Marijuana Prohibition Is Unscientific, Unconstitutional And Unjust

[n2doc]

Contributor
Jacob Sullum

Next Thursday I am scheduled to debate Robert White, co-author (with Bill Bennett) of Going to Pot: Why the Rush to Legalize Marijuana Is Harming America, on Glenn Beck’s radio show. Each of us will get half an hour or so to make his case before taking questions from Beck and each other. Here is what I plan to say:

Marijuana Prohibition Is Unscientific

A few days before the House of Representatives passed a federal ban on marijuana in June 1937, the Republican minority leader, Bertrand Snell of New York, confessed, “I do not know anything about the bill.” The Democratic majority leader, Sam Rayburn of Texas, educated him. “It has something to do with something that is called marihuana,” Rayburn said. “I believe it is a narcotic of some kind.”

That exchange gives you a sense of how much thought Congress gave marijuana prohibition before approving it. Legislators who had heard of the plant knew it as the “killer weed” described by Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger, who claimed marijuana turned people into homicidal maniacs and called it “the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” Anslinger warned that “marihuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes” and estimated that half the violent crimes in areas occupied by “Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Filipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marihuana.”

Given this background, no one should pretend that marijuana prohibition was carefully considered or that it was driven by science, as opposed to ignorance and blind prejudice. It is hard to rationally explain why Congress, less than four years after Americans had emphatically rejected alcohol prohibition, thought it was a good idea to ban a recreational intoxicant that is considerably less dangerous.

It is relatively easy, for example, to die from acute alcohol poisoning, since the ratio of the lethal dose to the dose that gives you a nice buzz is about 10 to 1. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 2,200 Americans die from alcohol overdoses each year. By contrast, there has never been a documented human death from a marijuana overdose. Based on extrapolations from animal studies, the ratio of the drug’s lethal dose to its effective dose is something like 40,000 to 1.

more

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2015/05/14/marijuana-prohibition-is-unscientific-unconstitutional-and-unjust/

[bravenak]

1. Rec!

Going to read the rest now!

[Go Vols]

2. +1

[SamKnause]

3. K&R

[daleanime]

4. K&R.....

[WheelWalker]

5. Kicked and Recommended

[Arwinnick]

6. K&R

Who lobbied the senators and congressmen? None other then WRHearst,whom just bought up most of pulp paper company's in the USA to be used by his newspaper empire..Hemp fibers were used as paper until the banning by congress.

[midnight]

12. So corporate favoritism is shielded behind discriminatory claims. Always follow the money...

[me b zola]

7. KnR

[blondie58]

8. There would be a lot Less people

Killed by Drunk Drivers if it were legal.
I live in Colorado, where we Voted to Even make recreational pot legal.
I have a medical license for
My multiple sclerosis, so it doesn't cost me as much.


There was One Young man a couple of years ago who took too much, and sadly panicked and jumped to his death. 😟 Usually, the worst side effect is that it gives you the munchies!

If it were legal, along with the fast growing hemp, we wouldn't have to cut all the forests down.

There is really no reason to keep it illegal.

Good luck with your debate!54

[Dont call me Shirley]

9. Legislate by what is best policy for people and earth, not by profits of one family.

[olddots]

10. k & r

the prohibition is totally illogical and based in ignorant greed .

[Punx]

11. This part is important

In relation to the discussions about Police Violence here on DU:

"Peaceful activities such as growing a plant or selling its produce cannot justify the violence that is required to enforce prohibition. In the name of stopping people from getting high, police officers routinely commit acts that would be universally recognized as assault, burglary, theft, kidnapping, and even murder were it not for laws that draw arbitrary lines between psychoactive substances."

The War on Drugs sure as heck has enabled a lot of this crap, especially in poor communities and against people with the wrong skin color.