This blog was started with the intention that it would function as a space where perspectives on the legalization of drugs could be presented, discussed, defended, or overturned. Over the past five weeks, a close adherence to this purpose has not only helped to develop my general awareness of the marijuana controversy in the States; I have also developed a close interest for, and a clear personal stance on, the issue at hand.
My first post was titled “Would you legalize drugs?”, and in the post I challenged myself and the online community of readers to question if there were legitimate and persuasive reasons to take the controversial stance of drug legalization, in light of the inadequacies of the country’s drug prohibition policy. I focused thematically on the broad arguments that there could be medical, social, economic, moral, and legal reasons for the legalization of marijuana, despite arguments to the contrary.
I acknowledged the fact that marijuana was – by conventional standards – harmful, but I disputed the argument that its “harm” was sufficient to warrant its outright criminalization by the law. I accepted that the federal government is right to outlaw all forms of marijuana smuggling, marijuana distribution, and illegal marijuana production, but I questioned if the same force of the law should be brought upon to bear on the personal use of marijuana. I conceded that a medical argument for the “non-harm” caused by marijuana would be contentious at best, but I qualified that its historical and contemporary acceptance as a drug of treatment by at least thirteen states in the country is at the minimum a concession that whatever harmful effects of marijuana are insufficient to warrant a complete rejection of its medicinal properties. I demonstrated the historically xenophobic and contentious circumstances surrounding the initial criminalization of marijuana which has persisted till today, and I challenged the usefulness and accuracy of thinking of marijuana as a form of vice in contemporary society. I raised the fact that a harsh drug policy has nonetheless not stopped America from being the one of the largest consumers of marijuana in the world, and argued that this should suffice to warrant a re-think, if not reversal, of contemporary laws governing marijuana use.
As I matured in my analysis, I focused my interrogation on how to achieve a satisfactory conclusion to the polarized debate, which I tried to achieve by proposing that the mechanics of a pro-choice or pro-criminalization position should not detract from a constructive re-examination of the law. In doing so, I argued that that it would be unreasonable and unrealistic to expect the law to function as the sole arbiter of moral standards in society, and that people should be equipped with the ability to make an informed choice on their own. In my defence, I asserted that this is because to do otherwise would be to subordinate our unique human trait of agency to a convenient moral benchmark that reflects a lack of faith in our ability to make rational choices. In addition, to rely solely on the rule of law would also be to overlook the fact that the law is fundamentally still a representation of the values and beliefs of its writers, and not necessarily an aggregated representation of the values of society. This is especially crucial given how Harry Anslinger and his bureaucratic machine almost single-handedly dictated the country’s policy on marijuana – a policy that has remained largely unchanged for the past 80 years. In the final analysis, I reasoned that all things considered, the fundamental tipping point of the marijuana debate is couched in a question of values – to what extent is society willing and able to sacrifice the rule of law for an enlightened exercise of liberty?
Writing from the perspective of a foreign citizen where drug laws in my society would be considered repressive by American standards, this exercise was also for me a self-reflexive examination of the values underpinning the formation of law in my country. Even as I sought to uncover and challenge the normative assumptions and values that have guided the formation of drug policy in the US, there was concurrently a mirroring dialogue which made me question if my treatment of the subject here would be as applicable to my own country and its set of values. This writing process has, therefore, made me more invested in the topic-at-hand, and I have become more aware of how such an exercise can help us develop a deeper appreciation of the argumentative nuances surrounding complex real-world topics, which affect the way we think about the world we live in.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Values and Beliefs in the Marijuana Debate
Over the past few postings, I have frequently brought up the rule of law and its relationship to the marijuana question. In the last post, I further argued that it is neither attractive nor realistic to expect the law to function as the sole moral arbiter of what constitutes “good” and “evil” in society. I rounded up my argument by making the assertion that to do otherwise would be to surrender our distinctive ability to make choices – even ones on marijuana that are relatively morally-trivial in comparison to the less morally-ambivalent acts of murder and rape. Worse, it would serve as a tacit and faithless acceptance of an innate inability to make rational choices on our own.
As the exploration of this topic through this blog draws to a close, I guess whether or not marijuana ought to be legalized depends largely on the kinds of values we would like to adopt towards morality, liberty, and law. Is the use of marijuana moral? Insofar as marijuana use does not cause any form of harm or injury to anyone else other than the user, my sense is that the use of marijuana is amoral. Should people be allowed to decide if they want to use marijuana? To the extent that people are equipped with the knowledge for them to make an informed choice on marijuana use, and given further that any decision to use marijuana does not come at the expense of harm caused to any other individual, I believe that people should be allowed the freedom to exercise this choice. Should the law arbitrarily criminalize all forms of marijuana use? Yes, but if and only if the law can justify convincingly that the use of marijuana causes such great damage to its user and the surrounding community that the only possible, logical, recourse would be to outlaw marijuana altogether.
Legalization or not, what is nonetheless clear is that underpinning any support for either side is a set of values which help guide us towards a resolution of the marijuana question. A successful negotiation of the question of marijuana legalization would therefore need to pinpoint these value assumptions; more importantly, the product of the law should be the aggregated representation of the values held by the general society, and not a select representation of the views of the bureaucratic elite.
As the exploration of this topic through this blog draws to a close, I guess whether or not marijuana ought to be legalized depends largely on the kinds of values we would like to adopt towards morality, liberty, and law. Is the use of marijuana moral? Insofar as marijuana use does not cause any form of harm or injury to anyone else other than the user, my sense is that the use of marijuana is amoral. Should people be allowed to decide if they want to use marijuana? To the extent that people are equipped with the knowledge for them to make an informed choice on marijuana use, and given further that any decision to use marijuana does not come at the expense of harm caused to any other individual, I believe that people should be allowed the freedom to exercise this choice. Should the law arbitrarily criminalize all forms of marijuana use? Yes, but if and only if the law can justify convincingly that the use of marijuana causes such great damage to its user and the surrounding community that the only possible, logical, recourse would be to outlaw marijuana altogether.
Legalization or not, what is nonetheless clear is that underpinning any support for either side is a set of values which help guide us towards a resolution of the marijuana question. A successful negotiation of the question of marijuana legalization would therefore need to pinpoint these value assumptions; more importantly, the product of the law should be the aggregated representation of the values held by the general society, and not a select representation of the views of the bureaucratic elite.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Legalizing Marijuana Even As We Recognise Its Harm
“Do we want another substance that is harmful legalized in our society?”
This question was raised by fellow blogger, AW, in a response to my implications post, and I would like to use this entry to address this, particularly because AW’s point is especially pertinent in light of my stance supporting marijuana legalization.
One of the strongest arguments championed by supporters of legalization – and an argument this blog has frequently called upon – is that there is no reason why marijuana should not be legalized give that more “harmful” substances such as cigarettes or alcohol (especially alcohol) have legal status. The strength of this argument, as AW has rightly alluded to, lies not in the persuasiveness of marijuana as “non-harmful”, but in the fact that it is less “harmful”. This however, does not detract from the fact that marijuana is nonetheless a substance that – by conventional standards – causes more harm than good to the body.
If a case for marijuana legalization can, therefore, be made on the basis that is “less harmful”, the key question to ask next is whether an equally persuasive case can be made regardless of a recognition of its “harm”. While this seems at first glance to be a tall order given the near-impossibility of arguing for something harmful to be legalized, it is my contention that an argument for marijuana legalization can in fact be convincingly outlined.
A negotiation of the moral component implicit in AW’s comment involves an interrogation into the function of the law. What is the role of law in society? Is the law meant to protect and buffer society completely from an arbitrarily-defined set of ills and evils? Is it realistic to expect the law to carry out such a function effectively? Should the law be the sole arbiter of what constitutes “good” and “harmful” objects and practices in any given society?
My sense is that it would not be realistic for the law to be the sole arbiter of morality, for the simple reason that apart from universally-unacceptable acts such as the murder of a fellow human being, all other things exist in shades of moral gray. What is unacceptable to some, such as marijuana use, may in fact be acceptable to others. My sense is also that even if we assume the law ought to serve the function of bubble-wrapping society from all forms of moral-ill, this desire is couched more in idealism that reality. After all, the condemnation of the law nonetheless does not prevent the act of murder from being committed. Closer to the context of this debate, the law has certainly not prevented marijuana from continuing to be the most-abused drug in the country.
If the law therefore should not, and cannot, be the only mechanism by which “harm” and “good” is decided by society, what then can supplement and make up for the shortfalls of the law? I am of the opinion that people need to empowered to make choices on their own, and this would involve the trickier and often-misrepresented mechanism of education. It is true that the law should, to some extent, act as an aggregated representative for the general moral values of a society. But we are not talking here about the legalization of acts as contentious as euthanasia, abortion, or suicide which involve questions of life and death. We are talking here of the moral and legal acceptability of marijuana use, a question that is far less morally controversial than what it is often made out to be.
Within the boundaries of this conceptual frame, I would accept that there can be a case made for the immorality of marijuana, because it does cause harm to one’s body. I would even go as far as to concede that the “harm” it causes is significant enough to warrant some form of moral consideration for its use. Yet, one needs to make a distinction between the moral acceptability and legal acceptability; they do not necessarily reinforce the other. Just because it may be immoral to lie or cheat does not mean that all forms of lying and cheating should be outlawed. In the same vein, while society can be taught that the use of marijuana, like alcohol and cigarettes, is undesirable and even immoral, people should nonetheless be given their right to exercise their choice on marijuana use - with some provisos – without fear of being unnecessarily punished by the law. If we surrender our ability to make choices altogether to the law (notwithstanding the fact that the law is, in the final analysis, an arbitrarily set of guidelines defined by the society’s elite), we lose the very thing that makes us unique as human beings – the ability to rationalize our own choices through a complex consideration of moral, legal, and personal perspectives.
This question was raised by fellow blogger, AW, in a response to my implications post, and I would like to use this entry to address this, particularly because AW’s point is especially pertinent in light of my stance supporting marijuana legalization.
One of the strongest arguments championed by supporters of legalization – and an argument this blog has frequently called upon – is that there is no reason why marijuana should not be legalized give that more “harmful” substances such as cigarettes or alcohol (especially alcohol) have legal status. The strength of this argument, as AW has rightly alluded to, lies not in the persuasiveness of marijuana as “non-harmful”, but in the fact that it is less “harmful”. This however, does not detract from the fact that marijuana is nonetheless a substance that – by conventional standards – causes more harm than good to the body.
If a case for marijuana legalization can, therefore, be made on the basis that is “less harmful”, the key question to ask next is whether an equally persuasive case can be made regardless of a recognition of its “harm”. While this seems at first glance to be a tall order given the near-impossibility of arguing for something harmful to be legalized, it is my contention that an argument for marijuana legalization can in fact be convincingly outlined.
A negotiation of the moral component implicit in AW’s comment involves an interrogation into the function of the law. What is the role of law in society? Is the law meant to protect and buffer society completely from an arbitrarily-defined set of ills and evils? Is it realistic to expect the law to carry out such a function effectively? Should the law be the sole arbiter of what constitutes “good” and “harmful” objects and practices in any given society?
My sense is that it would not be realistic for the law to be the sole arbiter of morality, for the simple reason that apart from universally-unacceptable acts such as the murder of a fellow human being, all other things exist in shades of moral gray. What is unacceptable to some, such as marijuana use, may in fact be acceptable to others. My sense is also that even if we assume the law ought to serve the function of bubble-wrapping society from all forms of moral-ill, this desire is couched more in idealism that reality. After all, the condemnation of the law nonetheless does not prevent the act of murder from being committed. Closer to the context of this debate, the law has certainly not prevented marijuana from continuing to be the most-abused drug in the country.
If the law therefore should not, and cannot, be the only mechanism by which “harm” and “good” is decided by society, what then can supplement and make up for the shortfalls of the law? I am of the opinion that people need to empowered to make choices on their own, and this would involve the trickier and often-misrepresented mechanism of education. It is true that the law should, to some extent, act as an aggregated representative for the general moral values of a society. But we are not talking here about the legalization of acts as contentious as euthanasia, abortion, or suicide which involve questions of life and death. We are talking here of the moral and legal acceptability of marijuana use, a question that is far less morally controversial than what it is often made out to be.
Within the boundaries of this conceptual frame, I would accept that there can be a case made for the immorality of marijuana, because it does cause harm to one’s body. I would even go as far as to concede that the “harm” it causes is significant enough to warrant some form of moral consideration for its use. Yet, one needs to make a distinction between the moral acceptability and legal acceptability; they do not necessarily reinforce the other. Just because it may be immoral to lie or cheat does not mean that all forms of lying and cheating should be outlawed. In the same vein, while society can be taught that the use of marijuana, like alcohol and cigarettes, is undesirable and even immoral, people should nonetheless be given their right to exercise their choice on marijuana use - with some provisos – without fear of being unnecessarily punished by the law. If we surrender our ability to make choices altogether to the law (notwithstanding the fact that the law is, in the final analysis, an arbitrarily set of guidelines defined by the society’s elite), we lose the very thing that makes us unique as human beings – the ability to rationalize our own choices through a complex consideration of moral, legal, and personal perspectives.
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