Marijuana legalization frees up police resources that have for many years been wasted on a nearly impossible to enforce prohibition policy. That should be celebrated.
Actual use of the drug, however, should not be.
As other states consider following Colorado and Washington state’s decision to legalize pot, parents, educators and lawmakers should actively oppose marijuana use on the same — and entirely justifiable — grounds that they discourage excessive drinking, smoking, playing video games for too long, and eating three packs of Oreos in one sitting.
Smoking marijuana is unhealthy — far unhealthier than its advocates will admit. Smokers often claim — and I say this from my own experience — that smoking is no worse than alcohol in its negative effects on the body. Indeed, the president himself recently said so in an interview with “The New Yorker.”
While that sentiment may in a sense be true — a stoned-out-of-his-mind hippie strikes a far less threatening image than, say, a belligerent drunk — it marginalizes the very real and harder to quantify health risks that marijuana use poses: that is, its effect on the brain.
The American Medical Association associates smoking with increased rates of anxiety, mood, and psychotic thought disorders. Additionally, smoking poses a particular threat to a young person’s IQ and general neurocognitive performance.
It’s a point of stoner dogma that, unlike hard drugs or cigarettes, marijuana isn’t addictive. While the physical and psychological effects of marijuana withdrawal are not on the same level as, say, heroin, that claim is still false.
For “Psychology Today,” Dr. Wesley Boyd writes that, “being addicted to something is more than simply being physically dependent on a drug and experiencing physiological effects if the drug is stopped suddenly. ‘Addiction’ refers to behaviors that are compulsive, partially out of control or worse, and often escalating in severity and intensity.”
Marijuana makes its user feel good, and just like anything else that makes a person feel good – smoking, sex, eating – it carries the risk for unhealthy dependence on feel-good chemicals. But while cultural norms encourage moderation in alcohol and food consumption, how will norms adjust to a substance like marijuana, with which a man is either all high or all sober?
Like heroin, meth, and cocaine, marijuana is an all-or-nothing ordeal. While not nearly as corrosive as those harder drugs, it encourages within the user a mentality that he must dramatically alter his brain chemistry in order to have a good time. It’s the difference between going into a night with the intention of drinking socially or setting out to get absolutely, no-doubt-about-it, stick-a-fork-in-him hammered.
That’s what makes comments like the ones the President made to “The New Yorker” so naïve. President Obama, who danced with Mary Jane in his youth, said that he doesn’t believe smoking marijuana is any more dangerous than drinking.
He added that “it’s not something [he] encourages” and is “a waste of time,” but the damage is done. Smokers everywhere have it straight from the president: smoking is no more dangerous than alcohol, whether that means a beer or two with dinner or a 30-rack with dessert.
Be that as it may, a stoner-filled society is by no means a foregone conclusion, and, on the whole, legalization is a good thing. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates annual enforcement of marijuana laws costs taxpayers about $3.6 billion. If the legalization fad spreads from Colorado and Washington to the other 48 states of the union, American law enforcement will be better for it.
Legalization strips away the chief of moral proselytizing cop outs — that is, “it’s illegal, so just don’t do it.” If they want to keep kids away from weed, all people anti-drug must replace S.W.A.T. raids and fines with honest conversation and arguments.
The war on drugs must become a war of ideas. Only then is will it be a war worth fighting