Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) Copyright: 2014 Sun-Sentinel Company Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/mVLAxQfA Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159 Author: Chan Lowe Page: 22A REEFER MADNESS VS. DEMON RUM Back in the early 1970s, when I as in college, my campus and its surrounding town had a kind of live-and-let-live understanding about students' recreational use of marijuana. As long as local residents weren't disturbed by noise, and no damage was done to off-campus property, the tiny town's police department turned its limited manpower to other, more important matters-like making sure unauthorized people didn't use the municipal dump. I remember once being in a dorm room, where the air was thick with smoke. Black Sabbath was blasting out of the stereo speakers, when suddenly, the door opened. Dazzling fluorescent light from the hallway spilled into the haze. It was a campus cop. We froze. "Hi, boys," he said, "It's 2 a.m. Let's keep it down, OK?" and shut the door. That attitude is precisely the way an enlightened society should view the use of marijuana, whether it be recreational, medical, or whatever. That the subject is still controversial over 40 years later is due, in part, to lingering prejudice about the type of users once associated with it. Back in the 60s and 70s-when pot smoking became prevalent-upright, law-abiding folks believed that only ne'er-do-well hippies and other subversives succumbed to its hallucinogenic charms. Booze, on the other hand, was the time-honored indulgence of the establishment; of those who conducted their lives in observance of a certain moral code; of the respected elders. It wasn't really a drug. It was more of a social lubricant, a tension reliever. Sure, every once in a while a person might overdose on this non-drug, get behind the wheel of a car, and kill somebody-but in that pre-MADD era, most juries responded with a verdict of "There, but for the grace of God, go I." Yet, even today, this double standard endures. The only way the Florida Legislature would even pass a medically-needed pot law this year was by stripping the demon weed of its euphoric properties, as though marijuana's high were somehow less wholesome than alcohol's. This November, Sunshine State voters will have their say on medical marijuana- and chances are that eventually, they'll be deciding upon its recreational use as well. And keep this in mind: Even older Floridians remember having been young once. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt