New Comm Ave

Michael Cerniglia is currently an undergrad in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College, working for a major he hopes to find soon. Being from California, he isn’t too fond of the cold and wishes he had a better supply of sweatshirts before leaving for the East coast weather – Michael is still adjusting. He particularly enjoys listening to a good Bob Dylan track and is prone to air guitar solos while playing Springsteen. Michael’s enjoying BC and hopes to one day put it’s edumacation towards something worthwhile and enjoyable.

Let’s face it America, we are too stoned. High off our wagon, one can guess it’s the culture to blame and the blissfully ignorant to penalize. At least, that’s what today’s media and political prohibitionists would have you believe. But can you really blame them? Let’s be honest. You’ve seen it passed around at parties, smelt that all too familiar tangy odor in the air, heard those lazy stoners praise its psychedelic effects, and you’ve probably even been offered a hit at some point in your life; it’s no secret that drug use is a highly volatile subject in contemporary American society. Yet if an epiphany beseeches you to look beyond our policies of passionate (or senseless) rhetoric, you might find yourself questioning today’s prohibition standards on certain narcotics. Could the legalization of marijuana elevate our society to new highs or send it free falling to its certain doom?

The roots of marijuana (or cannabis) prohibition in the U.S. can be traced back to the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. Contrary to today’s policies however, this act wasn’t intended as a complete embargo. It merely required sellers to obtain a license before legally distributing their goods, thereby allowing the government to tax a simple consumer need. However those who issued these licenses didn’t do much issuing at all, in effect banning cannabis from the market completely (Dubner). “Marijuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding,” a report issued in 1972 by the Nixon appointed National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, clouded the need for restriction by encouraging the removal of all penalties involving possession or use of such contraband by adults. The report cited that it couldn’t find a sound basis for prohibition and therefore found no need to continue limiting its use (Dubner).

To that extent it’s remarkable that no progress has been made on the full legalization of marijuana, which, in effect, is still banned today. As the “War on Drugs” persists, marijuana fights on as one of the leading soldiers against prohibition. In fact, thanks to cannabis “the Drug War has seen annual increases in both its cost and the number of arrests” (Dubner). These users now constitute 44 percent of all drug arrests which, as The Uniform Crime Report figures for 2006 have demonstrated, is up 15 percent from 2005 (Dubner). If arrests have gone up, does that mean consumption has too? In December of 2002 CNN/Time magazine took a survey that showed some interesting results. It concluded that 47 percent of American adults had tried marijuana at least once in their lifetime and regular users have increased by 15 million (Geers). If that isn’t startling enough, “according to the U.S. Department of Justice, federal, state, and local governments currently spend over $20 billion per year on drug enforcement” (Cussen and Block). In other words, as money continues to flee the taxpayer’s wallet, America’s war has not only raged on with dismal progress, but drug use has actually increased as well.

For a moment consider America as a health-conscientious society, a seemingly perfect world where marijuana, tobacco, and Big Macs wouldn’t be an issue. Although cannabis might seem benign by nature when compared to harder, more potent narcotics such as cocaine, contrary to popular stoner belief it is by no means a positive attribute to one’s health. Research has suggested that active ingredients in cannabis can in fact result in the same biochemical event that seems to trigger a reliance on other drugs such as heroin. This is based off the release of dopamine in the brain’s “reward” pathway which suggests that “marijuana manipulates the brain’s stress and reward systems in the same way as more potent drugs, to keep users coming back for more” (Wickelgren). The research also states that continual abuse can prime the brain to seek out substances like heroin which act in similar ways. It seems the “gateway drug” theory isn’t just a bedtime story after all. Other research has pointed to conclusions that marijuana may increase mental illnesses such as “psychosis and depression” among heavy users (Adams). The Journal of American Medical Association found that a group of 51 avid users recalled “two to three fewer words” on average than nonusers in a memory test (Adams). One could almost guess that smoking pot is dumb—the irony. Yet if marijuana isn’t good for you, then why on earth legalize it for medical purposes?

It isn’t an uncommon scenario these days to find cancer patients rolling up joints on hospital patios at the prescription of their doctors, at least in states like California. Although this scene might be a little embellished, the use of medical marijuana has become a controversial subject in today’s society nevertheless. This unusual form of medication is used to curb nausea and vomiting while helping to alleviate pain and improve appetite in those suffering from cancer, HIV infections, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and an assortment of other illnesses (Degenhardt and Hall). Patients undergoing treatments like chemotherapy find comfort in the relief of symptoms that marijuana provides, no matter how short it may be. Donald Abrams, San Francisco General Hospital’s chief of oncology and hematology, stated in an interview: “As a cancer doctor, every day I see patients with nausea from their chemotherapy, loss of appetite, pain, and depression. I can advise these patients that they might consider trying marijuana for relief of all of these symptoms" (Armour). There’s no denying that medical usage of marijuana serves as a benefit to those suffering from certain aliments.

However, expanding the law to allow for recreational usage is the bigger issue here.
So what’s the big deal? Why is getting high looked down upon with such disdain from contemporary conservatives of our day? After all, America’s last two presidents openly admitted to lighting up a joint and inhaling, not to mention the new president-elect Barack Obama also testified to trying cocaine in his youth. Drug use has always and will always be around; it has become a cultural norm. Certain political activists would argue that legalizing such substances as cannabis really isn’t a bad idea. Their argument is based off a range of ideals and open-ended statistics. Take an elastic interpretation of the Constitution for example. When the government takes control and chooses to restrict certain drugs it is denying the average citizen the right to “pursue his own happiness,” so long as he doesn’t infringe upon the well being of those around him. If the law were to restrict drug intake based upon the amount of harm it can cause, it would also have to restrict certain freedoms like sky-diving or overeating. Obesity is a national epidemic, yet the law has yet to send the morbidly obese to jail for eating at McDonald’s. By legalizing marijuana, a basic civil right would be given back to the average American (Cussen and Block).

Some would argue that legalizing and regulating cannabis would not only allow sellers to control its potency (thus decreasing the substance’s danger) but also help eliminate black market profits that so many inner-city gangs thrive off of (Cussen and Block). This would in effect reduce crime rates and provide stable regulation in the legal exchange of the substance, basically making them the new cigarette and tobacco conglomerates of our day. Finally, as shown before, the drug war just isn’t working. Its efforts are pointless. Legalizing the recreational use of marijuana would save the U.S. taxpayer money (Baum). In fact, the economy would improve due to its effect on consumerism; imagine Wal-Mart as the new monopoly on marijuana.

Although as sensible as this version of America sounds, there are still many consequences, deleterious effects, and avid prohibitionists that refute every attempt to legalize. To many, including Dr. David Murray of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, marijuana, simply put, “is a substance that intoxicates those who use it, injuring their health and the well-being of those around them” (Dubner). The addiction factor of cannabis almost robs people of their free will. If there becomes a dependency, people stop thinking logically and start acting impulsively. According to Murray, marijuana “is the second leading reason for drug-induced emergency room episodes, and has surpassed alcohol for young people in addictive risk and impact on dependency requiring treatment” (Dubner). Besides “the gateway theory” and obvious health issues, prohibitionists argue their point on rationale. If we become a marijuana induced nation, how would the regulation of such substances affect the youth? It’s not like America has done a good job keeping alcohol and cigarettes away from those unable to reach the 18 and 21 mark (Wente). Certainly drug consumption would dramatically increase among these age groups.

Speaking of alcohol and cigarettes, if we were to introduce legal marijuana into our culture, corporate lowlifes would surely capitalize on such a marketing opportunity with capitalism at its finest; think of the advertisements galore. Finally, there’s the issue of who gets to sell and grow this now lucrative cash crop. As UCLA professor Mark Kleiman stated: “Either we will have a private industry whose profits depend on creating and maintaining addicts, or we will have a public bureaucracy whose revenues depend on creating and maintaining addicts” (Wente). And don’t forget the illegal dealers who can always sell it cheaper down the street. With the amount of headaches this drug causes it’s no wonder Murray referred to marijuana as “the drug for life’s losers” (Dubner).

Well, what about the Dutch? In 1976 the Netherlands effectively decriminalized the personal possession of drugs, allowing cannabis to be sold in “coffee shops” throughout the land (Savage). However, astonishingly, this law was followed by a significant decrease in marijuana use by citizens from 13 percent to 6 percent among those aged 17 to 18. Even more shocking, “monthly prevalence of cannabis use among Dutch high school students is around 5.4 percent compared with 29 percent in the United States” (Savage). How’s that for reverse psychology? It seems nations that are open to the idea of some form of legalization have met with considerable successes, overshadowing the failures of America.

Reducing this topic to an argument between pure leftist “legalizers” and staunch right wing “prohibitionists” would be a weak effort to understanding a very complicated matter. It seems the answer to this “drug problem,” like most issues found in contemporary American society, is found somewhere in the middle. Is legalizing the recreational use of marijuana a good idea in our society? I would say that it most definitely is. If you put aside moral and political biases, you’ll see that society as a whole can benefit from the moderate and highly regulated legalization of cannabis. “Decriminalization of drugs does not connote approval of taking drugs….Rather, it means intelligently regulating drugs the way we do alcohol” (Geers). In this way we could regulate society’s needs while curbing illegal activity that results when these needs get out of hand, allowing for a much more stable culture.

Echoing the words of Mark Twain, it’s the universal human condition to want something you just can’t have, especially when that something is forbidden. The cookie always tastes better when you sneak it from the cookie jar. As for the question of legalization versus prohibition, it appears that wars on drugs are doomed from the very start. Yet policies that allow some form of legalization have met with great successes in minimizing drug abuse’s harm. Therefore, maybe Mary Jane really is the key to a happier more level-headed America. Then again, who knows? Maybe our seemingly “land of the free” is already too stoned to know the difference.

• 2009 Spring
• Research