Casa Grande Alliance

On June 16th the Casa Grande Dispatch ran an article titled, “Pot proponents hopeful”.  Quoted here: “These developments and others are kindling unprecedented optimism among the many Americans who want to see marijuana legalized.  Doing so, they contend to an ever-more-receptive audience, could weaken the Mexican cartels now profiting from U.S. pot sales, save billions in law enforcement costs, and generate billions more in tax revenue from one of the nation's biggest cash crops.”

Those who support the legalization of Marijuana have a handful of points supporting their side of the argument, and I will address two of them here.  Some of this information comes from the June 2009 issue of the Medtox Journal, a public safety substance abuse newsletter that can be found at www.medtox.com.

One argument for the legalization is that drug trafficking crime will be reduced if marijuana is made legal.  To quote the Medtox Journal, “The whole concept is founded upon a principle that once the profit motive is taken out of drug dealing, then drug addiction and attendant crime will roundly dissipate. Gangs, cartels and drug producers will pack up and go home once they realize that the federal government will undercut them.”

This concept is not founded on reality.  Drug trafficking organizations distribute marijuana because it has a large market and high profit margin.  If marijuana was legalized they would simply continue to distribute other drugs, as they do now.  In actuality, violence by drug traffickers would likely increase because the value of their drug loads would increase when they switch to other drugs.  Loosing 500lbs of marijuana to the cops is a minor financial loss compared to losing even 10 lbs of heroin or other high-dollar drugs. Additionally, there would still be an illegal market for marijuana of potency higher than that sanctioned by the government.

A second pro-marijuana argument is that it is not a dangerous drug.  Quoting Medtox again; “Inherent to (the) calls for the legalization of drugs is (the) earnest belief that most people can maturely choose to use drugs of abuse and that if the choice is made to do so; people are capable of doing it safely and responsibly.”  There are, in truth, thousands of people in our nation who use marijuana on occasion and suffer few negative effects from it. There are also those who are terribly addicted to it.  Today’s marijuana has higher concentrations of THC, the psychoactive ingredient, and the result is more a more addictive drug.  When an addict stops using, the person suffers physical and mental withdrawal symptoms. 

Many compare marijuana to alcohol; the nation’s primary legal, sedative drug.  The argument is that no more people will have troublesome behavior related to marijuana use than occurs among alcohol drinkers.  The University of Connecticut’s Alcohol Research Center says that 40% of Americans abstain from alcohol, 35% are low-risk drinkers, with the remaining 25% of us being risky and/or addicted drinkers.  Research shows that risky drinking causes more total accidental harm than even the heavy drinking of alcoholics. 

Based on the pro-marijuana comparison to alcohol, and if the addictive process is similar, that means that at least one in four marijuana users will have accompanying problems.  Marijuana use impairs judgment, motivation, the ability to think clearly, and the ability to operate a motor vehicle, among other problems.  There is no doubt that with legalization will come increased use of the drug.  So that is what we will have to look forward to, if marijuana gets legalized: an increase in the number of impaired people driving 75 mph on the highway. An increase in the number of young men and women who lack the motivation to get up each day and go to work.  An increase in the number of students with learning impairments.  And about ¼ of them will also have health and family problems directly related to their drug use. 

This is not a ‘value added’ choice for building a great society, in my estimation.