War
On a Country Builder
Introduction
The
United States
is a free country. This means that the people are free to do as they please so
long as what they do does not infringe upon the rights of another citizen. This
means that the people of the United
States have certain rights that are not
granted, but protected by the United States Constitution. The freedom of
speech; a right many take for granted and invoke for many reasons. The right to
keep and bare arms; another right protected by the U.S. Constitution. The right
to practice what ever religious beliefs the individual citizen chooses, and the
right to not be subjected to laws based in any religion. These and many other
rights are in constant battle with policy makers and each other; the people
always seeking a balance between their rights and the rights of others. In some
the balance is not there, in others some may argue too much freedom is granted.
One
right not mentioned with any specificity is the right to do with and to our
bodies what ever we choose. This has caused a lot of debate and controversy.
The woman's right to have an abortion hears the pro choice side saying that
they have the right to do with their own bodies as they choose. Prostitution,
the "oldest profession in the world," also sees arguments that are
similar, being touted as a victimless crime. These issues have been and still
are in constant debate and controversy, with the federal government taking a
neutral stance, allowing individual states to make their own laws. One action,
drug use, is not considered by the federal government to be up to the states.
Federal drug laws are enforced, regardless of state policies. One drug has
created a prison population that is over flowing with otherwise law abiding
citizens; productive in every day life, able to keep jobs, take care of
children, and get along with other people in a shared community. This drug, not
even a narcotic by definition, once a backbone of American industry, made
illegal for nefarious reasons, never credibly linked with any illness or side
effect, and kept illegal through rhetoric and logical fallacy is marijuana.
Part
1: History of Marijuana
In
the United States
today, there are many laws surrounding drugs, criminal laws that lead to the
arrest of thousands of individual citizens every year. Citizens who sell, who
use, who are addicted to different drugs, illegal and otherwise. None of these
laws have worked to lower drug addiction, drug sales, drug use, or fulfilled
any touted purpose for that law. The most effective law, written in 1906, is
not even a criminal law, but lead to the most significant lowering of drug
addiction in US
history; the Pure Food and Drug Act (Whitebread, 1995). This law created the
Food and Drug Administration, made certain drugs available only through
prescription, and required habit forming drugs to have a warning on the label
of the potential for addiction. The first criminal law in regards to drugs was
the Harrison Act, written in 1914, which covered "only opium, morphine and
it various derivatives, and derivatives of the coca life..." (Whitebread,
1995). The Harrison Act did not criminalize the use or even sales of these drugs,
but regulated them to nothing more then a tax. So those who were in violation
of the law were not because of possession or use, but were charged with tax
evasion when they did not pay the very high taxes required by congress for each
transaction. Doctor's enjoyed a minimal tax to pay each year in order to
prescribe the drugs, while citizens were required to pay a ridiculous amount
per transaction that a doctor's prescription was not involved in.
The
first law to criminalize marijuana was a Utah
state law. The law itself was passed to respect the states dominant religion,
Mormonism. The Mormon church hit some rough patches that made some members who
wanted to practice their religion in more traditional fashion, where the men
were allowed more then one wife, left the country for northern Mexico.
After failing to convert the populace there, some went back to Utah and brought
marijuana with them. The church soon said marijuana use violated their
doctrine, and the state soon passed laws in direct respect to that doctrine
(Whitebread, 1995). What followed were 26 other states, the southwest region
criminalizing marijuana for the simple reason that Mexican immigrants smoked it
and were seen as lesser people. In the northeast, some states passed laws as a
preeminent measure out of fear of it being used to substitute what was illegal
at the time by those addicted to the illegal drugs and alcohol. All 27 states
criminalized marijuana between 1915 and 1937.
In
1937 the Marihuana Tax Act was passed and signed into law by President
Roosevelt. The one motivation of this act was to prohibit the growth of hemp in
America.
What led to it is a short story of obvious ulterior motives, ignoring quality
information, and plain and simple lying. First, the hearing at congress, the
first step to passing a law, was very short, having only three bodies of
testimony (Whitebread, 1995). The first
testimony was given by the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry
Anslinger. He said, "Marihuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users
insanity, criminality, and death." The second body of testimony came from
industry, the first of this testimony was given by someone within the rope
industry. They were involved because hemp was grown in the United States
for the production of rope. He said that hemp would be cheaper to import from
the far east then to grow locally. The paint and varnish people said they could
use something else. The birdseed people opposed the act, but then were made
exempt from it so they could still use denatured marijuana seeds to produce
bird feed. Finally came the medical testimony, given from two sources. The
first was a pharmacologist at Temple
University who claimed to
have injected into the brains of 300 dogs the active ingredient of marijuana
and that two of the dogs died. When asked if the dogs were chosen because of
the similarities of their reactions to that of humans, the pharmacologist
responded, "I wouldn't know, I am not a dog psychologist."
The
second medical testimony was given by Dr. William C. Woodward, who was both a
lawyer and a doctor. Dr. Woodward was also the Chief Counsel to the American
Medical Association. His testimony was as follows, "The American Medical
Association knows of no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug" (Whitebread,
1995). Immediately following this, one congressman said to him, "Doctor,
if you can't say something good about what we are trying to do, why don't you
go home?" Another congressman said, "Doctor, if you haven't got
something better to say than that, we are sick of hearing you." Despite
the objections of the American Medical Association, the bill was passed out of
committee on to the floor of Congress. When the Republicans asked the speaker
what the bill was about, he told them he did not know, it has something to do
with a thing called marihuana, and that he thought it was a narcotic of some
kind. When the Republicans asked if the American Medical Association supported
the bill, a member of the committee who supported the bill stood up, remember
the doctor's name was Woodward, and said, "Their doctor Wentworth came
down here. They support the bill 100 percent." That was good enough for
the Republicans. The bill was passed and signed into law by President
Roosevelt.
What
followed was a circus of murder trials where defense claimed not guilty by
reason of marijuana induced insanity. In one case, the same pharmacologist who
tested on dogs was called in as an expert witness and claimed he had used the
drug on himself and was turned into a bat. In all the cases where this defense
was used, the defendant was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Anslinger,
who had disgraced himself earlier by wanting to round up jazz musicians for
using the drug, wrote to that pharmacologist telling him that if he did not
stop testifying he would no longer be the FBN's expert. No more cases occurred
where that defense was used. In 1951 the Boggs Act was passed. After medical
experts had once again contradicted Anslinger's claims, and Anslinger himself
said that his original claims were not accurate, but that marijuana use leads
to the use and addiction to heavier drugs, the Boggs Act was passed to increase
the severity of punishments across the board in drug violations. In 1956, the
Daniels Act was passed, which once again created even harsher punishments for
drug violations. In 1969 the Dangerous Substances Act was passed, altering the
way we punish drug violations, including making certain ones less harsh for the
first time in US history, as well as classifying every drug we know of, except
of course for tobacco and alcohol, into two categories; what is the drugs
medical use and what is its potential for abuse? This is how the United States
regulates drugs today. Never having seriously readdressed marijuana without
industry bias.
Part
2: Marijuana Today
By
definition, a narcotic is a drug that puts an individual to sleep (Whitebread,
1995). This leads to the conclusion that
most drugs used for recreational purposes are not in fact narcotics. This would
include marijuana. Legal professionals still refer to the drugs for which they
arrest people as narcotics, whether this is done as a simple misnomer or for a
more nefarious reason is unknown and quite moot other then to set the stage for
drug laws today. Today they are as they were in 1969, with various degrees for
which a person can be charged, from simple possession to distribution, and what
constitutes each charge in individual cases.
Part
3: Marijuana Fact vs. Fallacy
The
most likely danger of marijuana use would be damage to the lungs. Smoking
marijuana is as it sounds, the inhalation of smoke produced from burning it,
usually in a cigarette or from a pipe. While the inhalation of smoke is
dangerous regardless of what is burning, the effort here is to contrast it with
the legal use of tobacco. Tobacco use has been linked with many diseases, most
being forms of cancer. One noncancerous disease that effects most smokers is
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Tan et al., 2009). A study conducted in Canada lead to
findings that concluded that tobacco smoking and marijuana smoking is
synergistic as they relate to the development of COPD. Meaning that they are
more likely to work together then separate in creating the illness. However,
the findings also suggest that tobacco smoking without smoking marijuana
increased the risk as well. There was not enough information and the study was
not big enough to reach any conclusions on those who smoke marijuana only. What
all this suggests is that marijuana smoking is at most, no more dangerous then
cigarette smoking and that it is most likely not as dangerous because the
tobacco only smokers developed COPD at nearly the same rate as those who smoked
both tobacco and marijuana.
The
long term mental effects of marijuana use, and the rhetoric that went with
Anslinger's assumptions have long been proven false. Yet still today, the
rhetoric is being pushed as facts. For example, John Walters, the director of
the White House of National Drug Control Policy made the same claims that
ruined Anslinger's career as the head of a very similar office, the FBN. He sited, "studies long ago," which
could lead to the reasonable conclusion that he is referring to Anslinger's own
propaganda (Walters, 2005). Walters makes the same claims in his USA Today
article that Anslinger made, saying marijuana use can lead to dependency,
mental illness, and a public health threat. He also sites more recent studies
and the conclusions that were derived from those. Psychology experts and
doctors looked at some of these studies from a different perspective, one that
might be a little less bias and goal oriented then the ones Walters mentions.
It is also important to note that the alternative conclusions are never
mentioned by Walters, begging the question of whether or not the Bush
administration office holder had a different goal in mind then finding the
truth.
When
the studies were reexamined, they found that those who at younger ages had non-psychotic
psychiatric disorders had increased risk of developing schizophrenia, the mental
disorder most associated by others to have been caused by marijuana use. The
alternative explanation finders also studied the use of marijuana by those with
the non-psychotic disorders and found they are more likely to use marijuana
then those who do not have any disorders; "These data raise the possibility that future schizophrenia patients have
Increased rates of premorbid behavioral disturbances and psychiatric diagnoses,
and these, In turn, are associated with Increased rates of cannabis use"
(Weiser & Noy, 2005). When looking at the history of government officials
spurning marijuana use, combined with these alternative explanations, one can
easily figure out whose findings are more likely accurate to the truth and
whose findings show bias.
Part 4: Policing and Policy
The most rampant problem
with policing and policing policy as it relates to marijuana is the significant
disparities in race. Minorities are the most arrested individuals in the US for marijuana violations, and marijuana
violations lead the drug arrests in the US. New York city has gone through many phases on
how they police marijuana from arresting and detaining, to arresting, gathering
information, then releasing, all phases included a criminal record being
written (Johnson, Golub, Dunlap, & Sifaneck, 2008). Possible alternatives,
such as warn and destroy, a policy of having the offender destroy the marijuana
on site without creating a criminal record and warning against future
occurrences has not been tried. Policing policy tends to go along the line of
if it is not working, it is not tough enough on the crime. This was displayed
in the various laws that have been passed concerning drugs by congress as well
as NYC's various ways of policing drug related offences. The option of decriminalizing
has never been seriously considered.
Conclusion
Marijuana and hemp have
been a part of American culture since there has been a United States of America.
During World War II the growth of Hemp was mandated to help cover the needs of
the US military, just a few
years after it was suggested the US would not need to grow it
(Whitebread, 2005). Those who opposed the decriminalization of marijuana and
hemp have sited various studies, most of which have lead to debatable
conclusions or even simply lied about the effects of marijuana. This warrants
the question of why would the government seek to misinform the public about why
marijuana is illegal to the extent of creating fear? To this author, only one
answer makes sense; the truth behind the laws are based in corporate and
industry profit margins not in public health concerns.
A substance that helped
build the United States,
hemp, was made illegal because of religious dogma, racism, and irrational fear.
It is kept illegal because industry leaders fear the impact such an easily
grown, cultivated, and processed plant would have on their industry. Nothing but
rhetoric, logical fallacy, and propaganda keeps the people from realizing the
truth behind the unjust laws. The majority in America does not feel the impact as
much as minorities do so there is little reason for them to seek change.
References
Collica, K. & Furst, G. (2012).
Crime and society. San Diego: Bridgepoint Education
Johnson, B. D., Golub, A.,
Dunlap, E., & Sifaneck, S. J. (2008). An analysis of alternatives to new york city's current
marijuana arrest and detention policy. Policing, 31(2), 226-250. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13639510810878703
Tan, W. C., M.B., Lo, C.,
Jong, A., Xing, L., FitzGerald, M. J., M.B., Vollmer, W. M., PhD., . . . Sin,
Don D,M.D., M.P.H. (2009). Marijuana and chronic obstructive lung disease: A
population-based study. Canadian Medical Association.Journal, 180(8),
814-20. Retrieved December 17, 2012 from ProQuest.
Walters, J.
(2005, May 18). Marijuana policy just right. USA TODAY. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/408982661?accountid=32521
Weiser, M. & Noy, S. (2005, March). Interpretting
the association between cannabis use and increased risk of schizophrenia. Dialogues clin neurosci; (7)1: 81-85 Retrieved
December 17, 2012 from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181719/
