Why can’t we do things right as a society? Why do we always slouch toward the expedient?
I bring this up because marijuana has medicinal properties that could alleviate much human suffering. But federal law—the Controlled Substances Act—declares that it has zero legitimate medicinal uses. Since the law passed originally, we have learned that designation is clearly false. But we have allowed it to remain in the law anyway. Maintaining a law based on a lie subverts respect for the rule of law itself.
Reform is clearly called for. And there is a principled way forward for those who—like me—want MJ and MJ-derived products to enter medicine’s armamentarium, while still keeping it illegal for recreational use: Change the CSA to declare that cannabis has legitimate medical uses, but also also has a high potential for abuse—just like the CSA does now for far stronger drugs such as morphine and cocaine. But no. Cowardly politicians—liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican—refuse to act.
That abject slouching leads to the anarchic state “solutions,” in which a doctor writes a “letter” for a “patient,” and the pot is distributed by a storefront “collective.” This allows people who need it to obtain medical marijuana—but also clearly serves as a patina for recreational drug selling—as in getting a letter for “stress.” (There was a hilarious scene in The Closer Monday, that dealt with that precise scenario.)
This unprincipled semi-legalization of recreational marijuana is apparently taking a toll on American teenagers, with pot use on the rise. From the story:
More American high school seniors are smoking marijuana daily now than at any time since the early 1980s, and they’re actually smoking more pot than cigarettes, according to a survey released Tuesday. About 6 percent of high school seniors reported smoking marijuana daily in the new survey, which involved more than 46,000 teens in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades. That’s up from 2 percent in 1991 and the same percentage that smoked daily in 1981.
Gee, why might that be?
The survey results show an end to almost a decade of declining rates of pot use. They came as a sharp disappointment to anti-drug advocates and addiction researchers, who blamed the shift primarily on the growing national discussions on medicinal marijuana and legalizing pot - conversations that have received heavy emphasis in California. With so much talk about the potential health benefits of pot, teenagers are increasingly complacent about the risks of marijuana, public health experts say. “When you talk about the potential health benefits of marijuana, it’s the equivalent of saying heroin is a great pain medication, so you shouldn’t be wary of it,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study. “A drug may have compounds that have therapeutic benefits, but that in no way decreases its toxic effects.”
That doesn’t happen with other drugs, because by making it a truly prescribed medicine that is dispensed at pharmacies, the distinction between medical use and getting high is far easier to maintain.
There is a right way to do the right thing, a wrong way to do the right thing, and doing the wrong thing. Somehow, with medical marijuana, our fearless leaders have managed the paradoxical feat of doing all three at the same time. Disgraceful.
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