Alcohol, Nicotine and Cannabis. There is no question that these products do a great deal of damage to society and the World. They have also been around for thousands of years. Regulations are numerous for each. Restrictions and banns have been attempted from all likes of politicians and regulators, as long as the restrictions do not interfere with their habits or commerce. Alcohol abuse is the 3rd leading lifestyle-related cause of death in the USA, with 88,000 deaths each year. There were 1.2 million emergency visits and 2.7 million physician visits due to excessive alcohol abuse at a cost of $223.5 billion in 2006. Violence due to alcohol abuse was reported by 2/3rds of victims and most child abuse and neglect is also attributed to alcohol abuse. I have never seen any report of medical alcohol and this drug is legal and taxed.
Nicotine, the addictive drug in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco (chew, dip, snus, and snuff) is probably as addictive as heroin, thus the difficulty of stopping, once started. Tobacco has over 4000 chemicals, some like tar, cause lung cancer and emphysema. Another, carbon monoxide, causes heart problems and smokers are susceptible to heart disease. Generally, smokers experiment in the 8th to 10th grade and become smokers between the ages of 18 and 25. The New England Journal of Medicine has stated, “the most effective deterrent to tobacco use is the use of taxes on tobacco. Doubling or tripling the tax could shrink smokers by 1/3, because of the cost. Smokers are on the decline because of this, and the fact that smoking takes a decade off your life. I have never seen any report that talks about medical tobacco, yet tobacco and nicotine have been around for thousands of years, and it is legal and it is taxed.
Cannabis or marijuana has been around for thousands of years and has a long history of medicinal use dating back thousands of years across many cultures. Cannabis has been used to alleviate pain for thousands of years. In modern times it has been used to minimize nausea and vomiting for cancer patients going through chemotherapy, and people with aids, so they may eat and grow stronger. It has been used for muscular dystrophy spasticity and reducing pressure on the lenses of the eye for glaucoma patients. Most European countries, Israel, Canada, and 20 US states have legalized medicinal marijuana for these reasons. Illinois is the most recent state to attempt to legalize medical marijuana and has identified 30 different afflictions covered by this law. Patients would need to be fingerprinted, require a background check, and pay $150 per year for a special photo I.D. I hear rumblings from Minnesota about doing the same this year. Most law enforcement officers are against any relaxing of the laws because marijuana is considered, a gateway drug. If this were true, wouldn’t everyone be an alcoholic at first drink, a chain smoker at first puff, and a heroin addict within days. Alcohol and Nicotine are legal and destroy us with abuse. At least Cannabis has medicinal value. This is not opinion, but researched facts.
Published every Wednesday at least.
Thank you, John Curtis, for looking into these subjects for yourself and reporting these observations. This is what we at mnNORML encourage everyone to do: just look into it. When people view objectively how Prohibition came about, how it is used, and consider the actual historical and modern facts about Cannabis it changes them. They discover what Cannabis is, what it does and why it matters. They find out who lied and what is true and who is suffering. They realize as a free people with choice they are being misrepresented.
People armed with knowledge vote differently. Our children and our country will have a healthier, greener and freer future as a result.
Thank you for blogging.
Scott Bohler, Minnesota NORML
As I read the description of the Illinois law, I was appalled. People have to be fingerprinted and then pay to get a license with ID features in order to get medicine for their illnesses? I know this is America and it’s a nation full of crazy paranoid people many of whom are armed to the teeth and nearly all of whom live in fear of fear itself . . . but really—they’re making it a crime . . . not actually a crime to get sick . . . but a crime to TREAT your illness. ???!! You can get morphine, and all kinds of narcotics, and a gazillion dangerous prescription drugs with deadly side effects, without that kind of nonsense. [And of course, alcohol and nicotine with relative ease.]
This is yet one more manifestation of reefer madness. Minnesota has been cursed with cowardly lawmakers and ignorant bureaucrats while the proposals for reforming our law to permit medicinal use of cannabis have been rejected over and over and over again since 1992. Yes, cannabis is dangerous—but only to those who DON’T use it—it makes those NON-users insane.
What’s amazing is that public opinion overwhelmingly supports medical use of cannabis, and a majority now supports general use legalization. Yet politicians still kow-tow to the police lobby. That tells you something about the pathetic state of our so-called democracy.
Oliver Steinberg, St. Paul, MN 1/28/2014
Criminal law has proven a failure in discouraging drug abuse. For example, marijuana usage rates were lower in the United States before the marijuana Prohibition laws beginning in the 1930s. And, marijuana usage rates are lower in countries like The Netherlands and Portugal where it is legal, than in the United States where it most states it is still a “crime.” The usage rate dropped significantly in just a dozen years after legalization in Portugal. Clearly then, the premise of Prohibition laws – that criminalizing a drug will reduce its usage – is false.
Similarly, the excuse for criminalizing marijuana smokers is also false – the idea that marijuana is a health danger. It is not – not a significant health danger anyway. The comparison with nicotine here is apt. Nicotine is highly addictive (with physical withdrawal symptoms). Marijuana is not addictive (no physical withdrawal symptoms at all). The comparison with alcohol is also apt. Many people die in the US each year from alcohol overdose. Yet no one has ever died from marijuana smoking overdose – a medical impossibility.
What possible justification could there be for making a harmful drug illegal when doing so increases the per capita usage rate? Shouldn’t we be trying to reduce the usage rate of harmful drugs?
What possible justification could there be for making marijuana a crime, when it is less harmful than the currently legal but dangerous drugs nicotine and alcohol?
I agree! I hope this War on Drugs ends soon…at least that’s what I’m fighting for!
Thanks for the thoughtful essay, I wish more people shared your stance on the issue. My wife and I used marijuana like many other teens back in the 60’s as we got married, had kids and began careers we stopped using marijuana, we never said we were quitting we just didn’t do it anymore, then my wife was diagnosed with brain cancer, they said she had about a year, the nausea and vomiting were terrible, we tried the drugs drugs the doctors prescribed but none worked very well, they all had side effects and they were all very expensive, even with insurance, when we finally tried pot it was like a miracle, within minutes of smoking the nausea was better, soon she could eat, the only side effect was that it made her feel good for awhile and when you’re sick and know that all the future holds is more sickness and then death feeling good for awhile isn’t that bad.
Sorry for the single run-on sentence.
Marty Super
Fantastic Article, it is a breath of fresh air to finally find creative content on the internet,
I am really suprised to come across a blog that is not full of
the usual drivel, many thanks.