Pubdate: Tue, 22 Jan 2013
Source: Daily Republic, The (SD)
Copyright: 2013 Forum Communications Company
Contact:  http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1320
Author: Joe Graves

THE PROBLEM WITH POT

Both ends of the political continuum seem to support throwing in the 
towel on at least some of the fronts on the war against drugs.

Of the various election returns that mystified me from the most 
recent November plebiscite, the most confounding was the legalization 
of marijuana in Colorado and Washington. It's not that I don't have 
some libertarian leanings - I do - but the legalization of drugs 
isn't one of them. To me, a simple historical example, the Opium 
Wars, settled the issue of decriminalizing drugs for all time given 
the relatively unchanging disposition of human nature.

In those wars, set in the middle of the 19th century, the British 
Empire required China to allow the importation of opium and the 
Chinese emperor, already hobbled by English military and economic 
might, went to war rather than knuckle under because of the sheer 
number of his subjects whose lives were being destroyed by the drug. 
The Emperor could see that his people were better off fighting a 
hopeless war than accepting the social devastation that drugs brought to them.

Still, it didn't surprise me that these two states voted to legalize 
marijuana. The societal trends in America just seem to be moving 
inexorably in that direction, the subterfuges in other states which 
allow medicinal use of marijuana (which even "South Park" couldn't 
help but see through) are an obvious ruse, and an odd combination of 
both ends of the political continuum seem to support throwing in the 
towel on at least some of the fronts on the war against drugs.

Since then, however, probably prodded on by the realization that 
legalization is now no longer something that seems increasingly 
likely but is actually in place especially given the federal response 
- - equivalent to a yawn - I've been progressively more bothered by 
what I suspect is coming.

Allow me two examples and I won't even go into the slippery slope 
argument of marijuana being the gateway legislative drug opening up 
legalization for every other form of chemical intoxicant, a 
pharmaceutical Pandora's Box.

First, if marijuana is legal in some American states, it will be 
essentially impossible to stave off its legalization and thus 
increased and more pervasive use in our own state.

I believe this to be true because I've watched so many other social 
trends begin at one level and move downward to all levels.

Why do some student-athletes challenge officials, engage in on-court 
fisticuffs, display the most onerous lack of sportsmanship, and 
generally act like prima donnas? They do so because they have watched 
their heroes in the NFL and NBA do so for years.

Emulation of sports heroes does not end with their good qualities; it 
extends to all qualities, and professional athletes who act like this 
is not the case or that it isn't their concern are just wrong and at 
least slightly sociopathic. Why do increasing numbers of young people 
sprinkle their daily vocabulary with words that leave me wondering if 
they kiss their mother's cheek with that same mouth?

They do because so many television shows and movies include a regular 
diet of profanities and use the "bleep" censoring tool as just 
another way to curse.

Marijuana-using celebrities gave credibility to their drug of choice 
and aided in its legalization in these two states. These two states' 
legalization is simply the next step to our entire society's eventual 
acceptance of it, not for any well-argued rationales but simply 
because of its seeming inevitability.

That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be OK to legalize marijuana if it 
had no real ill effects on society or its users.

But, of course, it does. In high school, I watched friends and fellow 
students change from people with a future to what we then described 
as "burn-outs." If drunken driving isn't enough of a threat and we 
think we even need to forbid texting while driving, do we really need 
a new method of mind-impairment while operating a motor vehicle?

Perhaps closest to home, though, is my second point.

In the Mitchell School District, we have two employees - Karen Allen 
and Traci Moore - who lead our pretty darned successful efforts to 
prevent tobacco use among our students.

We do so for a number of reasons but chief among them is the fact 
that people who begin smoking at a young age will, with all 
probability, face myriad health disasters as a result in the near, 
mid or far future.

I was reminded of this recently when I read "The Emperor of All 
Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It is a 
fascinating account of the medical profession's battle with this disease.

When, halfway through the book, Mukherjee finally begins to discuss 
medicine's late-coming focus on prevention and the search for 
carcinogens, tobacco takes center stage.

It's not the only example, of course, and the first cancer-causing 
substance discovered is actually chimney soot, an enormously lethal 
problem for English children employed as chimney sweeps or "soot 
boys," but among the legions of cancer-bringers tobacco is its own 
emperor. Thus, the state of South Dakota provides tobacco settlement 
money (the source of which is its own modern irony) in the form of 
grants for us to prevent tobacco use among students, because it is 
just the right thing to do and because every student prevented from 
starting will mean huge health care cost savings later for them and 
for government programs.

Mukherjee explains this in length in his book, noting the decline of 
tobacco use has resulted in reduced disease among men, though only 
decades later, but that, among women, since smoking rates among the 
fairer gender increased more recently, the rates of such disease is 
still on the up-tick. In other words, it takes decades for reduced 
tobacco use to translate into a healthier society.

So what does any of that have to do with legalizing marijuana? 
Everything. Legalizing it will mean more users.

More users will mean more people suffering the longer-term health 
effects from its use, the full extent of which are not even fully 
known because, unlike tobacco, marijuana has not yet been 
sufficiently pervasive or used for adequate durations to allow the 
type of longitudinal studies that can lead to the necessary 
scientific conclusions. In other words, as people like Moore and 
Allen work their non-tobacco-stained fingers to the bone to push back 
the horrifying medical effects of tobacco use, we are as a society 
inviting a new threat to engulf current and future generations in 
pain, suffering, death and gargantuan medical bills. As we clean up 
one problem at the front door, we allow another through the back.

Sisyphus, it seems, didn't have it so bad. At least he had only one 
rock to push.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom