Pubdate: Thu, 15 Sep 2005
Source: Tewksbury Advocate (MA)
Copyright: 2005 Community Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www2.townonline.com/tewksbury
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3797
Author:  Steven S. Epstein, Massachusetts Cannabis Reform, NORML
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

WHY WE NEED A "FREEDOM" RALLY

This Saturday the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition hosts its 16th 
annual Freedom Rally on the Boston Common, it coincidentally is the two 
hundred and eighteenth anniversary of the conclusion of the Constitutional 
Convention, with the promise that the constitution it drafted would "secure 
the blessings of  liberty" to the American People. I am proud to say I have 
been involved in this  annual event since the first in 1990 at the USS 
Constitution and will continue  to be until cannabis is legal; I am 84, or 
dead. Why would  a 34-year-old middle class lawyer with a wife and at the 
time two children, we since added a third, help organize a protest against 
marijuana prohibition?  Well, I have consumed marijuana, as have most of 
you reading this essay  according to government surveys, and like Michael 
Bloomberg, now mayor of New  York, I liked it. My teachers taught me to 
question authority and growing up  during the Nixon Administration 
reinforced their lessons of mistrust of  government. My experience with 
marijuana and my reading of the vast literature  on the plant taught me 
that the government was and continues to lie about the  risk it poses to 
its users and to society. The vast  majority of former and current users 
are productive, responsible citizens, who  have not used other illicit drugs.

Except for their use of marihuana, they are  as otherwise law-abiding as 
the rest of the citizenry.

This attitude is  reflected in the success marijuana policy questions have 
had with Massachusetts  voters since 2000. The results show a solid 
majority do not want possession of  marijuana to be a crime.

Voter approved questions have proposed it be a civil  violation, like a 
speeding ticket and for the police to hold a person under 18  cited for 
possession until the child is released to a parent, legal guardian 
or  brought before a judge.

As a  student of the Constitution of the United States and Massachusetts it 
is  apparent to me the founders understood that you cannot legislate Utopia 
into  existence.

Marijuana prohibition as part of the utopian war on drugs purports as its 
goal to establish a "drug free America." Years of prohibition have 
by  experience taught that what is really accomplished by prohibition is a 
price  support for producers and distributors of these substances, in the 
case of  marijuana an ounce of dried flowers is boosted to the remarkably 
high retail  price of $240 to over $400 depending on the quality! 
Since  enforcement efforts cannot accomplish the utopian goal of 
eradicating marijuana,  enforcement is arbitrary and contrary to republican 
principles. Realizing it is  arbitrary, the prohibitionists need it to be 
too punitive to enhance the "message" the arrest and prosecution of Tom, 
but not Dick and Harry sends to the  community.

It is arbitrary because the law grants the arbitrary power to the police to 
arrest, summons, or verbally warn the offender.

It is too punitive  because a conviction for possessing marijuana may 
result not only in  incarceration in jail in Massachusetts, but a loss of 
the privilege to drive a  car for up to five years, denial of federally 
guaranteed student loans, and  permanent loss of not only a permit to carry 
firearms, but the ability to use a  rifle to hunt.

Prohibition fails to keep marijuana away from children more effectively 
than regulation of alcohol and tobacco keeps alcohol away from children it 
appears the wiser course for Congress and the state legislature to tax and 
regulate this  agricultural commodity while prohibiting it to children as 
we do tobacco and  alcohol.

Such a policy is the only policy consistent with securing the 
Constitution's promised Blessings of Liberty. It would free our plant 
scientists  to work with cannabis, not as the black market breeders have 
done to maximize  the potency of the flowers, but to maximize seed, fiber 
and biomass production,  as well as research of the medicinal potential. 
For much  of human history the seed and fiber of this plant with many names 
was a source  of medicine, food and textiles.

Tens of thousands of products produced from  trees, petroleum and coal can 
be made from hemp. Freed from the prohibition it  may be that hemp will 
prove an invaluable source of medicines, food, fuel, and textiles again 
fulfilling John Adams' 1763 prophecy that, "We shall by and by  want a 
world of hemp more for our own consumption."
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman