by
W. E. Messamore
1. Liberty – Well a good place to start is so that we can live
out our own American values of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness by respecting every individual’s liberty to make their own
choices about their own body, their own time, and their own money.
2. Conservatism – Conservatives have been complaining about
“the nanny state” and “big government run amok” for decades now, so
here’s a chance to curtail the excesses of government overreach,
something very well in line with purported conservative values.
3. Liberalism – Liberals have been vocal supporters of each
individual’s right to make their own choices about their own bodies for
decades now as well, so this is a chance to bring reality in line with
rhetoric and let people be responsible for their own bodies.
4. Libertarianism – If you don’t like marijuana, just don’t use it. That’s a lot more simple of a solution than waging an entire war on it.
5. Consistency – Then there’s the fact that alcohol and
nicotine, which are both also intoxicating substances, are legal in the
United States despite the overwhelming empirical reality that they are
both incredibly, incredibly destructive to health and life.
6. Not Toxic Nor Fatal – In fact according to the NIH,
tobacco is the first leading preventable cause of death in America and
alcohol is the third leading cause of preventable death. And according
to the DEA marijuana has killed exactly zero people ever in the history
of the world. (Page 75 of the 2017 DEA report Drugs of Abuse)
7. Not Addictive – Not only is marijuana impossible to
overdose on, unlike alcohol, according to former US Surgeon General
Joycelyn Elders, THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana
responsible for the characteristic high is not even addictive like alcohol, tobacco, or even caffeine. While consumers can become tolerant
to THC (the effects of the drug diminish over repeated consumption
without a “tolerance break” of a few days), it does not cause dependence (the need for the substance to avoid going through an uncomfortable or painful withdrawal) like alcohol and tobacco.
8. Does Not Cause Violence – Another quote by Joycelyn Elders
from the same interview: “Nobody says that marijuana causes violence. As
we know alcohol can cause much more aggressiveness. You aren’t as
likely to hurt someone from using marijuana as you are from using
alcohol.”
9. Not A “Gateway Drug” – “Marijuana is not a ‘gateway’ drug
that predicts or eventually leads to substance abuse, suggests a 12-year
University of Pittsburgh study.”
10. Your Lungs – In a rigorous twenty year study of over 5,000
men and women published in 2012 by the American Medical Association,
researchers at two American universities found that casual marijuana use
(defined as smoking up to a joint a week for twenty years or even a
joint a day for seven years) not only doesn’t harm lung function, but
“was associated with increases in lung air flow rates and increases in
lung capacity.” Seriously.
11. Cancer – From Cancer.org:
“More recently, scientists reported that THC and other cannabinoids
such as CBD slow growth and/or cause death in certain types of cancer
cells growing in lab dishes. Some animal studies also suggest certain
cannabinoids may slow growth and reduce spread of some forms of cancer.”
12. Chemo – Same source: “A number of small studies of smoked
marijuana found that it can be helpful in treating nausea and vomiting
from cancer chemotherapy. Smoked marijuana has also helped improve food
intake in HIV patients in studies. Studies have long shown that people
who took marijuana extracts in clinical trials tended to need less pain
medicine.”
13.Opiates – Legalizing marijuana provides a safer alternative
to highly addictive prescription painkillers that are killing so many
Americans today it has become a major public health crisis.
14. Epilepsy – CBD, one of the cannabinoids in marijuana, has been scientifically demonstrated
to help treat and reduce the severity of a very terrible form of
treatment resistant epilepsy that tragically mostly affects small
children.
15. Alzheimer’s – Marijuana and products made from it have
been used to help Alzheimer’s patients gain weight and ease some of the
agitated behavior that patients experience. Scientists have also found it slows the progress of protein deposits in the brain that scientists suspect may be part of what causes Alzheimer’s.
16. Arthritis – One study found that patients treated with marijuana derivatives had less arthritis pain and slept better. Several other studies have found that marijuana may help reduce inflammation.
17. Chronic Pain – Marijuana consumption has been shown to have a substantial analgesic effect.
18. Crohn’s Disease – Researchers have found
that smoking marijuana provided relief for people suffering from
ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. It lowered their pain, improved
diarrhea symptoms, and helped patients gain weight.
19. Glaucoma – Scientists have found THC can lower pressure on the optic nerve while preserving nerve health, helping treat one of the leading causes of blindness.
20. Creativity – Researchers believe
marijuana increases creativity and novel ideas by enhancing divergent
thinking and the mental connection of seemingly disparate ideas.
21. Happiness – A 2017 survey study
of California and Colorado residents found marijuana consumers are
markedly more financially successful and satisfied with their lives than
abstainers.
22. Sanjay Gupta – CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been calling for
legalization since 2013: “I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement
Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance because of sound
scientific proof. Surely, they must have quality reasoning as to why
marijuana is in the category of the most dangerous drugs that have ‘no
accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse.’ They didn’t have
the science to support that claim, and I now know that when it comes to
marijuana neither of those things are true. It doesn’t have a high
potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications.
In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works.”
23. The California Medical Association – Thousands of other doctors believe marijuana should be legalized and studied. According to
the California Medical Association: “As physicians, we need to have a
better understanding about the benefits and risks of medicinal cannabis
so that we can provide the best care possible to our patients.”
24. The Constitution – Congress is only legally allowed to pass laws within the scope of the specifically enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, and the 10th Amendment says:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people.”
That’s why there had to be an entire Constitutional amendment to
allow Congress to prohibit intoxicating liquors with the subsequent
Volstead Act. No amendment, no prohibition. There could not be a more
clear historical-legal example showing why the Controlled Substances Act
of the 1970s prohibiting marijuana and other drugs is definitely
unconstitutional.
25. Bill Clinton – “When I was in England, I experimented with
marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t inhale and
never tried it again.”
26. George W. Bush – George W. Bush has not been as forthcoming in interviews as Clinton was about his past marijuana consumption, but he admitted it to his biographer, Doug Wead (yes, it’s pronounced “weed”).
27. Barack Obama – “When I was a kid, I inhaled, frequently.
That was the point.” He was actually a total pothead in college and had a
group of people he regularly consumed massive amounts of weed with
called “the Choom gang.” It didn’t stop him from becoming POTUS, and
tragically, continuing to wage Nixon and Reagan’s ugly, harmful War on
Drugs.
28. Thomas Jefferson – From High Times:
“In addition to farming hemp, Jefferson was Ambassador to France during
the hashish era there. At risk of imprisonment if caught, Jefferson
smuggled hemp seeds from China known for their potency to America.”
29. George Washington – – George Washington grew hemp for rope, fabric, and paper, but also wrote this
in a letter: “Began to separate the male from female plants rather too
late… Pulling up the (male) hemp. Was too late for the blossom hemp by
three weeks or a month,” indicating he may have smoked marijuana (some
speculate to help with his chronic toothache) because the female plants
have higher amounts of THC.
30. John Adams – Adams was a hemp enthusiast who also wrote in
a column advocating for hemp production in the Boston Evening-Post in
1763: “we shall by and by want a world of Hemp more for our own
consumshon.”
31. John F. Kennedy – According to
John F. Kennedy: A Biography, JFK consumed marijuana to ease his back
pain. One excerpt reads: “On the evening of July 16, 1962, according to
[Washington Post executive] Jim Truitt, Kennedy and Mary Meyer smoked
marijuana together… The president smoked three of the six joints Mary
brought to him. At first he felt no effects. Then he closed his eyes and
refused a fourth joint. ‘Suppose the Russians did something now,’ he
said.”(!)
32. Rick Santorum – “I admitted back when I was running for
the Senate that when I was in college I smoked pot, and that was
something I did when I was in college, and it was something that I’m not
proud of, but I did it.”
33. Portugal – Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001. Ten
years later drug consumption in the coastal European nation had actually
decreased and drug abuse was down by half.
34. Compassion – That’s because when drug abuse is treated as a
health problem and not a crime problem, this more compassionate and
reasonable approach gets better results. That’s why the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime recommends shifting drug policy to do exactly that.
35. Violent Crime – A 2010 study released by the prestigious nonprofit, RAND Corp., indicates that
stricter drug policies might actually lead to an increase in crime. The
study found “that when hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries were
closed last year in Los Angeles crime rates rose in surrounding
neighborhoods.”
36. Organized Crime – Neill Franklin, the retired Baltimore narcotics cop who now leads Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), argues that
“If we legalized and taxed drugs… we’d make society safer by
bankrupting the cartels and gangs who control the currently illegal
marketplace.”
If we legalize the sale of marijuana, law-abiding corporations will
sell it instead of criminals. You could buy a pack of marijuana
cigarettes at the 7-Eleven down the street. Against their massive
economies of scale and base of capital investments, the violent drug
dealer on the sidewalk would be put out of business overnight and our
cities and suburbs would start becoming a lot safer.
37. National Security – In 2012, the Mexican government updated its death toll figures
from the war on drugs, “reporting that 47,515 people had been killed in
drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón began a military
assault on criminal cartels in late 2006.”
Critics of U.S. drug prohibition argue that the violence in Mexico is
a direct result of U.S. prohibition measures, which create a black
market for marijuana, a black market that Mexican criminal cartels have
found lucrative, using their profits to purchase more weapons and engage
in more criminal– often violent– activity. It’s becoming a national security issue.
38. Outlaws – To borrow a common argument from Second
Amendment supporters: If you outlaw the sale of marijuana, only outlaws
will profit from the sale of marijuana. And they will use those profits
to fund other criminal activities and to protect the profits themselves,
violently if necessary.
39. Harmless – Research emphatically shows marijuana consumption does not cause psychosis (disordered thinking leading to a break with reality).
40. Helpful – In fact CBD, one of the other psychoactive compounds in marijuana may even lessen psychotic symptoms in suffering patients, leading researchers to say it holds potential for use as an anti-psychotic.
41. Peaceful – Dozens of studies have shown that marijuana does not increase violent crime, and actually has a pacifying effect on people inclined to violence.
A review of the evidence in a National Academy of Sciences study on
violence concluded, “The majority of the evidnece in experimental
studies with animals and humans, as well as most data from chronic
users, emphasizes that cannabis preparations (e.g., marihuana, hashish)
or THC decrease aggressive and violent behavior.”
42. Chill – On the other hand, alcohol, which is legal in the
United States, is well documented to increase violent incidents with
aggressive people by lowering their inhibitions and impairing their
judgment. A 2003 article from the journal, Addictive Behaviors noted that
“alcohol is clearly the drug with the most evidence to support a direct
intoxication-violence relationship,” and that “cannabis reduces
likelihood of violence during intoxication.”
43. Compassion – Although there is little evidence that
marijuana use increases the likelihood of criminal behavior, marijuana
convictions are definitely likely to ruin lives and expose people to a
life of crime behind bars. State laws differ, but in some places,
possessing just one marijuana joint can be punishable by up to a year in
prison and a $10,000 fine.
44. Racism – An ACLU report,
which sorted marijuana arrests by race and county in all 50 states and
the District of Columbia, revealed that black people are almost four
times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than white
people. So it’s a violation of liberty that happens to a historically
oppressed racial minority in marked disproportion to their numbers.
45. Football – The NFL prohibits players from consuming marijuana, but one former player says
about half of all NFL players smoke marijuana. Needless to say,
professional football is one of the most demanding and competitive
activities in the world and its athletes are peak performance
individuals. It’s proof that marijuana doesn’t decrease an individual’s
productivity or dull their skills.
46. Efficacy – One oft-cited study
found that prohibition doesn’t seem to have a deterrent effect on the
insatiable demand for this highly valued plant: “Fear of arrest, fear of
imprisonment, the cost of cannabis or its availability do not appear to
exert much effect on the prevalence of cannabis use.”
47. Weddings – A couple years back Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said,
“If I’m at a wedding reception here and somebody has a drink or two,
most people wouldn’t say they’re wasted. Most folks with marijuana
wouldn’t be sitting around a wedding reception smoking marijuana.”
Wedding and chill. Great wedding idea, governor!
48. The Children – Nearly a decade after Portugal decriminalized all drugs a white paper by the Cato Institute reported that drug use by seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined.
49. Savings – An ACLU study found that marijuana law enforcement cost states an estimated $3.6 billion in 2010.
50. Revenue – A report from New Frontier Data estimates
the cannabis industry could generate $131.8 billion in federal tax
revenue and add 1.1 million jobs by 2025 if it’s legalized for adult use
in all 50 states.
51. Popular Sovereignty – “Americans continue to warm to
legalizing marijuana, with 64% now saying its use should be made legal.
This is the highest level of public support Gallup has found for the proposal in nearly a half-century of measurement.”
52. State Sovereignty – With 30 states
having legalized marijuana for recreational or medicinal consumption,
it’s time for the federal government to back off drug policy and let
states decide for themselves.
53. Reform – The War on Drugs is a staggering policy failure. Shockingly, in the United States, there is a drug arrest every 19 seconds, making for a total of 1.6 million drug arrests in 2010 alone. The FBI also reports
that 81.9% of all drug-related arrests in 2010 were for simple
possession, not drug dealing, and 45.8% of all drug-related arrests were
for possession of marijuana. After this many decades, this many
arrests, this many wasted dollars, and this many ill-effects of the War
on Drugs, does any serious policy analyst, pundit, or politician
actually claim that the world’s half-century experiment in drug
prohibition has worked?
54. Focus – With all these resources and time spent on
persecuting non-violent drug consumers, there is a tremendous
opportunity cost for justice and speedy trials, including a notorious rape kit back log, prison overcrowding, and an overtaxed court system.
55. Enjoyment – Mayo Clinic reports, “Cannabis sativa is widely used recreationally (inhaled or taken by mouth) to achieve increased feelings of well-being.”
56. Humanity – “It was terrible. It was the most frightening
experience of my life. I thought it was a terrorist attack.” -Leona
Goldberg, an 82-year-old survivor of a drug raid on the wrong house.
Leona was scared and confused when six policemen with riot shields and
assault weapons charged into her Brooklyn apartment and ordered her
husband, Martin, to the floor. Martin, a decorated World War II vet, was
84-years-old when the raid happened.
57. Sanity – According to
investigative journalist and former Cato Policy analyst Radley Balko,
“…the vast majority of paramilitary raids are executed against drug
offenders, and many of those against marijuana offenders with no history
of violence. Which means that far from defusing violent situations,
most SWAT raids actually create them.”
58. Prisons – The US has less than 5% of the world’s
population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. Half a million people were
locked up for marijuana offenses in 2008. In 2016, there was a drug
arrest every 20 seconds, feeding this prison overpopulation problem.
59. Pat Robertson – Even the Moral Majority televangelist thinks
marijuana should be legalized: “We’re locking up people that take a
couple of puffs of marijuana and the next thing you know they’ve got ten
years, they’ve got mandatory sentences, and these judges just say- they
throw up their hands and say there’s nothing we can do, it’s mandatory
sentences. We’ve got to take a look at what we’re considering crimes,
and that’s one of them. I’m not exactly for the use of drugs, don’t get
me wrong, but I just believe that criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing
the possession of a few ounces of pot, that kind of thing, it’s just,
it’s costing us a fortune and it’s ruining young people.” If even Pat is
ready to legalize, it’s time.
60. The Flower – This short cartoon is one of the best arguments for legalizing marijuana ever made:
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