Pubdate: Wed, 09 Oct 2013
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Copyright: 2013 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact:  http://www.metrotimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381
Author: Larry Gabriel
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?275 (Cannabis - Michigan)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

A MULTI-FACETED COALITION

Disperate Agendas but the Same End-Goal

I recently spoke with Brandy Zink, chair of the Michigan Chapter of 
Americans for Safe Access, about the movement to legalize marijuana, 
when she said, "When marijuana is legal, we're still going to need 
medical marijuana."

That got me to thinking. There are a lot of fronts when it comes to 
cannabis activism - each of them viable in their own way, yet 
inseparably intertwined with each other. The most visible fronts are 
the medical marijuana movement, the push to legalize recreational use 
of marijuana, the industrial hemp initiative, and efforts to end the 
drug war and legalize them all.

Each of these movements has a certain amount of support from folks 
across the spectrum, but they all maintain a different focus. This 
leads to belief by some that medical marijuana or hemp enthusiasts 
just want to get high and are using a legitimate cause to advance 
their hidden agenda. It's true that some folks are doing that, but I 
believe there are also many people who are sincerely working out of 
compassion for people suffering with illness, or simply motivated by 
the economic benefits of hemp.

Overall, the pro-marijuana movement is a coalition of supporters of 
different causes who sympathize with each other, but seek different outcomes.

"That's an interesting breakdown," says Morgan Fox, communications 
manager at the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit Marijuana Policy 
Project. "All those different factors are so involved with each other 
it's sometimes hard to pull them apart. If marijuana becomes legal, 
then hemp is de-facto legal. Working toward some of the same goals 
would increase access for patients. There are a lot of tie-ins there. 
A lot of it is just based on tactics. The end result will have 
impacts for all of them. The Marijuana Policy Project's main goal is 
to remove the threat of arrest for all adults. We're going to 
continue working on that."

Each of those fronts has its victories to celebrate and its defeats 
to lament. California recently legalized industrial hemp, which is 
used in hundreds of products from textiles to fuels to nutritional 
supplements. It's the 12th state to do so. However, anyone who 
actually wants to farm hemp must first have a federal permit, and the 
feds aren't handing out permits for that.

The hemp prohibition is a strange turn of events. From the early 
years of our nation, hemp, which does not get people high, was a 
staple crop. In 1619, the Virginia assembly passed a law requiring 
every household to grow hemp due to its many uses. George Washington 
grew it, as well as several other founding fathers.

Today, 30 different countries grow hemp, and we import $500 million 
worth of it each year, according to a 2012 Congressional Research 
Service report. The same report estimates there are 2,500 different 
hemp products on the global market. No wonder some farmers want to grow it.

"To me, one of the most interesting aspects about cannabis is that a 
large portion of conservative farmers and folks in the Bible Belt are 
for bringing the hemp plant into the farming community for industrial 
purposes, even if they are against it for recreational, medicinal and 
spiritual use," says Paul Pearson, director of communications for 
Michigan Industrial Hemp Education and Marketing Project (MIHEMP).

Everett Swift, executive director of MIHEMP, says, "We have some 
members who are for medical and recreational use, and some members 
who are against any form of marijuana legalization other than 
industrial. We don't take any stance for or against medical or 
recreational use as an organization."

What's interesting here is that proponents of the same plant can come 
to that from such varied points of view. These perspectives add to 
the aura of marijuana as being some kind of super plant that can lend 
itself to so many different uses. Evidence of hemp cord goes back 
10,000 years. Seeds were used for food and oil around 6,000 B.C. Its 
medicinal use was recorded 5,000 years ago, and spiritual use was 
recorded 4,000 years ago. Mentions of its recreational use appear 
about 500 B.C. Marijuana prohibition began in 1937. That's been 76 
years. In the tides of history, however, that represents an anomaly.

What would seem to be the most radical efforts are those who believe 
the entire War on Drugs is wrong and all drugs should be 
decriminalized. They prefer to treat addiction as a health issue 
rather than a criminal problem. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, 
a group of former and current police officials, says that most of the 
social and personal damage attributed to drugs is actually caused by 
the policy. It's the prohibition that makes moving drugs across 
national borders or fighting for sales turf in a neighborhood profitable.

Another problem is that law enforcement does not pursue the drug war 
equally against all users. It has been substantiated that drug use is 
about equal by all races. African-Americans and Latinos, however, are 
arrested for drugs at much higher rates than whites. This has created 
many issues in minority communities, from broken families to lack of 
ability to get education assistance or jobs due to having a felony 
record. That's in addition to using the law in a discriminatory way 
against minorities. This led to the NAACP calling for an end to the 
War on Drugs in 2011.

"These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in 
African-American communities must be stopped and replaced with 
evidence-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and 
abuse in America," said NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous 
in a press release at the time.

The results of the War on Drugs don't seem to have led to any 
lessening of drug use, and, as alcohol prohibition helped create 
organized crime in the United States, drug prohibition has helped 
international drug cartels take advantage of the tremendous profits 
in smuggling drugs.

John Sinclair, a victim of marijuana prohibition, has been a key 
figure in fighting the drug war in Michigan since the 1960s. I spoke 
with him last week while he was in Detroit to celebrate his 72nd birthday.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom