If Pot Is Legal, Everyone Will Use Meth
Jacob Sullum | October 13, 2006, 4:24pm
A recent story on KJCT, the Grand Junction, Colorado, ABC affiliate (click on "Amendment 44 Legal Marijuana Conference"), shows that federal, state, and local drug warriors are working hard to defeat Colorado's marijuana legalization initiative. The Office of National Drug Control Policy dispatched Deputy Director Scott Burns to a press conference where he and other law enforcement officials urged voters to reject the measure. The report, which reminds me why I don't watch local news, is worth viewing in its entirety, so you don't miss the dramatizations of pot smoking and drug dealing the station inserted to illustrate the threat posed by the initiative. The spokesman for the initiative campaign, Mason Tvert, does a good job of responding to the drug warriors' allegations, but the slant of the story is obvious. The reporter closes with, "Until the November general elections, all we can do is wait and see whether Colorado will truly become the Mile High State." And yes, he emphasizes Mile instead of High, making the lame play on words even lamer. But you get the idea: If the initiative passes, everyone in Colorado will be stoned all the time.
My favorite moment is when Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger claims "I virtually never see a possession of marijuana case that doesn't also involve methamphetamine....I don't know about the 'gateway' stuff, but I know there's a link, because I see it every day, folks, and that troubles me greatly." Tvert replies that any link between marijuana and methamphetamine is largely a product of the black market. In truth, it's mainly a product of Hautzinger's imagination. Yes, some people who smoke pot also use methamphetamine. But contrary to Hautzinger's implication, the overlap is small. In the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health, more than 10 percent of respondents said they'd used marijuana in the previous year, compared to 0.5 percent who said they'd used meth. So at most, 5 percent of the pot smokers were also meth users.
[Thanks to NORML's Allen St. Pierre for the tip.]
Elliot Ness | October 14, 2006, 2:56am | #
The Nevada marijuana initiative is good because it is an attempt to "control and regulate" cannabis like alcohol.
The one in Colorado is not good because it makes no attempt to control and regulate the substance. It merely "eliminates the penalty for small amounts".
When the marijuana laws were first inacted in the 1930s (when nobody used it) a person went to prison for possessing small amounts. Those penalties were in effect until the Nixon years.
In 1962 there were 169 marijuana arrest's nationwide. in 1970 there were 200,000.
So back when some beatnik on the west coast, or a colored guy in Harlem went to prison for a couple of joints no one cared.
But then suddenly it was the nice middle class white college kid (with long hair and bell bottoms) standing before the judge facing that prison sentence. Oh! Now the establishment (their parents) cared. So they lowered the penalties but kept it illegal.
It was a big mistake to lower the penalties. Nixon should have locked up pot smoking brats like Al Gore, Newt Gingrich and Howard Dean. They should have got their punk asses whooped. They broke the law and got away with it. Then they grew up to become drug warriors.
In 1920 congress passed the Volstead act (midemeanor charges for liquor violations). People weren't obeying the law so in 1929 congress passed the Jones act (felony charges for liquor violations). Not only that, but if you were a "dry" and didn't report a liquor violation you witnessed you faced a felony charge. The jails filled up and federal alcohol prohibition ended 4 years later.
That's what we need. We need a Jones law for drug violations. If our grandparents had come up with dim-witted ideas like "treatment instead of prison" we would still have the 18th amendment among us.
We need to have drugs (not just marijuana) "contolled and regulated" like booze.
Legalize or lock-em up !
Elliot Ness | October 14, 2006, 3:04am | #
The Nevada marijuana initiative is good because it is an attempt to "control and regulate" cannabis like alcohol.
The one in Colorado is not good because it makes no attempt to control and regulate the substance. It merely "eliminates the penalty for small amounts".
When the marijuana laws were first inacted in the 1930s (when nobody used it) a person went to prison for possessing small amounts. Those penalties were in effect until the Nixon years.
In 1962 there were 169 marijuana arrest's nationwide. in 1970 there were 200,000.
So back when some beatnik on the west coast, or a black guy in Harlem went to prison for a couple of joints no one cared.
But then suddenly it was the nice middle class white college kid (with long hair and bell bottoms) standing before the judge facing that prison sentence. Oh! Now the establishment (their parents) cared. So they lowered the penalties but kept it illegal.
It was a big mistake to lower the penalties. Nixon should have locked up pot smoking brats like Al Gore, Newt Gingrich and Howard Dean. They should have got their butt's whooped. They broke the law and got away with it. Then they grew up to become drug warriors.
In 1920 congress passed the Volstead act (midemeanor charges for liquor violations). People weren't obeying the law so in 1929 congress passed the Jones act (felony charges for liquor violations). Not only that, but if you were a "dry" and didn't report a liquor violation you witnessed you faced a felony charge. The jails filled up and federal alcohol prohibition ended 4 years later.
That's what we need. We need a Jones law for drug violations. If our grandparents had come up with dim-witted ideas like "treatment instead of prison" we would still have the 18th amendment among us.
We need to have drugs (not just marijuana) "contolled and regulated" like booze.
Legalize or lock-em up !
