While enjoying my coffee (with French Vanilla creamer) this morning, and 'flipping' through the news (actually 'clicking' through now) I came across a headline in the Daily Beast titled, "Feds Still Think Pot is Dangerous". I found the short article rather boring; basically a rehash of the same old storyline that marijuana has no medicinal value and is highly addictive, which means it remains a Schedule One drug (the worst of the worst). I did like two of the comments that were posted, oddly enough, in a section titled, "Comments." The fact that the comments were posted in the correct area allows me to arrive at the conclusion that 'stoners' could not have made these postings and thus the validity of the content is unquestioned.
Comment 1:
A month before my sentencing in my federal pot felony case back in 1994, I sent the Chief U.S. District Court Judge a 3-page footnoted report I wrote, "A Brief History of the Criminalization of Marijuana in America." It worked to my benefit (reduced sentence) that I approached the problem by examining the corporate machinations and manipulations of Congress by Hearst Newspapers and the DuPont Corporation that made pot illegal here, rather than expounding on the benefits of legalization.
In the early 1930's machines had been invented that made hemp paper, which lasts 10x longer than acidic wood pulp paper, economically competitive. Hearst and DuPont were hugely invested in wood pulp paper and eliminated competition from hemp paper by bribing Congress to make hemp illegal and demonizing it in Hearst newspapers. Every American knew what hemp was, but Hearst injected the Mexican name 'marijuana' into the press, making folks think it was a new 'demon drug from Mexico.'
Perhaps if our Justice department would examine the roots of the problem, they would be far less clueless and could justify their actions in legalizing it.
Note 1: Hemp and Marijuana, while both the same plant, are different breeds and grown differently for their respective purposes.
Note 2: A federal pot felony case is more likely to be possession or distribution, not use - so this person does not warrant classification as a 'stoner', meaning the content of his post remains valid, for my purposes. ;-)
Comment 2:
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was primarily the unholy creation of Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962. Anslinger had made his career enforcing alcohol prohibition, but when that was repealed in 1933, Anslinger needed a new illegal substance to secure his job.
“Marihuana” was a perfect target: It was used primarily by minorities who were feared by the public due to newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst’s nationwide “Reefer Madness” campaign to demonize cannabis and hemp. Hearst was a racist who used the little-known term “marihuana” to describe what had always been commonly known as cannabis or hemp. Hearst ran a very effective scare campaign to convince the public that “Mexicans and Negroes” were smoking a new drug called “marihuana” that was causing them to rape and murder white people.
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 used a unique legal theory. Since Congress did not have the power to ban substances directly because of the 10th Amendment, they needed an indirect method of prohibition. They were inspired by the National Firearms Act of 1934, which effectively outlawed machine guns through the requirement of a “prohibitive” tax.
The Marihuana Tax Act adopted the “prohibition through taxation” scheme. Rather than making marijuana possession illegal directly, the law required you to purchase a tax stamp in order to possess marijuana legally. Because the taxes were set prohibitively high, it discouraged compliance, creating de facto prohibition.
Note 3: having read through the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, I was able to locate that the tax on an ounce of marijuana was $1, if you had the annual tax stamp that varied between $1 and $24 - depending on where you sat on the totem pole. Engaging in trade without the stamp would, however, result in a $100 per ounce assessment.
Located in the preamble to the 1937 Act were the following two subsections, that I found particularly interesting: (a) is the place where Mitt Romney determined that "corporations are people too" - we gave him a lot of flack on that, but he was only repeating what the government had already determined to be true. Perhaps one of his 'people' are raising hemp for him? I don't know, but a $1 tax on a $3-500 an ounce product seems pretty enticing. I think we owe him an apology, on this point, there are other points, like "the middle class makes about $250,000 a year" that we do not need to apologize for.
(a) The term "person" means an individual, a partnership, trust, association, company, or corporation and includes an officer or employee of a trust, association, company, or corporation, or a member or employee of a partnership, who, as such officer, employee, or member, is under a duty to perform any act in respect of which any violation of this Act occurs.
The next part of the preamble (b) did confuse me, just a bit. As comment 1 (above) appears to make the case that marihuana was demonized to facilitate profitmaking by Hearst and DuPont, the below part (b) seems to exclude that which is needed to make the hemp paper, namely the stalks and fibers coming from the plant. If the stalks and fibers are not illegal, then it would seem that cultivating hemp to produce paper is legal, and thus the argument involving Hearst and DuPont does not bear weight. I have deduced, upon further contemplation, that the original argument can remain valid as only the 'sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination' is allowed. That means, effectively, that only those plants in existence, on the day that this became law, could be harvested for their stalks and fibers. Thereafter, all seeds, capable of germination, would be subject to the "Tax", and under part (b) those seeds, capable of germination, are illegal to possess. This is the best case of 'government double-speak' that I have ever seen - I think it states, in plain language that, "that which is illegal to possess, is legally allowed to be possessed, except when that legality is illegal", which it is.
(b) The term "marihuana" means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds, or resin- but shall not include the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination.
The legalization of marijuana has warranted increasing news and media coverage. A result of this is that our politicians are starting to position themselves on the fence, ready to jump to either side, depending upon public opinion (or so it would seem to me). Quite a few politicians are treading - ever so gently - by failing to publically comment at all. I actually can understand that position, as failure to completely, and adequately, understand the complexities involved could result in a politician's railroading out of town, at the next election. No politician, today, willingly takes a position that could result in losing the next election. This is indicative of the larger problem we have of 'politics as a career job' vice politics as a responsibility of a informed citizenry. A politician that puts down their hoe and takes up the pen, in the statehouse for one or two terms, and then returns to their previous job, is the basis upon what our form of government was founded. We have horribly twisted that model.
The 'wait and see' approach, that states that we'll see what happens in Colorado and Washington is a 'non-approach'. We don't send politicians to the statehouse to avoid the issues. We send them to take a stand, even when that stand may seem to run counter to popular opinion. We trust our government to make the laws that allow our society to flourish and prosper, while maintaining that solid base from which we understand 'rule of law' and respect the 'rights of the people, and the separate States' where those rights do not infringe upon the rights of the Citizens of the United States, and adjoining States citizenry.
So, what exactly is the point of my blog today? Well, I'm against the legalization of marijuana as a social drug. I do believe that marijuana is incorrectly classified, by the federal government, as a Schedule 1 drug. Labeling marijuana as a schedule 1 drug creates insurmountable obstacles to scientific research - the vary same research likely to determine that marijuana is not an 'addictive substance', which is what places it on the Schedule 1 list, as highly addictive and a gateway drug to harder substances. I do believe marijuana to have medicinal qualities, but smoking marijuana is not the delivery method of choice (smoking causes cancer dumbass). Reclassifying marijuana would allow for scientific studies, analyzing through accepted approaches, the benefits and drawbacks of medical marijuana and the delivery methods preferred. Alleviating the known bad impacts of drawing the smoke from burning substances into the human body, through the lungs. This would also free up the remainder of the plant, which, when grown as hemp, has very little of the cannaboid THC, and therefore is not generally used as a method of 'getting high', or using the publically accepted term of 'self-medicating with an all-natural substance'.
Why am I against this as a social drug? 'Tune-in by tuning out', a popular theme of the 60s, a time before the internet, social media, instant on-demand, all the time, everywhere you are-news, movies, and games. I spent some time, under the influence of marijuana in my youth. I can certainly say that it allowed me total relaxation; life without responsibilities - that's what it's all about. Tune-out. As more and more folks do this, at what point do the scales tip. Vote a stoner into Congress ! We'll get more for less, or nothing for anything. We'll get a tax rebate for the purchase of pizza, because the purchase of pizza stimulates the economy and creates growth and jobs - hey, it doesn't matter of you're Democrat or Republican, you can't argue with that position. If more people order pizza, on a regular basis, more jobs will, of necessity, be created and as a result the economy will grow. Is this the growth that we desire though? Of course, I am just joking about a tax rebate for pizza purchasers, but all you have to do is simply change the product to arrive at realism. Scary - that is.
Maybe the Stoners in Congress couldn't really screw it up any worse than it is - and that is a scary thought also. As for me, I'm a firm believer in individual responsibility; personal and community values that respect self and others. I believe that government is about 'service above self', and that self-serving people detract from our society, when they are elected to serve. In this respect, Stoners in Congress makes perfect sense. Stoners are not a 'what's in it for me' crowd. They are more likely to be concerned that everyone has a good time, even if it means that they don't get exactly what they wanted, because, once their stoned, they can't remember what it is that they wanted in the first place, and without responsibility, everyone can have a good time.
Marijuana as a prescribed course of treatment does not scare me; as a social drug though, it worries me greatly.
