Pubdate: Sun, 03 Aug 2014
Source: Forbes Magazine (US)
Copyright: 2014 Forbes Inc.
Contact:  http://www.forbes.com/forbes/current/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/769

THE QUITE HILARIOUS GRASSISNOTGREENER.COM CAMPAIGN AGAINST MARIJUANA 
LEGALISATION

There's a moment of some joyous hilarity today as an organisation
calling itself "GrassIsNotGreener.com" takes out an ad in the New York
Times opposing that newspaper's editorial line that the time has come
to legalise marijuana. The fun comes from looking at who is supporting
this campaign and then trying to work out why they're doing so. The
co-founder seems to be one of the more addicted Kennedys, the former
Congressman from Rhode Island, Patrick. I'm afraid that I stray from
accepted wisdom here, I tend not to think that addicts, whether former
or not, have any great insights into what the rest of us should be
allowed to do. I'm much more likely to take seriously on these
subjects someone like myself who has dabbled in all sorts of things
over the decades but not really found myself even discommoded, let
alone trapped, by any of them. Given that that seems to be the usual
human experience, most of us have tried one drug or another and few of
us have become addicted to any of them, that sounds like the more
sensible group of people to listen to. Rather than, say, someone who
blamed a car crash on the use of too much Adderall.

But there's much more fun at their website:

GrassIsNotGreener.com is an initiative of Smart Approaches to
Marijuana (Project SAM), a nonpartisan alliance of lawmakers,
scientists and other concerned citizens, co-founded by former
Congressman Patrick Kennedy. The initiative is supported by a number
of prevention, treatment, and medical groups.

Prevention, treatment and medical groups? You mean precisely the
groups that if dope becomes a usual and accepted part of American life
won't actually have those nice middle class jobs dealing with "drug
addicts" any more? You might think that I'm being too harsh here but
the first thing that should be in everyones' mind when we consider
support or opposition to one or another piece of public policy is "Cui
bono?" Who benefits from whatever it is that is being proposed?

In this case the supporting groups include the American Society of
Addiction Medicine and the National Association of Drug Court
Professionals. Two groups who really would see a fall off in business
if hundreds of thousands of people aren't criminalised each year for
smoking a common ditchweed.

Their claims are also amusing: "Marijuana can lead to schizophrenia,
psychosis and depression." Well, no, not really, although there's
definitely a correlation between all four. The usual finding though is
that those who feel their minds weakening under the advance of those
three (serious and horrible) mental disorders seem to self-medicate,
pot being one of the things they do so with.

You might call me cynical for saying this but what we see here is is
those who make their living from the current drug laws arguing that
they must be kept, that freedom must be denied, so that they get to
keep their jobs. Which is, when you come to think of it, a fairly
hilarious argument, most especially if we take them seriously.

Update. An organisation called the Marijuana Majority has contacted us
and their Chairman, Tom Angell, has this to say about the ad:

As someone who has been working in the legalization movement for over
a decade to smash unhelpful stereotypes about who uses marijuana, I
actually love this ad. The vast majority of people who see it in the
newspaper are going to think it's a pro-legalization ad making the
point that not only hippies use marijuana, but successful
businesspeople do too. And most people who bother to read the text are
going to realize that legalization means that a professional,
aboveground industry will be taking control of the marijuana trade
once we take it out of the hands of the violent drug cartels and gangs
that run the show in the prohibition-created black market. I'm a
little sad that SAM didn't ask Marijuana Majority to help fund the
ad.

A quite wonderful point, I hope you'll agree.
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MAP posted-by: Matt