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