The Harmful Effects of Rapid Marijuana Legalization in America | Cannabis Policy & Social Impact | For Political Debates & Policy Discussions

Disclaimer-I have scanned Bennett's book, and read in full the first 50 pages or so, and will finish it later today, but there's enough here to demand comment immediately. I agree with him on slowing down "the rush to legalize", but totally disagree that is should remain illegal, the war on drugs made progress, or that the society is better served under prohibition, anymore than it was under alcohol prohibition.Let's take a few early points- First,I was very disappointed as I expected something new, objective, and thoughtful. There's nothing new here, it's the same old regurgitated arguments about potency, youth usage, comparisons to cigarettes and alchohol, and anecdotal evidence of pot users becoming heroin addicts, or lung damage. You can compare bad habits all day long, and which ones the government should make illegal. But the real question is why was marijuana made illegal in the first place, and how can you do any serious research when the Feds list it as a schedule one drug? It would seem that Bennett manufactures his conclusions from his Reagan era "just say no" perspective, than from honestly comparing the consequences of the "war on drugs", which he seems to want to to continue. It seems he's saying let's continue to do what we've always done. Culturally, I believe he's correct, putting bad things in your body should be discouraged. But taken in historical context, marijuana abuse is a totally manufactured problem, intentionally and maliciously created, by government, for money. That doesn't mean marijuana lacks consequences, just that government has exacerbated them with a decades old, corrupt, policy based on deceitful intentions that no one seems to even remember or care about. Pot was made illegal to boost government employment and DuPont's profits, not to protect "the children", and it was done by truly evil men, like Harry Anslinger.Let's take Bennett's first canard, marijuana is more potent today. Just the fact that he uses this, in a supposedly "new" look at the deleterious effects of marijuana on society suggests he's more offering fatherly advice he read in Parents magazine, than asking, "Is marijuana really more potent today?" Some is, some isn't, that's why you smoke one hit today, instead of a whole joint like we did at Woodstock. Hello? But this is an impossible statement to make, just based on testing technology that exists today that did not exist in the 60's or 70's, and the limits of genetic engineering. You can select for traits contained in plants or animals, but the traits must be there in the first place. The "super" pot we have today, such as the original Skunk, were nothing more than hippies(very smart educated hippies) interbreeding street bag seeds so they could be stabilized and grown indoors, because it was a pain and illegal to smuggle the stuff. It is not marijuana that is stronger, it's the way it's being concentrated and sold. THC is being concentrated to ridiculous levels in oils, wax, hashish, some which reach 80% THC. That is just plain dumb, and unsafe at any speed, to put on the shelves for purchase, like Colorado has done with edibles. Agreed. But the idea that potency today is higher, or as Bennett suggests, there's two different "marijuanas" that were discussing, is a feeble attempt to insulate his argument from scrutiny. To use his argument, comparing vodka and beer, we should outlaw vodka, because if you drink a whole beer, you also drink a whole bottle of vodka. Unlike Bennett, I speak from 40 years experience with using Cannabis, and I'd trade any medical pot produced today for a bag of real 1972 Acapulco Gold. It wasn't as pretty, but it WAS better than today's pot, in my opinion. Why do people want 100 year old heirloom tomato plants instead of new, Beefsteak hybrids? Isn't the Beefsteak "more potent"? Potency is one of those arguments folks just repeat, as it's been repeated so often by people who have no experience at all with pot, it's history, or any reason to research it farther. Consider this-Afghani's have been making hashish for a few thousand years that we smoked in the 70's, and it's potency was 40-60% THC, easily competing with anything today, and we used to buy that stuff on campus. It's just aggravating to hear folks repeat this stuff constantly, till it's taken as fact, then they start basing policy on error. If your baseline is the crappiest pot available in 1970, which is was from the University of Georgia testing facility, everything you test today looks better.All that being said, I totally agree with the idea that medical marijuana is being used as a scam for full scale legalization, and while a proponent of legalization, I've been afraid of it, because of the how Colorado has mucked it up. They didn't legalize weed, they legalized THC, in any form, concentrate, edible, etc. , and ended up with kids in emergency rooms from eating candy bars. Gee, never saw that coming. It's been estimated medical users are less than 1-3% of medical pot patients. I'd suggest it's even lower. Why is it every medical marijuana user looks like a stoner, and Bennett drives this point home with his statistics?!!! Nothing grinds my gears more than some young punk pot head referring to their weed as "my medicine". Right, and Guiness is mine. Stop it, such stupidity is painful! If you can't smoke pot for pots sake, calling it "medicine" isn't going to make it healthier.Bennet also seems to support the marijuana prohibition system, which is corrupt from top to bottom. Cannabis laws have always been garbage in, garbage out, since Harry Anslinger was tasked with demonizing weed in the '30's to keep revenue officers employed when prohibition ended, and to make way for DuPont's chemical based fibers, it had nothing to do with toxicity, that's historical fact. Politicians colluded with chemical companies to remove their competition from the market, hemp, and here we are today with the "devil's lettuce", aka, Indiana ditch weed, being illegal. If your argument begins and ends with potency, why is non psychoactive hemp still illegal, too?No, you couple law enforcement getting federal funds for how much they inflate the "street" value of the marijuana they seize, and corporate prison companies being the number one lobbyist against the reform of marijuana laws, and you have a toxic soup of racist drug policy. That doesn't even begin to address the crime element we manufactured and continue to support with the crazy, irrational, and just plain dumb war on pot. No one argues pot is, in most all cases, bad for you. We argue it's no worse than alcohol, but not as bad as cocaine or heroin, and if we'd get it off the schedule one list, with the money behind it now, we'd get some really relevant research done.But let's condense this argument to "the children"-who's talking about legalizing pot for kids, Bill? Beers illegal for 16 year olds, but they still drink it. Some drink enough to die from alcohol poisoning, some drink a beer, get a buzz, and quit. Why do we assume youth usage is going to explode when legalized? It's still illegal for kids. We still sell cigarettes, while extolling their evils, and significant success making smoking socially unpopular. I suspect the same will happen with pot, after the legalization novelty wears off. But Bennett's fears of societal costs of another vice are certainly legit, and usage will spike, initially. But that may be the price we pay to unwind years of prohibition insanity.There seems to be this weird "the whole country is going to start smoking pot" if legalized argument. Do you think those long lines and sold out shelves in Colorado all happened because thousands woke up to start smoking pot for the first time the day after it was legal? Legalization has no choice but to look like a bell curve, as usage spikes, levels off, then declines, for the same reasons Bennett says cigarettes have.Politically, I am to the right of Attila the Hun, but this reasoning just makes conservatives look ideologically fossilized and unable to think outside the "heathen devil weed" arguments.If you read this, be sure and read The Emperor Wears No Clothes for historical context. While you're googling, as Bennett suggests, google "inflammation cannabis", "Is pot really stronger today?", and "anti pot law reform lobbyists", "CBD and Charlott's Web", or "thc testing", or here's one- 70s".http://science.howstuffworks.com/marijuana5.htm.If you compare all of today's potency, to the same Mexican ditch weed you can still buy for $100 bucks an once in the midwest, then of course pot is better. But if you're baseline was Thai stick, or Afghan Kush in 1970, no, the pot has not gotten stronger, only more available. Whether or not that's a good thing, time will tell. What's certainly not a good thing is Federal Marijuana policy.