Pubdate: Thu, 20 Sep 2012
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2012 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Paul Danish

THE CENSORED ARGUMENTS FOR PROPOSITION 64

The sponsors of Colorado Proposition 64, the ballot proposal that
would legalize marijuana and regulate it like alcohol, think these are
three of the best arguments for voting yes:

1) Marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol.

2) The consequences of a marijuana offense are too severe.

3) Law enforcement resources would be better spent on more serious
crimes.

The opponents of Proposition 64 evidently agree. How else can you
explain why they deliberately cut them out of the State Ballot
Information Booklet (aka The Blue Book), the voter guide to ballot
issues that the State of Colorado sends to every registered voter in
the state before every election? About 2 million will be sent out this
year.

Members of the Legislative Council, the statutory committee of the
state Legislature that made the cuts, said the three arguments were
taken out mistakenly. That may or may not be true. But there is no
question that after the "mistake" was uncovered the arguments were
kept out deliberately -- first by a vote in the committee not to
restore them, and then by a decision by the Legislative Council's
research director, who had the authority to unilaterally restore them
but chose not to do so. The truth is that the arguments for
Proposition 64 were deliberately censored.

When one side in a political discussion resorts to censorship to keep
you from hearing the other side's arguments, the censored arguments
usually deserve serious consideration.

So is marijuana objectively less harmful than alcohol? Here are some
metrics against which to compare the two drugs:

How easy is it to get addicted?

Alcohol: Roughly one in 10 users of alcohol becomes physically addicted 
(turns into an alcoholic). That works out to somewhere between 10 and 15 
million Americans.

Marijuana: Marijuana is not physically addictive. It does not cause 
cravings, users do not have to consume ever larger amounts to get high, 
and discontinuation of use doesn't produce withdrawal symptoms -- unlike 
alcohol. Marijuana is among the least addictive drugs known to man. 
Legal alcohol, tobacco and caffeine are all more addictive.

How easy is it to get un-addicted?

Alcohol: Kicking alcohol addiction requires major behavior changes that 
can take months to years to accomplish -- usually with the aid of a 
12-step program. Not everyone succeeds, and those who do always feel 
they are in danger of backsliding.

Marijuana: Marijuana is probably the single easiest recreational drug to 
stop using -- far easier than alcohol or tobacco. Most marijuana users 
who want to quit using marijuana simply stop. Since no craving or 
withdrawal symptoms are involved, it's generally not a big deal.

How easy is it to fatally overdose?

Alcohol: About 400 people a year die of alcohol poisoning.

Marijuana: There are no known cases of anyone dying of marijuana 
poisoning. To consume a fatal dose of THC, the chemical in marijuana 
responsible for the high, a user would have to smoke 500 pounds of it.

How likely is use to result in violent behavior and
crime?

Alcohol: Alcohol use figures in about 3 million violent crimes a year, 
including two-thirds of the episodes of domestic violence. When it comes 
to violent crime, alcohol is the drug of choice.

Marijuana: Marijuana use reduces the incidence of violent behavior, a 
point that is obvious to anyone who has been around pot users. The 
assertion in 1937 by the late Harry Anslinger, the director of the 
Bureau of Narcotics, that marijuana "is the most violence-causing drug 
in the history of mankind," and that blacks and Hispanics were 
particularly likely to become violent from using it, was a brazen lie, 
and Anslinger knew it. Anslinger's perjury was pivotal in convincing 
Congress to criminalize marijuana. The truth is that marijuana is one of 
the least violence-causing drugs in the pharmacopeia, and there is no 
known difference as to how different races or ethnic groups respond to it.

How likely is use to result in cancer?

Alcohol: According to the American Cancer Society, heavy alcohol use has 
been linked to cancers of the mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus, 
breast, liver, colon and rectum, and the risk increases with consumption.

Marijuana: There have been attempts for years to link marijuana to 
cancer, but most of the studies attempting to do so have either failed 
to find a connection or have been debunked. Dr. Donald Tashkin of UCLA 
spent a lifetime trying to prove that marijuana causes lung cancer 
(because marijuana contains more cancer-causing tars than tobacco), but 
eventually announced that he could find no link. A number of studies in 
recent years have found evidence that marijuana may actually slow or 
prevent a number of types of cancer. (Google marijuana and cancer.)

And so on. There are a number of other similar comparisons -- like the
nature and extent of impairment associated with each drug, or harm to
the unborn, for instance -- that show marijuana to be the safer
recreational drug. I've been following this issue for more than 20
years; I can't recall any cases in which alcohol comes out on top.

The opponents of Proposition 64 obviously don't want people to know
that.

Which brings us to the second and third censored arguments.

Are the consequences of a marijuana offense too severe? If marijuana
is less harmful than alcohol, then obviously they are. The penalties
for a marijuana offense should be no worse than those for an alcohol
offense. That they are not -- and that each year nearly 1 million
Americans are arrested and often imprisoned for doing something that
is no more harmful than drinking beer -- is not only unjust and
unfair, it is immoral and evil.

Would law enforcement resources be better spent on more serious
crimes? Self-evidently yes.

The real lesson of the voter guide's censoring is this: The opponents
of Proposition 64 don't believe they can win if the supporters of
Proposition 64 are able to make their case to the voters.

That fact alone should prompt the voters to give the supporters'
arguments a lot of weight.
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MAP posted-by: Matt