupervised children!!! "Oh.ifonly they hadn't been stoned" we gasp.A more recent example of "distorting reality" is a commercial depicting asuper slow-motion car wreck. "How a crash affects your vehicle" the voiceover reads "How a crash affects you body.The cause?" We see the passengerand driver, both cash-test dummies, passing a joint.in super slow motion.The closing statement follows: "In a roadside study, one in three recklessdrivers who were tested for drugs, tested positive for marijuana. It's moreharmful than we all thought. "While the ad does not cite specifics about this "study" it is almostcertainly referring to a study published in the New England Journal ofMedicine in 1994. In the study, Memphis police stopped [roadside] anunreported number of reckless drivers suspected of being intoxicated. Thosedrivers determined to be under the influence of alcohol were taken intocustody but not given drug tests. The remaining 175 reckless drivers whowere suspected of intoxication but apparently not drunk were given drugtests for marijuana and cocaine. Of the 175 tested, 33% tested positive formarijuana, thus "one in three reckless drivers who were tested for drugs,tested positive for marijuana." While not an out right lie, the ad iscertainly not outright truth.The methodological flaws here are substantial. First, the sample ismisrepresentative. The researchers [cops] were not in fact studying"reckless drivers" but reckless drivers "not under the influence ofalcohol." Secondly, these suspects were only tested for marijuana andcocaine, and not for any number of illegal and prescription drugs that areoften take recreationally and could contribute to the inability to drive.Thirdly, to claim that marijuana causes reckless driving one must prove thatwhenever a normal driver smokes he losses the ability to drive. A properstudy would have to begin with testing normal drivers and then intoxicatingthem with marijuana to see how they do. This study works in reverse,selecting reckless drivers "suspected of intoxication" and them testing themfor a specific drug.Putting methodological considerations aside, the study and the commercialprove only that people shouldn't drive while smoking. This is neither newknowledge nor an argument for prohibition, merely stating the obvious.Alcohol is legal and people shouldn't drive while drunk. What's the point?But I digress. The administration's new campaign against marijuana tookanother significant symbolic step recently. In synchronized raids conductedFebruary 24th, 2003 Ashcroft and the DOJ arrested and eventually indicted 55persons charged with purveying marijuana paraphernalia. A booming industryonce ignored is now being heavily sanctioned. The illicit merchants facethree years in prison and forfeiture of assets.What should be of concern to all Americans (not just potheads) are nationalpriorities. In a time of constant panic over threatened terrorist attacks,it is the marijuana smokers that the government seems afraid of. Will therecome a day when the War on Drugs and the War on Terror conflict with oneanother? Will the competition for law enforcement resources lead one "war"to force the abandon of the other? Will hunting terrorists become a moreimportant use of government bureaucracy, leading to the slow starvation ofthe ONDCP and the DEA? This would be an optimistic forecast and I have toadmit, immediately after 9/11 I was optimistic.However, the trespassing of the Justice Department upon states rights, thepropagandist campaign of traversing the cable and broadband lines, and thestringent enforcement of federal paraphernalia laws since 9/11 posesdifferent questions altogether. Will the Drug War and the Terror Wargradually converge? Will the DOJ, having already erased the distinctionbetween buying drugs on the black market and giving money to terroristorganizations, use multiple patriot acts to begin clandestine investigationsof marijuana dealers? I hope not, but I fear the only way to avert thisfuture is for the public to wake up to the fact that marijuana is lessdangerous than we all thought and that tolerating this already ubiquitoussubstance is a small price to pay for maintaining our civil liberties andconstraining the invasive government.