Having considered the merits of legalizing marijuana over the course of this entire blog, the time is now perhaps ripe in addressing the question of implications – what does the future hold if the marijuana question remains unresolved?
All things considered, it would seem that a failure to re-examine the laws governing the use of marijuana would result in the continuation of the current status quo. Marijuana would still continue to be outlawed, petty possession of marijuana would still account for the majority of marijuana arrests, state funding for marijuana enforcement would continue to incur high costs, and criminal smuggling of marijuana by foreign cartels would continue to exist. In essence, the contentious idea of “marijuana-as-vice” would continue to underpin a harsh but proportionately ineffective bureaucratic drug policy, a policy that would continue to preserve the country’s title of being the third largest consumer of marijuana in the world.
The fact is that a failure to change would not necessarily result in a degradation of the current status quo (though this possibility cannot be ruled out), but what is certain is that it would definitely not result in an improvement of the current situation. If the rejection of “marijuana-as-vice” is not the way forward, then an intermediate acceptance of “marijuana-as-vice” would have to do for the moment. What is nonetheless common, and necessary, in both cases is that they demand a re-examination of the law, either to halt the increased use of marijuana, or to reconfigure the extent of marijuana persecution. A failure to address this by the current administration would therefore be tantamount to turning a deliberate blind eye to the exigencies of the issue. My only fear is that if allowed to fester, the question of marijuana legalization might reach a deadlock where neither solution – criminalization or legalization – would serve as an attractive means to resolve what is undoubtedly a cause for social concern.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Renegotiating Marijuana-as-Vice
As I’ve outlined in my theory post, what is perhaps needed to move the polarized debate on marijuana towards a constructive course is a re-examination of the laws governing the use of marijuana. Two questions need to be addressed by bureaucrats. First, is it still useful to use the “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment to underpin contemporary drug policy? And if so, what are the current limitations of the law in tackling the problem of marijuana use? If not, how should the law be changed to move away from the concept of “marijuana as vice”?
In the development of my stance on the issue thus far, I have made a supported argument for the rethinking of “marijuana-as-vice”. From there, I made the consequent claim that if one accepts the argument that there needs to be a shift away from the idea of “marijuana-as-vice”, an attendant shift in the legal status of marijuana would then be the next logical step.
At this juncture, however, I recognise that this may perhaps be asking too much of the law, because it requires not only a radical shift in policy values, but also an equally seismic change in the law. As such, the complete move towards marijuana legalization, while still the fundamental goal of my contention, can perhaps be reconfigured more as an eventual target, rather than as a next step of action. This therefore brings my attention to arguing for an intermediate re-evaluation of the law by taking the current assumption that the “marijuana-as-vice” judgment would continue to underpin any change to the law. This is because the general ineffectiveness of the law in combating excessive marijuana use should at least merit its reconsideration in tackling the marijuana problem.
In the light of this, how can the law be changed? Ideally, there needs to be a standardization of marijuana laws across states, or, at the minimum, a standardization of laws governing personal marijuana possession – by far the greatest single category that accounts for marijuana arrests. Given the continued prevalence of marijuana use by teenage and adult Americans alike, could a harsher enforcement of the law – in terms of penalties – be a potential solution to bringing down marijuana use? If so, would the state and federal governments unite to collectively ensure that the necessary funding and infrastructural support would be supplied for to provide for this endeavour?
I do not profess to be an expert in public policy, and the question of how the law can be tweaked perhaps merits a separate research endeavour altogether. However, and as the above paragraph has tried to convey, there are certainly questions that can nonetheless be asked about the law even if we accept the renegotiated notion that marijuana is indeed a form of vice.
In the development of my stance on the issue thus far, I have made a supported argument for the rethinking of “marijuana-as-vice”. From there, I made the consequent claim that if one accepts the argument that there needs to be a shift away from the idea of “marijuana-as-vice”, an attendant shift in the legal status of marijuana would then be the next logical step.
At this juncture, however, I recognise that this may perhaps be asking too much of the law, because it requires not only a radical shift in policy values, but also an equally seismic change in the law. As such, the complete move towards marijuana legalization, while still the fundamental goal of my contention, can perhaps be reconfigured more as an eventual target, rather than as a next step of action. This therefore brings my attention to arguing for an intermediate re-evaluation of the law by taking the current assumption that the “marijuana-as-vice” judgment would continue to underpin any change to the law. This is because the general ineffectiveness of the law in combating excessive marijuana use should at least merit its reconsideration in tackling the marijuana problem.
In the light of this, how can the law be changed? Ideally, there needs to be a standardization of marijuana laws across states, or, at the minimum, a standardization of laws governing personal marijuana possession – by far the greatest single category that accounts for marijuana arrests. Given the continued prevalence of marijuana use by teenage and adult Americans alike, could a harsher enforcement of the law – in terms of penalties – be a potential solution to bringing down marijuana use? If so, would the state and federal governments unite to collectively ensure that the necessary funding and infrastructural support would be supplied for to provide for this endeavour?
I do not profess to be an expert in public policy, and the question of how the law can be tweaked perhaps merits a separate research endeavour altogether. However, and as the above paragraph has tried to convey, there are certainly questions that can nonetheless be asked about the law even if we accept the renegotiated notion that marijuana is indeed a form of vice.
Annotated Links Post
Drug Enforcement Administration’s Position on Marijuana
This link outlines explicitly the strongly anti-marijuana stance adopted by the US Justice Department’s DEA. In essence, the DEA is strongly against all forms of marijuana use, including the less controversial use of medical marijuana. Not only does this link serve as a useful starting point for visitors to understand the reasons underpinning the DEA’s position; more crucially, it can also be used a resource by which reasons for the criminalization of marijuana provided by the government can be critically examined, and where appropriate, challenged.
Myths and Facts about Marijuana Use
This website serves as a useful resource when used in tandem with the link above. In this link, the myths and facts of marijuana use are outlined, with close support from a wide range of referenced sources. A comparison of the material presented in this source and the DEA’s website therefore gives a more rounded picture to the nuances surrounding the polarized character of the marijuana question.
Perspectives on the Question of Legalizing Marijuana
This report by The CQ Researcher Online puts forward general arguments for and against the legalization of marijuana, which are useful to the extent of providing a broad overview of the immense breadth of the topic. Visitors to this website will find amongst other things a detailed presentation of both sides of the argument for marijuana legalization, a useful chronological timeline of marijuana milestones in the country, as well as links to other web resources for further research.
Marijuana Use Statistics
This link is a useful factual resource that breaks down the numbers and types of marijuana arrests from 1980 to 2008 in an easily-understood table form. The legitimacy of its statistics comes from the fact that it is derived from figures supplied by official governmental agencies, such as the FBI and the Department of Justice. The numbers show that marijuana is the drug most commonly used in America that results in an arrest. It further shows that of the number of arrests made for marijuana use each year, an improportionate number are for marijuana possession alone.
State Laws Governing Marijuana Use
The website of The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws provides a comprehensive section that details the individual laws governing marijuana use across the different states of the country, and a quick comparison of these laws through a drop-down menu would reveal their lack of uniformity across different states.
Historical Circumstances of Marijuana Legalization
This website provides a gateway into the ”reefer racism” which had characterized early marijuana policy in America. Through a juxtaposed historical presentation of marijuana’s initial acceptability and subsequent criminalization by the federal government, the website informs that the marijuana laws that have come to govern modern-day drug policy was couched more in xenophobia and bureaucratic paranoia than in rational scientific thinking.
Opinions on the Slippery Slope of Marijuana Legalization
This opinion page hosted by The New York Times contains responses contributed by renowned academics and bureaucrats on whether the legalization of marijuana would result in higher rates of addiction. It also contains a plethora of comments posted by the online community in response to the initial posts put forth. Taken in its entirety, the dialectical structure of this link helps to contextualise the debate surrounding the merits of marijuana legalization, revealing its nuances in the process.
The Relative Harm of Marijuana in Comparison to Alcohol
This link contains a scientific report on a study conducted by scientists from the Department of Pharmacology from the University of Sydney, who investigated the interaction between alcohol and marijuana. One of the key findings of the report was that alcohol was found to have relatively more harmful effects than marijuana, in spite of the former’s legal status.
Marijuana as a Substitute to Alcohol
This link argues – with support from scientific sources – that the use of marijuana is safer than that of alcohol. While it is clearly favourably biased towards the latter, a critical reading of the source allows the reader to grasp the fundamental arguments raised in support of such a stance, which may then be used for further evaluation and analysis.
A Former Police Chief’s Stance of Marijuana Legalization
This link details the interesting stance of marijuana legalization taken by retired Seattle Police Chief, Norm Stamper. The main thrust of his argument is that because marijuana is safer than alcohol, there is no basis for its continued criminalization that is in contrast to alcohol’s legal status. This is just one many related articles on marijuana hosted by political blog The Huffington Post, and any visitor with the time and effort to pore through them would find that they contain a multitude of perspectives pertinent to the discussion of the marijuana question.
This link outlines explicitly the strongly anti-marijuana stance adopted by the US Justice Department’s DEA. In essence, the DEA is strongly against all forms of marijuana use, including the less controversial use of medical marijuana. Not only does this link serve as a useful starting point for visitors to understand the reasons underpinning the DEA’s position; more crucially, it can also be used a resource by which reasons for the criminalization of marijuana provided by the government can be critically examined, and where appropriate, challenged.
Myths and Facts about Marijuana Use
This website serves as a useful resource when used in tandem with the link above. In this link, the myths and facts of marijuana use are outlined, with close support from a wide range of referenced sources. A comparison of the material presented in this source and the DEA’s website therefore gives a more rounded picture to the nuances surrounding the polarized character of the marijuana question.
Perspectives on the Question of Legalizing Marijuana
This report by The CQ Researcher Online puts forward general arguments for and against the legalization of marijuana, which are useful to the extent of providing a broad overview of the immense breadth of the topic. Visitors to this website will find amongst other things a detailed presentation of both sides of the argument for marijuana legalization, a useful chronological timeline of marijuana milestones in the country, as well as links to other web resources for further research.
Marijuana Use Statistics
This link is a useful factual resource that breaks down the numbers and types of marijuana arrests from 1980 to 2008 in an easily-understood table form. The legitimacy of its statistics comes from the fact that it is derived from figures supplied by official governmental agencies, such as the FBI and the Department of Justice. The numbers show that marijuana is the drug most commonly used in America that results in an arrest. It further shows that of the number of arrests made for marijuana use each year, an improportionate number are for marijuana possession alone.
State Laws Governing Marijuana Use
The website of The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws provides a comprehensive section that details the individual laws governing marijuana use across the different states of the country, and a quick comparison of these laws through a drop-down menu would reveal their lack of uniformity across different states.
Historical Circumstances of Marijuana Legalization
This website provides a gateway into the ”reefer racism” which had characterized early marijuana policy in America. Through a juxtaposed historical presentation of marijuana’s initial acceptability and subsequent criminalization by the federal government, the website informs that the marijuana laws that have come to govern modern-day drug policy was couched more in xenophobia and bureaucratic paranoia than in rational scientific thinking.
Opinions on the Slippery Slope of Marijuana Legalization
This opinion page hosted by The New York Times contains responses contributed by renowned academics and bureaucrats on whether the legalization of marijuana would result in higher rates of addiction. It also contains a plethora of comments posted by the online community in response to the initial posts put forth. Taken in its entirety, the dialectical structure of this link helps to contextualise the debate surrounding the merits of marijuana legalization, revealing its nuances in the process.
The Relative Harm of Marijuana in Comparison to Alcohol
This link contains a scientific report on a study conducted by scientists from the Department of Pharmacology from the University of Sydney, who investigated the interaction between alcohol and marijuana. One of the key findings of the report was that alcohol was found to have relatively more harmful effects than marijuana, in spite of the former’s legal status.
Marijuana as a Substitute to Alcohol
This link argues – with support from scientific sources – that the use of marijuana is safer than that of alcohol. While it is clearly favourably biased towards the latter, a critical reading of the source allows the reader to grasp the fundamental arguments raised in support of such a stance, which may then be used for further evaluation and analysis.
A Former Police Chief’s Stance of Marijuana Legalization
This link details the interesting stance of marijuana legalization taken by retired Seattle Police Chief, Norm Stamper. The main thrust of his argument is that because marijuana is safer than alcohol, there is no basis for its continued criminalization that is in contrast to alcohol’s legal status. This is just one many related articles on marijuana hosted by political blog The Huffington Post, and any visitor with the time and effort to pore through them would find that they contain a multitude of perspectives pertinent to the discussion of the marijuana question.
Theory Post
In this post, I attempt to present a schema by which a satisfactory solution to the marijuana question can be made. But before such a schema can be convincingly outlined, it may be useful to revisit the main points of contention that have polarised the debate surrounding marijuana legalization.
On the one hand, opponents of marijuana legalization commonly assert the ill-effects of marijuana on health and society. They further assert that legalization of marijuana would be tantamount to the tacit promotion of its use by the law. Worse, the legalization of marijuana could signal the start of a slippery slope for general drug legalization.
Contrastively, proponents of marijuana legalization dispute the ill-effects of marijuana, by arguing that the “harm” it causes is relatively less than the already-legalized entities of alcohol and tobacco. An economic argument is also put forth given that state budgets are used excessively for the arrests of petty cases of marijuana possession, which detracts from the larger issues of tackling drug distribution and marijuana trafficking by foreign cartels. In addition, a re-examination of the historical circumstances that led to the criminalization of marijuana further reveals how this was couched more in bureaucratic xenophobia and paranoia, than to any rational scientific basis. More crucially, the strong arm of the law all these years has neither halted the trend of marijuana usage in society, nor stopped the country from being the third biggest consumer of marijuana in the world.
In balance, it is clear that an argument can certainly be made over why marijuana legalization is superior to marijuana criminalization or vice-versa. It is also clear that this argumentative schema is further complexified by the fluid, and at times juxtaposed, application of a common body of evidence to support one stance against the other – which gives the debate its contentious quality. However, and given the near-impossibility of using a limited blog entry to outline how such a deeply-entrenched schism can be reasonably resolved, it is not the intention of this theory post to put forth an outline that promises to change the status quo of the marijuana debate. Rather, this post aims to at least outline how a constructive approach can be taken towards a reconsideration of the marijuana question; specifically, this involves a reconsideration of the effectiveness of the law.
While the dichotomous structure of this argument is evident from the almost diametrically-opposed viewpoints taken by both sides of the debate, what is nonetheless common is that there needs to be at the minimum a re-examination of the role of law in the marijuana debate. What I am saying here is that the solution to the inadequacies of the law in tackling marijuana usage in society need not necessarily require a convenient and intuitive swing to the side of legalization, as thinking through the lens of polarization within the marijuana debate may tend to make one do. But this does not mean that the laws governing marijuana use should be exempt from a critical review and, if found necessary, be further subject to alteration. What is therefore crucial, in my opinion, is that the polarised mechanics of the debate must not divert attention from, or worse, supplant the practical exigencies of the issue at hand, which would go against any constructive approach to resolving the marijuana question.
On the one hand, opponents of marijuana legalization commonly assert the ill-effects of marijuana on health and society. They further assert that legalization of marijuana would be tantamount to the tacit promotion of its use by the law. Worse, the legalization of marijuana could signal the start of a slippery slope for general drug legalization.
Contrastively, proponents of marijuana legalization dispute the ill-effects of marijuana, by arguing that the “harm” it causes is relatively less than the already-legalized entities of alcohol and tobacco. An economic argument is also put forth given that state budgets are used excessively for the arrests of petty cases of marijuana possession, which detracts from the larger issues of tackling drug distribution and marijuana trafficking by foreign cartels. In addition, a re-examination of the historical circumstances that led to the criminalization of marijuana further reveals how this was couched more in bureaucratic xenophobia and paranoia, than to any rational scientific basis. More crucially, the strong arm of the law all these years has neither halted the trend of marijuana usage in society, nor stopped the country from being the third biggest consumer of marijuana in the world.
In balance, it is clear that an argument can certainly be made over why marijuana legalization is superior to marijuana criminalization or vice-versa. It is also clear that this argumentative schema is further complexified by the fluid, and at times juxtaposed, application of a common body of evidence to support one stance against the other – which gives the debate its contentious quality. However, and given the near-impossibility of using a limited blog entry to outline how such a deeply-entrenched schism can be reasonably resolved, it is not the intention of this theory post to put forth an outline that promises to change the status quo of the marijuana debate. Rather, this post aims to at least outline how a constructive approach can be taken towards a reconsideration of the marijuana question; specifically, this involves a reconsideration of the effectiveness of the law.
While the dichotomous structure of this argument is evident from the almost diametrically-opposed viewpoints taken by both sides of the debate, what is nonetheless common is that there needs to be at the minimum a re-examination of the role of law in the marijuana debate. What I am saying here is that the solution to the inadequacies of the law in tackling marijuana usage in society need not necessarily require a convenient and intuitive swing to the side of legalization, as thinking through the lens of polarization within the marijuana debate may tend to make one do. But this does not mean that the laws governing marijuana use should be exempt from a critical review and, if found necessary, be further subject to alteration. What is therefore crucial, in my opinion, is that the polarised mechanics of the debate must not divert attention from, or worse, supplant the practical exigencies of the issue at hand, which would go against any constructive approach to resolving the marijuana question.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
What Legalising Marijuana is Not
In this post, I devote my attention to refuting two counterarguments against the legalization of marijuana. These points were brought up in the context of comment responses to my previous posts, and I thank the contributors for raising these questions and for allowing me to address them here.
Legalising marijuana is not tantamount to the promotion of its use; it merely gives people the choice to use it legally. Even as it is tempting to think that legalisation would open the floodgates to marijuana promotion, there is still a substantial logic jump one has to make before a causal relationship between legal condonation and legal promotion can be satisfactorily established.
Legalising marijuana is also not necessarily at odds with the responsibilities of the education service in transmitting “good” values to the young. While the fact that children are educated on the desirability of a “drug-free” lifestyle seems at odds with any attempt by the law to legalize the use of marijuana, what must be qualified is that the education process does not force children to make the decision for themselves. Education can inform, qualify, and even persuade, but ultimately it does not determine the type of lifestyle the child will turn out to lead because the child still holds the sacred right in deciding his/her own development.
What must also be differentiated here is the function of education vis-a-vis the function of law. The function of the former is to inform, whilst the function of the latter is to persecute. Ideally, these functions should deal with the same loci of concerns. As a case in point, the act of killing is taught to be immoral and is heavily punished by law. In the case of marijuana, however, and as with the cases of obesity, sexual promiscuity, alcohol consumption, and smoking, the moral boundaries are less clear. In these cases, the function of education should be to equip the individual to make his/her own choices, and the function of law should be to support this function. Insofar as the issue in question is not clearly defined in moral black and whites, the law should not supersede the function of education; neither should education take the function of the law.
Legalising marijuana is not tantamount to the promotion of its use; it merely gives people the choice to use it legally. Even as it is tempting to think that legalisation would open the floodgates to marijuana promotion, there is still a substantial logic jump one has to make before a causal relationship between legal condonation and legal promotion can be satisfactorily established.
Legalising marijuana is also not necessarily at odds with the responsibilities of the education service in transmitting “good” values to the young. While the fact that children are educated on the desirability of a “drug-free” lifestyle seems at odds with any attempt by the law to legalize the use of marijuana, what must be qualified is that the education process does not force children to make the decision for themselves. Education can inform, qualify, and even persuade, but ultimately it does not determine the type of lifestyle the child will turn out to lead because the child still holds the sacred right in deciding his/her own development.
What must also be differentiated here is the function of education vis-a-vis the function of law. The function of the former is to inform, whilst the function of the latter is to persecute. Ideally, these functions should deal with the same loci of concerns. As a case in point, the act of killing is taught to be immoral and is heavily punished by law. In the case of marijuana, however, and as with the cases of obesity, sexual promiscuity, alcohol consumption, and smoking, the moral boundaries are less clear. In these cases, the function of education should be to equip the individual to make his/her own choices, and the function of law should be to support this function. Insofar as the issue in question is not clearly defined in moral black and whites, the law should not supersede the function of education; neither should education take the function of the law.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Class Links Post
One of the key advantages of blogging is that it encourages the participation of an online community of readers, whose input and comments help shape and refine points made in any given post through a dialectical process. On this note, here is a brief introduction to three other blogs worth visiting:
Nature vs. Nurture
In this blog, the writer tries to come to a satisfactory conclusion to the question of how “human behaviour is shaped, learned and acquired”. The blog is a fascinating read for people - like myself - who have at best a vague understanding of the topic, and the writer’s structured presentation of both sides of the “nature-nurture” debate helps to frame the context of the issue effectively.
What is further interesting is that the blog approaches the “nature-nurture” debate through a contextualisation of the dichotomy in specific cases, from personality development and intelligence to criminal and divorce behaviours. These help to problematize the dichotomous approach implicit in conventional understandings of the “nature-nurture” argument and aids in the writer’s development of a more nuanced position on the topic. Despite making the concession that factors associated with both processes of “nature” and “nurture” influence our behaviour to some extent, the writer leans towards the argument that the way we behave is more a product of the process by which we are nurtured.
Untitled
Named with reference to the song about underaged drinking by popular music group Simple Plan, this blog deals with the issue of underaged drinking in America and questions if the current focus on determining an arbitrary legal age for drinking diverts attention from the more pressing problems of drunk driving, binge drinking, and an adequate address of the social attitudes underpinning teenage drinking behaviour.
The appeal of this blog lies in the fact that the writer goes beyond making a “numerical argument over age”, which avoids the tricky problem of justifying why an arbitrary age is better than another in determining an appropriate drinking age. Rather, the writer considers the functional extent of the law in determining what constitutes acceptable norms of drinking, and if a preoccupation with the law necessarily overlooks an evaluation of the underlying social attitudes to drinking that require the attention of the law in the first place. In the process, the issue of the drinking age is complexified by the writer’s nuanced position that a solution to the problem of drinking age may lie less with a complete reversal of the law, and more with a re-tailoring of the law in specific contexts.
Health Care
Intended as a space for the exploration of euthanasia or patient-assisted suicide, this blog is an interesting read that considers the social, ethical, and medical justifications that make euthanasia either a “merciful act” or a “murderous” one.
Specifically, the writer considers if the act of active euthanasia, where the patient’s death is brought about through a deliberate act of “killing” by a medical professional, ought to be immoral. The contentious nature of this topic is given a fresh angle by the writer’s own experience of having worked at a nursing home, an experience which is clearly etched – tacitly or otherwise – into the writer’s strong stance against the immorality of active euthanasia. Central to the argument presented in support of this is the idea that life, in itself, “should be respected in all its stages”. To take away life, through an act of mercy or otherwise, is therefore deemed to be an intrinsic violation of the sanctity of life. In addition, and by framing the moral legality of euthanasia against the contemporary and ongoing backdrop of health reforms in the country, the topic presented by the writer transcends its philosophical properties and gives readers a personal stake in considering the implications of the writer’s arguments.
Nature vs. Nurture
In this blog, the writer tries to come to a satisfactory conclusion to the question of how “human behaviour is shaped, learned and acquired”. The blog is a fascinating read for people - like myself - who have at best a vague understanding of the topic, and the writer’s structured presentation of both sides of the “nature-nurture” debate helps to frame the context of the issue effectively.
What is further interesting is that the blog approaches the “nature-nurture” debate through a contextualisation of the dichotomy in specific cases, from personality development and intelligence to criminal and divorce behaviours. These help to problematize the dichotomous approach implicit in conventional understandings of the “nature-nurture” argument and aids in the writer’s development of a more nuanced position on the topic. Despite making the concession that factors associated with both processes of “nature” and “nurture” influence our behaviour to some extent, the writer leans towards the argument that the way we behave is more a product of the process by which we are nurtured.
Untitled
Named with reference to the song about underaged drinking by popular music group Simple Plan, this blog deals with the issue of underaged drinking in America and questions if the current focus on determining an arbitrary legal age for drinking diverts attention from the more pressing problems of drunk driving, binge drinking, and an adequate address of the social attitudes underpinning teenage drinking behaviour.
The appeal of this blog lies in the fact that the writer goes beyond making a “numerical argument over age”, which avoids the tricky problem of justifying why an arbitrary age is better than another in determining an appropriate drinking age. Rather, the writer considers the functional extent of the law in determining what constitutes acceptable norms of drinking, and if a preoccupation with the law necessarily overlooks an evaluation of the underlying social attitudes to drinking that require the attention of the law in the first place. In the process, the issue of the drinking age is complexified by the writer’s nuanced position that a solution to the problem of drinking age may lie less with a complete reversal of the law, and more with a re-tailoring of the law in specific contexts.
Health Care
Intended as a space for the exploration of euthanasia or patient-assisted suicide, this blog is an interesting read that considers the social, ethical, and medical justifications that make euthanasia either a “merciful act” or a “murderous” one.
Specifically, the writer considers if the act of active euthanasia, where the patient’s death is brought about through a deliberate act of “killing” by a medical professional, ought to be immoral. The contentious nature of this topic is given a fresh angle by the writer’s own experience of having worked at a nursing home, an experience which is clearly etched – tacitly or otherwise – into the writer’s strong stance against the immorality of active euthanasia. Central to the argument presented in support of this is the idea that life, in itself, “should be respected in all its stages”. To take away life, through an act of mercy or otherwise, is therefore deemed to be an intrinsic violation of the sanctity of life. In addition, and by framing the moral legality of euthanasia against the contemporary and ongoing backdrop of health reforms in the country, the topic presented by the writer transcends its philosophical properties and gives readers a personal stake in considering the implications of the writer’s arguments.
The Role of Law in Resolving the Marijuana Debate
In this post, I will address the function of the law in bringing about an effective resolution to the question of legalizing marijuana. This is particularly crucial in the context of my argument because the law, while imperfect, is nevertheless a persuasive means by which social norms and practices can be altered.
Perhaps it may be useful at this juncture to restate my stance that I am concerned about the legalization of marijuana in general, over and above already-existing provisos granted by some states for the legal use of medical marijuana. Yes, I am talking here of legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes, in the same way that alcohol has been legalized to allow for consumption with certain provisos.
A reform of current laws, in my opinion, can serve as the means by which to stitch together gaps between existing marijuana policies and the contrastive realities of the marijuana phenomenon these policies were designed to address. This is because the rule of law underpins the aim of public policy, by serving as a powerful signifier of what constitutes acceptable “standards” of behaviour in society.
What clearly needs to be reformed, at the minimum, is a standardization of marijuana laws across the country. Even if one takes the ultra-conservative stance that marijuana should not be legalized in any form, the fact that state laws not only differ from federal guidelines, but also differ from state-to-state with regards to the legal treatment of marijuana is surely counterintuitive to any concerted effort to weed out this “vice”. To illustrate this, while California only imposes a fine of $100 for marijuana possession below 28.5 grams, any possession of marijuana in Delaware would require a 6 month stay in prison and a $1500 fine.
My view is that marijuana laws need to be standardized for the responsible use of marijuana, but standardized justifiably. I do not think it would be unreasonable to outlaw the sale of marijuana to minors, nor to outlaw excessive cultivation of marijuana by parties who have an interest to peddle the drug, or even to drugged driving. These should rightly be harshly persecuted, because they go against the principle of responsible use. What I do think would be unreasonable, however, is to disallow the personal consumption of marijuana, within the confines of private property.
Of course, I am not making the argument that tweaking the law would indefinitely result in the responsible use of marijuana. To use the law conveniently as a solution to the problem grossly understates the complexity of the mechanism by which the law functions. What is nonetheless clear, however, is that allowing the personal use of marijuana would accurately reflect already-existing trends of marijuana usage in society, which I have argued to be proportionally less harmful than alcohol consumption. More crucially, the attention of the Drug Enforcement Agency can be turned to more pressing and serious problems of drug trafficking especially by foreign organizations, rather than the arrests and upkeep of petty offenders in state-funded jails and prisons.
Perhaps the real problem underlying all this inertia surrounding the law and gaps in reality is the notion that the law is expected to somehow shape society into an idealized utopia of a “drug-free” world. This thinking is unfortunately couched in the subjective “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment, a judgment that is out-of-sync with reality. The law should not be expected to reverse the course of marijuana usage, and it would not be realistic to do so. The focus should therefore be on responsible legislation, rather than on making the law fulfil an impossible function.
Perhaps it may be useful at this juncture to restate my stance that I am concerned about the legalization of marijuana in general, over and above already-existing provisos granted by some states for the legal use of medical marijuana. Yes, I am talking here of legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes, in the same way that alcohol has been legalized to allow for consumption with certain provisos.
A reform of current laws, in my opinion, can serve as the means by which to stitch together gaps between existing marijuana policies and the contrastive realities of the marijuana phenomenon these policies were designed to address. This is because the rule of law underpins the aim of public policy, by serving as a powerful signifier of what constitutes acceptable “standards” of behaviour in society.
What clearly needs to be reformed, at the minimum, is a standardization of marijuana laws across the country. Even if one takes the ultra-conservative stance that marijuana should not be legalized in any form, the fact that state laws not only differ from federal guidelines, but also differ from state-to-state with regards to the legal treatment of marijuana is surely counterintuitive to any concerted effort to weed out this “vice”. To illustrate this, while California only imposes a fine of $100 for marijuana possession below 28.5 grams, any possession of marijuana in Delaware would require a 6 month stay in prison and a $1500 fine.
My view is that marijuana laws need to be standardized for the responsible use of marijuana, but standardized justifiably. I do not think it would be unreasonable to outlaw the sale of marijuana to minors, nor to outlaw excessive cultivation of marijuana by parties who have an interest to peddle the drug, or even to drugged driving. These should rightly be harshly persecuted, because they go against the principle of responsible use. What I do think would be unreasonable, however, is to disallow the personal consumption of marijuana, within the confines of private property.
Of course, I am not making the argument that tweaking the law would indefinitely result in the responsible use of marijuana. To use the law conveniently as a solution to the problem grossly understates the complexity of the mechanism by which the law functions. What is nonetheless clear, however, is that allowing the personal use of marijuana would accurately reflect already-existing trends of marijuana usage in society, which I have argued to be proportionally less harmful than alcohol consumption. More crucially, the attention of the Drug Enforcement Agency can be turned to more pressing and serious problems of drug trafficking especially by foreign organizations, rather than the arrests and upkeep of petty offenders in state-funded jails and prisons.
Perhaps the real problem underlying all this inertia surrounding the law and gaps in reality is the notion that the law is expected to somehow shape society into an idealized utopia of a “drug-free” world. This thinking is unfortunately couched in the subjective “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment, a judgment that is out-of-sync with reality. The law should not be expected to reverse the course of marijuana usage, and it would not be realistic to do so. The focus should therefore be on responsible legislation, rather than on making the law fulfil an impossible function.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Gaps In Practice and Reality
In this post, I will present the basis for the reformation of marijuana laws, by highlighting gaps between current marijuana policies and the contrastive realities they were designed to address.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s stance on marijuana is clear – it condones no use of marijuana whatsoever, not even as a means for medical treatment. Yet, while the strong statement it makes on its website would lead one to conveniently associate the DEA’s drug stance with an effective drug enforcement framework, the reality of persistent marijuana use in the country gives the lie to this. More crucially, it forces one to question the continuing relevance of existing drug regulatory frameworks.
In spite of the DEA’s rhetorical commitment to stamping out marijuana use, it is nonetheless an established fact that North America is the third largest consumer of marijuana in absolute terms in the world, after Asia and Africa. The continuing prevalence of marijuana use in the country even almost eight decades after Harry Anslinger’s and subsequent bureaucratic attempts to prohibit its use surely points towards the need to at least re-think the principle of prohibition that has provided the basis for drug policy thus far.
Of the number of marijuana users unfortunate enough to be arrested, it is an established fact that over 85% of the total number arrests made for marijuana are on the basis of possession alone. To put this into context, possession of less than 2 lbs of marijuana (the minimum sentence imposed) is enough to land one in jail for 6 months to 1.5 years in Arizona, and a fine of between $750 - $$150 000 in most states. Even in states such as Alaska that have partially decriminalized marijuana, possession of between 1 to 4 oz. of the drug is sufficient to warrant a jail term of at least 90 days, and a $1500 fine.
It therefore becomes clear that the current approach to marijuana use in the country falls short on two counts. One, it has not stopped the country from being the third largest consumer of marijuana in the world. As a related trend of this, it is further striking that the existing legal framework has not stopped the common man on the street (most commonly arrested for petty marijuana possession offenses) from taking the risk to smoke a joint in spite of an intimate knowledge of existing laws and harsh persecutions associated with taking such a risk. This surely merits at least a reconsideration, if not a reform of, the laws governing the use of marijuana.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s stance on marijuana is clear – it condones no use of marijuana whatsoever, not even as a means for medical treatment. Yet, while the strong statement it makes on its website would lead one to conveniently associate the DEA’s drug stance with an effective drug enforcement framework, the reality of persistent marijuana use in the country gives the lie to this. More crucially, it forces one to question the continuing relevance of existing drug regulatory frameworks.
In spite of the DEA’s rhetorical commitment to stamping out marijuana use, it is nonetheless an established fact that North America is the third largest consumer of marijuana in absolute terms in the world, after Asia and Africa. The continuing prevalence of marijuana use in the country even almost eight decades after Harry Anslinger’s and subsequent bureaucratic attempts to prohibit its use surely points towards the need to at least re-think the principle of prohibition that has provided the basis for drug policy thus far.
Of the number of marijuana users unfortunate enough to be arrested, it is an established fact that over 85% of the total number arrests made for marijuana are on the basis of possession alone. To put this into context, possession of less than 2 lbs of marijuana (the minimum sentence imposed) is enough to land one in jail for 6 months to 1.5 years in Arizona, and a fine of between $750 - $$150 000 in most states. Even in states such as Alaska that have partially decriminalized marijuana, possession of between 1 to 4 oz. of the drug is sufficient to warrant a jail term of at least 90 days, and a $1500 fine.
It therefore becomes clear that the current approach to marijuana use in the country falls short on two counts. One, it has not stopped the country from being the third largest consumer of marijuana in the world. As a related trend of this, it is further striking that the existing legal framework has not stopped the common man on the street (most commonly arrested for petty marijuana possession offenses) from taking the risk to smoke a joint in spite of an intimate knowledge of existing laws and harsh persecutions associated with taking such a risk. This surely merits at least a reconsideration, if not a reform of, the laws governing the use of marijuana.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Placing the Debate Thus Far
In this analysis post, I attempt to synthesize what has been discussed with regards to marijuana legalization thus far with the aim of demarcating a defined space for further argumentation.
Past and Present Contexts
Since the xenophobic and hysteric circumstances of its illegalization in 1937, of which biased media reporting and irrational endorsement by bureaucratic personalities such as Harry Anslinger played a crucial role in entrenching the “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment, social attitudes towards marijuana have slowly but surely changed over the past sixty years. In a CBS news poll conducted in July this year, 41% of the respondents gave their approval for marijuana legalization, a striking increase from the 15% figure 40 years earlier. Hitherto the Narcotic Control Act of 1956 had put marijuana in the same punishable bracket as “hard” drugs such as heroin; today, the use of marijuana for medicinal use has been enacted into law in at least 13 states. This changing zeitgeist has also been politically reflected by the new Obama administration, whose non-desire to criminalize distributors of medical marijuana is in huge contrast to the hard-line position taken by the George W. Bush.
In addition, the question of legalization has gained further pace with the onset of global recession, with an increasing number of policymakers arguing for taxation on controlled use of marijuana because of the high costs of marijuana prohibition and enforcement that continue to stretch their already-thinned budgets. According to a study conducted by marijuana reform activist, Dr. Jon Gettman, it is estimated that the fiscal costs of marijuana prohibition alone amount to a yearly bill of $42 billion. Most of this goes into the arrests of more than 800 000 Americans each year. This is over and above the costs required to deter illegal Mexican cartels from growing marijuana on US soil and border smuggling of marijuana from Canada, which support a lucrative black market demand.
Argumentative Focus
The question of marijuana legalization is therefore now at a crossroads, made muddied by a conflation of changing moral, political, and economic considerations. It is with regards to the moral dimension which I turn my attention to; specifically, I consider if there is a case for the continued illegalization of marijuana on moral grounds. In doing so, I question if the focus of the marijuana debate has put an unnecessary focus on the rule of law as a convenient arbiter for the complexity of the issue.
Analysis
No discussion on the moral permissibility of marijuana is complete without a discussion of its effects on health and well-being. It is true that smoking marijuana, like consuming alcohol, increases one’s heartbeat and lowers blood pressure. It is also true that marijuana use may result in undesirable side-effects such as panic attacks, or foster long term-dependency. Yet, notice I have been careful to qualify the afore-mentioned claim with “may”, rather than the definitive article “will”. This is because there has, as yet, been no clear indication by medical studies for this to be necessarily the case, and to conclude thus would be to fall into the trap of a hasty generalization. The argument that marijuana is immoral because of its potential threats to health therefore only has as much force as the claim that the consumption of fast-food is immoral because it could result in coronary heart disease. In fact, and by this standard, the consumption of alcohol should be banned across the country, because studies have found alcohol to have more harmful effects than marijuana. Most strikingly, studies have additionally shown that the alcohol consumption is more likely to result in a larger threat to the community – in terms of drunken violence – than marijuana consumption.
Even if one is unconvinced by the above argument, the fact that marijuana is nonetheless permitted by some states for use as a treatment drug is at the minimum a concession that whatever harmful effects of marijuana are insufficient to warrant a complete rejection of its medicinal properties. In the light of this, there perhaps needs to be a rethink of the “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment which has underpinned state laws and bureaucratic attitudes towards marijuana use.
Is marijuana legalization therefore the way forward, if it is indeed the case that the scientific evidence behind the constructed notion of “marijuana-as-vice” does not stand up to scrutiny? At this juncture, it is suffice to say that it would not be unreasonable to put forth the contrarian assertion as a viable solution to the stated problem. While it could be argued that marijuana legalization would result in more cases of drug addiction, the problem is that this sort of reasoning often falls into the logical trap of becoming a slippery slope. One such example of this claims, without justification, that marijuana legalization would eventually result in the legalization of “hard” drugs such as cocaine and LSD. Yet, notice how this is done through a deliberate omission of the differences between one drug and the other, which is strikingly crucial for a fair evaluation of the slippery slope’s potentiality. By collectively lumping marijuana under the general basket of “drugs” and by taking a face-value assumption of the universal harm caused by all types of drugs to conclude that the same recourse granted to marijuana would eventually extend to its basket of related “drugs”, the argument becomes at best, a hasty generalization.
Nevertheless, even as I have devoted a substantial amount of support to marijuana use, it would be wrong to characterize my approach to the problem as excessively libertarian. My call for marijuana legalisation should be qualified – I am not making a bugle call for the indiscriminate legalization of marijuana. What I am simply doing is drawing attention to the fact that current reasons for criminalising marijuana – at least on moral and health grounds – are archaic and unconvincing. The law therefore has to change itself to be more current with these considerations.
However, that is not to say that one of the dangers behind this sort of reasoning is that it takes the law to be a convenient arbiter of social norms and behaviour. It is tempting to think of it as so because the development of marijuana use in the country can, in large part, be attributed to early laws that were far-removed from reality. Yet, a question which I will further consider in my development of this topic is the role of law in shaping our attitudes and beliefs. The implication of this on marijuana legalization is crucial – if laws do not convincingly function as a moderating mechanism of social behaviour, then perhaps the tool of legalization – in its simplest conception – may need to be further refined to maximize its intended goal of resolving the marijuana problem.
Past and Present Contexts
Since the xenophobic and hysteric circumstances of its illegalization in 1937, of which biased media reporting and irrational endorsement by bureaucratic personalities such as Harry Anslinger played a crucial role in entrenching the “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment, social attitudes towards marijuana have slowly but surely changed over the past sixty years. In a CBS news poll conducted in July this year, 41% of the respondents gave their approval for marijuana legalization, a striking increase from the 15% figure 40 years earlier. Hitherto the Narcotic Control Act of 1956 had put marijuana in the same punishable bracket as “hard” drugs such as heroin; today, the use of marijuana for medicinal use has been enacted into law in at least 13 states. This changing zeitgeist has also been politically reflected by the new Obama administration, whose non-desire to criminalize distributors of medical marijuana is in huge contrast to the hard-line position taken by the George W. Bush.
In addition, the question of legalization has gained further pace with the onset of global recession, with an increasing number of policymakers arguing for taxation on controlled use of marijuana because of the high costs of marijuana prohibition and enforcement that continue to stretch their already-thinned budgets. According to a study conducted by marijuana reform activist, Dr. Jon Gettman, it is estimated that the fiscal costs of marijuana prohibition alone amount to a yearly bill of $42 billion. Most of this goes into the arrests of more than 800 000 Americans each year. This is over and above the costs required to deter illegal Mexican cartels from growing marijuana on US soil and border smuggling of marijuana from Canada, which support a lucrative black market demand.
Argumentative Focus
The question of marijuana legalization is therefore now at a crossroads, made muddied by a conflation of changing moral, political, and economic considerations. It is with regards to the moral dimension which I turn my attention to; specifically, I consider if there is a case for the continued illegalization of marijuana on moral grounds. In doing so, I question if the focus of the marijuana debate has put an unnecessary focus on the rule of law as a convenient arbiter for the complexity of the issue.
Analysis
No discussion on the moral permissibility of marijuana is complete without a discussion of its effects on health and well-being. It is true that smoking marijuana, like consuming alcohol, increases one’s heartbeat and lowers blood pressure. It is also true that marijuana use may result in undesirable side-effects such as panic attacks, or foster long term-dependency. Yet, notice I have been careful to qualify the afore-mentioned claim with “may”, rather than the definitive article “will”. This is because there has, as yet, been no clear indication by medical studies for this to be necessarily the case, and to conclude thus would be to fall into the trap of a hasty generalization. The argument that marijuana is immoral because of its potential threats to health therefore only has as much force as the claim that the consumption of fast-food is immoral because it could result in coronary heart disease. In fact, and by this standard, the consumption of alcohol should be banned across the country, because studies have found alcohol to have more harmful effects than marijuana. Most strikingly, studies have additionally shown that the alcohol consumption is more likely to result in a larger threat to the community – in terms of drunken violence – than marijuana consumption.
Even if one is unconvinced by the above argument, the fact that marijuana is nonetheless permitted by some states for use as a treatment drug is at the minimum a concession that whatever harmful effects of marijuana are insufficient to warrant a complete rejection of its medicinal properties. In the light of this, there perhaps needs to be a rethink of the “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment which has underpinned state laws and bureaucratic attitudes towards marijuana use.
Is marijuana legalization therefore the way forward, if it is indeed the case that the scientific evidence behind the constructed notion of “marijuana-as-vice” does not stand up to scrutiny? At this juncture, it is suffice to say that it would not be unreasonable to put forth the contrarian assertion as a viable solution to the stated problem. While it could be argued that marijuana legalization would result in more cases of drug addiction, the problem is that this sort of reasoning often falls into the logical trap of becoming a slippery slope. One such example of this claims, without justification, that marijuana legalization would eventually result in the legalization of “hard” drugs such as cocaine and LSD. Yet, notice how this is done through a deliberate omission of the differences between one drug and the other, which is strikingly crucial for a fair evaluation of the slippery slope’s potentiality. By collectively lumping marijuana under the general basket of “drugs” and by taking a face-value assumption of the universal harm caused by all types of drugs to conclude that the same recourse granted to marijuana would eventually extend to its basket of related “drugs”, the argument becomes at best, a hasty generalization.
Nevertheless, even as I have devoted a substantial amount of support to marijuana use, it would be wrong to characterize my approach to the problem as excessively libertarian. My call for marijuana legalisation should be qualified – I am not making a bugle call for the indiscriminate legalization of marijuana. What I am simply doing is drawing attention to the fact that current reasons for criminalising marijuana – at least on moral and health grounds – are archaic and unconvincing. The law therefore has to change itself to be more current with these considerations.
However, that is not to say that one of the dangers behind this sort of reasoning is that it takes the law to be a convenient arbiter of social norms and behaviour. It is tempting to think of it as so because the development of marijuana use in the country can, in large part, be attributed to early laws that were far-removed from reality. Yet, a question which I will further consider in my development of this topic is the role of law in shaping our attitudes and beliefs. The implication of this on marijuana legalization is crucial – if laws do not convincingly function as a moderating mechanism of social behaviour, then perhaps the tool of legalization – in its simplest conception – may need to be further refined to maximize its intended goal of resolving the marijuana problem.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Human Agency in the Marijuana Debate
I would like to devote this post to addressing the slippery slope argument commonly raised by opponents of marijuana legalization. My reason for doing so is because most of the objections to marijuana legalization revolve around this sort of logic, which I will contend to be fallacious.
One of the strongest variants of this form of argumentation is that marijuana legalization would open the floodgates to widespread drug abuse, and that the social undesirability of widespread drug abuse should therefore suffice to prevent its legalization. Yet notice how the logic of this argument works - by claiming that marijuana legalization would result in widespread abuse, the assumption is that the former is inversely and directly related to the latter in a simplistic two-model relationship. This sort of reasoning is fallacious because there is no reason to suggest that marijuana legalization would inevitably result in widespread drug abuse; it holds no more weight than the converse argument that marijuana legalization would inevitably not result in widespread drug abuse.
Of course, to dismiss the slippery slope argument is not to deny the possibility that the picture painted by the slippery slope may in fact, come into being. But how much cogency might this view possess? While there is certainly some justification for the argument that a more liberalized law might encourage a more liberalized attitude to marijuana use, to extrapolate this to encompass a slippery slope of moral decadence in society would be to assume that social norms and attitudes are wholly dependent on the rule of law. By the very same logic, relaxed gun laws would inevitably result in cases of more people shooting one another, as would relaxed cigarette laws on more people smoking.
What seems to be overlooked in all these is the factor of human agency. People nonetheless still possess the inherent ability to make choices, and not all choices are – even though it is attractive to think so – necessarily bad ones. To treat the rule of law simply as the sole arbiter of social behaviour like the slippery slope argument does is convenient, but unpersuasive. Worse, underpinning this sort of reasoning is the idea that human beings are wholly dependent on the rule of law to decide what is beneficial and harmful to us. I would instead like to think that most of us have the ability to decide these on our own.
One of the strongest variants of this form of argumentation is that marijuana legalization would open the floodgates to widespread drug abuse, and that the social undesirability of widespread drug abuse should therefore suffice to prevent its legalization. Yet notice how the logic of this argument works - by claiming that marijuana legalization would result in widespread abuse, the assumption is that the former is inversely and directly related to the latter in a simplistic two-model relationship. This sort of reasoning is fallacious because there is no reason to suggest that marijuana legalization would inevitably result in widespread drug abuse; it holds no more weight than the converse argument that marijuana legalization would inevitably not result in widespread drug abuse.
Of course, to dismiss the slippery slope argument is not to deny the possibility that the picture painted by the slippery slope may in fact, come into being. But how much cogency might this view possess? While there is certainly some justification for the argument that a more liberalized law might encourage a more liberalized attitude to marijuana use, to extrapolate this to encompass a slippery slope of moral decadence in society would be to assume that social norms and attitudes are wholly dependent on the rule of law. By the very same logic, relaxed gun laws would inevitably result in cases of more people shooting one another, as would relaxed cigarette laws on more people smoking.
What seems to be overlooked in all these is the factor of human agency. People nonetheless still possess the inherent ability to make choices, and not all choices are – even though it is attractive to think so – necessarily bad ones. To treat the rule of law simply as the sole arbiter of social behaviour like the slippery slope argument does is convenient, but unpersuasive. Worse, underpinning this sort of reasoning is the idea that human beings are wholly dependent on the rule of law to decide what is beneficial and harmful to us. I would instead like to think that most of us have the ability to decide these on our own.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Rethinking Marijuana-as-Vice
I mentioned in my last post that there perhaps needs to be a re-think of the “drug-as-vice” value judgment which has come to govern the federal government’s general stance on drugs, at least in the case of marijuana. I made this claim because I wanted to draw attention to the idea that the values which we ascribe to certain objects or phenomena are, in their elemental forms, essentially constructed notions. Without having to digress into a non-immediate discussion of the moral theories underpinning this process, it is suffice to understand that we label things as “good” or “bad” according to a certain moral base which we evaluate our moral judgments against. Through a deconstruction of the historical events that have come to define the entrenchment of the “drug-as-vice” value judgment in American society, I hope to challenge these normative forms of thinking.
How did the conception of “marijuana-as-vice” take root in the country? While it is at first glance tempting to think of this view of marijuana to be the aggregated result of a static, moral compass intrinsically common to all members of society, the historical fact that marijuana was actually – albeit ironically – mandated to be grown by the government in the 17th century gives the lie to this claim. Moving forward slightly to the 19th century, one would be more astonished to find that marijuana was, at a time, in fact legally sanctioned by the government to be sold off the counter as a cure for ailments such as migraine and rheumatism. From 1840 to 1942, the pedestal status of marijuana as a drug with full legality is further evident from its membership in the United States pharmacopoeia.
Why and how then, did the shift in marijuana’s legal status come about? A close historical analysis reveals that the turn in all these strikingly came as a result of a lethal combination of local xenophobia and bureaucratic endorsement of these sentiments. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, there was an unprecedented wave of immigration into Southwest America, most notably in Texas and California. The local xenophobia felt towards these newly-arrived Mexicans translated itself into established cultures of prejudice, and the unfortunate habit of “marijuana smoking” practiced by these Mexicans became a convenient metonymy for the “bad” values held by foreign immigrants. Nor was this confined to the Mexicans – similar circumstances evolved out of the case of West Indians who introduced marijuana to the Deep South.
Popular sentiment couched in xenophobic and racist mindsets then translated itself into bureaucratic endorsement, completing the value entrenchment of marijuana-as-vice in the common American psyche. At the centre of this transformation was one Harry Jacob Anslinger, the first Commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics. While history often downplays the role of the individual, Anslinger is particularly important to this discussion because he held the afore-mentioned post for an uninterrupted term of 32 years, from 1930 to 1962. Under his watch, the status of marijuana underwent nothing short of a revolution. Hitherto it was a drug valued for its medicinal properties; now, the federal government denied the existence of these properties and went further to classify the drug as a mortal threat to health. Worse, marijuana was conflated along with the jazz scene of the Roaring Twenties as products of counterculture and moral decadence – products which Anslinger took it upon himself to “protect” the people from. What was at play here, therefore, was not so much as a universal condemnation of marijuana by society, but the entrenchment of this view by a select group of bureaucratic opinion leaders into national policy.
Hence, the constructed nature of the “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment is apparent in the final analysis. Marijuana has not necessarily been anathema to society throughout its history in the States, and the fact that it was once embraced as a form of medication by the law is at the minimum a concession of its relative lack of harm to the individual. More importantly, it may be pertinent to question the contemporary relevance of adhering to the afore-mentioned value judgment, given the historical circumstances which preceded the entrenchment of “marijuana-as-vice” into popular consciousness.
How did the conception of “marijuana-as-vice” take root in the country? While it is at first glance tempting to think of this view of marijuana to be the aggregated result of a static, moral compass intrinsically common to all members of society, the historical fact that marijuana was actually – albeit ironically – mandated to be grown by the government in the 17th century gives the lie to this claim. Moving forward slightly to the 19th century, one would be more astonished to find that marijuana was, at a time, in fact legally sanctioned by the government to be sold off the counter as a cure for ailments such as migraine and rheumatism. From 1840 to 1942, the pedestal status of marijuana as a drug with full legality is further evident from its membership in the United States pharmacopoeia.
Why and how then, did the shift in marijuana’s legal status come about? A close historical analysis reveals that the turn in all these strikingly came as a result of a lethal combination of local xenophobia and bureaucratic endorsement of these sentiments. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, there was an unprecedented wave of immigration into Southwest America, most notably in Texas and California. The local xenophobia felt towards these newly-arrived Mexicans translated itself into established cultures of prejudice, and the unfortunate habit of “marijuana smoking” practiced by these Mexicans became a convenient metonymy for the “bad” values held by foreign immigrants. Nor was this confined to the Mexicans – similar circumstances evolved out of the case of West Indians who introduced marijuana to the Deep South.
Popular sentiment couched in xenophobic and racist mindsets then translated itself into bureaucratic endorsement, completing the value entrenchment of marijuana-as-vice in the common American psyche. At the centre of this transformation was one Harry Jacob Anslinger, the first Commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics. While history often downplays the role of the individual, Anslinger is particularly important to this discussion because he held the afore-mentioned post for an uninterrupted term of 32 years, from 1930 to 1962. Under his watch, the status of marijuana underwent nothing short of a revolution. Hitherto it was a drug valued for its medicinal properties; now, the federal government denied the existence of these properties and went further to classify the drug as a mortal threat to health. Worse, marijuana was conflated along with the jazz scene of the Roaring Twenties as products of counterculture and moral decadence – products which Anslinger took it upon himself to “protect” the people from. What was at play here, therefore, was not so much as a universal condemnation of marijuana by society, but the entrenchment of this view by a select group of bureaucratic opinion leaders into national policy.
Hence, the constructed nature of the “marijuana-as-vice” value judgment is apparent in the final analysis. Marijuana has not necessarily been anathema to society throughout its history in the States, and the fact that it was once embraced as a form of medication by the law is at the minimum a concession of its relative lack of harm to the individual. More importantly, it may be pertinent to question the contemporary relevance of adhering to the afore-mentioned value judgment, given the historical circumstances which preceded the entrenchment of “marijuana-as-vice” into popular consciousness.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Marijuana should, and can be, legalized
In an earlier post, I tried to problematize the general issue of drug legalization by introducing the case of prison overcrowding as an example of an undesirable social cost arising out of excessive judicial intervention. In this post and for subsequent discussions, I look specifically at marijuana(otherwise known euphemistically as weed, pot, or grass), and I will argue that – all things considered – a cogent case can be made for its legalization.
Of all drugs, why marijuana? The reason is simple, but compelling. Marijuana is the drug most commonly abused in the country. According to the US Department of Justice, not only is the abuse of marijuana higher in the United States than for any other drug, it is also the most easily grown and hence most commonly accessible. More significantly, the high demand for marijuana coupled by the relative ease by which it is grown has made it the drug of choice for illegal cartels run from Mexico to China, who are drawn by the high profits to be made from supplying the United States with weed. Marijuana legalization is therefore not only a domestic problem of morality, but an international one encompassing cross-state interests.
Given the above problems, my stance to advance drug legalization as a solution to combat these problems may seem unusual, and at worst, even untenable. Wouldn’t doing so encourage marijuana consumption and exacerbate current trends of marijuana abuse?
While this may at first glance seem to be the case, to understand otherwise requires an understanding of the complexities of the issue. We are essentially dealing with two sub-areas in this debate – one, how to address attendant problems arising out of excessive drug legalization by specifically considering if the reverse course of legalization would be useful to this end; and two, if the assumed value judgment of “drug-as vice” that has underpinned the government’s anti-drug campaign over the past 40 years has the same scientific thrust as its moral one.
With regards to the former, the social costs of excessive legalization have included border smuggling from Mexico and Canada, as well as prison-overcrowding as a result of jailing an improportionate number of “petty” marijuana offenders. These have resulted in the government having to counterintuitively set aside more state funds to tackle international criminal groups, and to upkeep larger numbers of prisoners. Through legalization with the appropriate duties taxation (as with liquor and cigarettes), the government would thence be able to focus its energy appropriately on drug cartels, vis-a-vis the relatively harmless individual drug-user who smokes a joint on occasion. In addition, allowing for the legal growing of marijuana within the United States (under select controls of course) could eliminate the existence of illegal border smuggling. The issue of illegality thence becomes an issue of the law, arbitrated by the mechanism of governmental regulation.
With regards to the latter, it is my contention that the “drug-as-vice” value judgment is couched more on moral grounds, than on scientific ones. No doubt, marijuana does pose harmful health effects, but these are comparable to those of cigarettes and liquor. To permit cigarettes and liquor but not marijuana on the basis of “health-risks” would therefore be tantamount to illogical discrimination. Unless one is prepared to accept the adbsurdist reductio that in the same vein, cigarettes and liquor should be equally outlawed on the basis of their potential health risks, there ought to be no reason on scientific grounds to treat the legalization of marijuana any differently from the treatment of alcohol and tobacco.
Even if we overlook the argument above, many scientific studies have cited marijuana as being one of the safest (health-wise) recreational drugs available. This explains why 36 states of the nation actually permit marijuana to be used on therapeutic grounds. The fact that it is actually permitted by healthcare authorities – the ultimate judges (pardon the legal pun) of what constitutes “good” or “bad” drugs – for use as a treatment drug is at the minimum a concession that whatever harmful effects of marijuana are insufficient to warrant a complete rejection of its medicinal properties. If scientific evidence therefore cannot seem to convincingly suggest that marijuana is as “bad” as what it is morally made out to be, there perhaps needs to be a rethink of the “drug-as-vice” value judgment, at least in the case of marijuana.
The analysis thus far has, of course, assumed a simplistic cause-effect framework. My intention for doing so is not to compromise rigour, but to at least present a fertile basis for further discussion and debate by listing down the markers for my stance. To this end, I invite responses that can help refine, or even reconstruct my assertions in a different light. In the meantime, however, it is for the reasons outlined above that lead me to provisionally argue that there can be a persuasive case made for the legalization of marijuana.
Of all drugs, why marijuana? The reason is simple, but compelling. Marijuana is the drug most commonly abused in the country. According to the US Department of Justice, not only is the abuse of marijuana higher in the United States than for any other drug, it is also the most easily grown and hence most commonly accessible. More significantly, the high demand for marijuana coupled by the relative ease by which it is grown has made it the drug of choice for illegal cartels run from Mexico to China, who are drawn by the high profits to be made from supplying the United States with weed. Marijuana legalization is therefore not only a domestic problem of morality, but an international one encompassing cross-state interests.
Given the above problems, my stance to advance drug legalization as a solution to combat these problems may seem unusual, and at worst, even untenable. Wouldn’t doing so encourage marijuana consumption and exacerbate current trends of marijuana abuse?
While this may at first glance seem to be the case, to understand otherwise requires an understanding of the complexities of the issue. We are essentially dealing with two sub-areas in this debate – one, how to address attendant problems arising out of excessive drug legalization by specifically considering if the reverse course of legalization would be useful to this end; and two, if the assumed value judgment of “drug-as vice” that has underpinned the government’s anti-drug campaign over the past 40 years has the same scientific thrust as its moral one.
With regards to the former, the social costs of excessive legalization have included border smuggling from Mexico and Canada, as well as prison-overcrowding as a result of jailing an improportionate number of “petty” marijuana offenders. These have resulted in the government having to counterintuitively set aside more state funds to tackle international criminal groups, and to upkeep larger numbers of prisoners. Through legalization with the appropriate duties taxation (as with liquor and cigarettes), the government would thence be able to focus its energy appropriately on drug cartels, vis-a-vis the relatively harmless individual drug-user who smokes a joint on occasion. In addition, allowing for the legal growing of marijuana within the United States (under select controls of course) could eliminate the existence of illegal border smuggling. The issue of illegality thence becomes an issue of the law, arbitrated by the mechanism of governmental regulation.
With regards to the latter, it is my contention that the “drug-as-vice” value judgment is couched more on moral grounds, than on scientific ones. No doubt, marijuana does pose harmful health effects, but these are comparable to those of cigarettes and liquor. To permit cigarettes and liquor but not marijuana on the basis of “health-risks” would therefore be tantamount to illogical discrimination. Unless one is prepared to accept the adbsurdist reductio that in the same vein, cigarettes and liquor should be equally outlawed on the basis of their potential health risks, there ought to be no reason on scientific grounds to treat the legalization of marijuana any differently from the treatment of alcohol and tobacco.
Even if we overlook the argument above, many scientific studies have cited marijuana as being one of the safest (health-wise) recreational drugs available. This explains why 36 states of the nation actually permit marijuana to be used on therapeutic grounds. The fact that it is actually permitted by healthcare authorities – the ultimate judges (pardon the legal pun) of what constitutes “good” or “bad” drugs – for use as a treatment drug is at the minimum a concession that whatever harmful effects of marijuana are insufficient to warrant a complete rejection of its medicinal properties. If scientific evidence therefore cannot seem to convincingly suggest that marijuana is as “bad” as what it is morally made out to be, there perhaps needs to be a rethink of the “drug-as-vice” value judgment, at least in the case of marijuana.
The analysis thus far has, of course, assumed a simplistic cause-effect framework. My intention for doing so is not to compromise rigour, but to at least present a fertile basis for further discussion and debate by listing down the markers for my stance. To this end, I invite responses that can help refine, or even reconstruct my assertions in a different light. In the meantime, however, it is for the reasons outlined above that lead me to provisionally argue that there can be a persuasive case made for the legalization of marijuana.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Would you legalize drugs?
It was not too long ago – in 1971 in fact – that American President Richard Nixon opened the “War on Drugs” against the backdrop of an emergent hippie counterculture, famously labelling the abuse of narcotic substances to be the country’s "public enemy No. 1." Since this declaration, subsequent American leaders have followed to the tune of Nixon’s bugle call, and little effort has been spared in terms of funding, bureaucratic formation, and combined state efforts in attempting to eradicate this vice from American society.
It therefore comes as no surprise that American society of today has grown accustomed to the drug-as-vice value judgement which has underpinned the drug prohibition policy of the country for the last 40 years. In spite of differences in federal and state law on the appropriate manner of punishment, it is nonetheless accepted that it is a crime to either possess or sell drugs. Yet, what is striking is that despite the government’s concerted attempts at drug prohibition, the trend of drug abuse has not shown signs of letting up. More crucially, excessive laws on prohibition have resulted in attendant social problems. Chief amongst these is the problem of over-crowding in American prisons, which are struggling for space to house offenders admitted for drug-related crimes.
Using the prison case as a microcosm of the shortcomings of America’s drug prohibition policy, would you – as a policymaker – take the controversial stand to legalise drug use given that the social benefits of doing so outweigh the costs?
I would, and I encourage you to support or challenge my position in this dialectical exercise of discovery.
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