The tobacco industry has gotten by for decades peddling a product that isn't just potentially deadly, but deadly beyond a shadow of a doubt. As legal products go, tobacco is unique -- if you use it for its intended purpose, in the manner intended, you will likely become so addicted that you can't function without it. That addiction will, eventually, compromise your health or kill you. Since the tobacco industry effectively kills off its own customers, it must aggressively recruit new ones. The new legislation will limit the amounts of nicotine and flavorings tobacco companies can add to cigarettes, and limit the advertising targeted to minors. Well done.
Now for a little relevant rant. Many law-abiding, job-holding, tax-paying US citizens think it's laughable that smoking a little weed is still considered a crime... well, okay, a misdemeanor. Some physicians will even acknowledge that it's related to fewer health problems than either tobacco or alcohol. A recent national poll shows that minors have less of a problem buying pot than alcohol. Too bad it took our economic nosedive to make pundits sit up and consider a better way to halt the illegal import and distribution of marijuana: loosen restrictions on using it, license and regulate the growers, and tax it. Surely there are other more dangerous substances -- cocaine and meth -- coming across US borders, which deserve a larger share of the DEA's efforts. And, let's not forget all of the ancilliary illegal activity supported by trafficking in those drugs -- illegal gun trading, slavery of drug "mules" and forced prostitution of addicts, to name just a few.
Lest you think I'm advocating the use of marijuana, nothing could be further from the truth. I'm only suggesting we claim the considerable revenues from folks are going to use it, anyway.
Unlike tobacco used for legal cigarettes, marijuana provides well-documented relief for those suffering from the effects of chemotherapy. It may be legally permissable for cancer sufferers to use it, they just can't get a prescription for it (or a recommendation, as it's called in California), and many have faced prosecution for growing their own, if they don't have the good fortune to live in California when they get cancer. Finding a "pot doc" in California, I hear, is as easy as finding a masseuse in Las Vegas. After a short interview, just about anyone can get a "recommendation" for a one-time fee of $200 or so, and it's good for a full year of unlimited purchases. You can get a "recommendation" for pot to treat anything from depression to chronic back pain, but a bad case of boredom is all some of the users really suffer. Big deal. We're going to deny them recreational use of pot while our laws let drivers drink and text? Priorities, people, priorities. I'd rather have a kid stoned at home than texting or drunk on the highway, and so would most parents. The munchies never killed anyone, that I'm aware of.
The barrier to actually prescribing pot as a treatment is that there isn't any recommended dosage. Users can take their recommendation to boutique "distribution centers" that offer cannabis in literally hundreds of strengths and varieties, and in bottled teas and baked goods.
Compare the benefit of a product that is occasionally used with the fact that cigarette smokers (even the pregnant ones) can currently get their 'nicotine high' legally while placing an undue burden on the non-smokers in their insurance pools. How many smokers accurately report their smoking habits when applying for insurance benefits? How does our current healthcare system incentivize smokers to quit? As our healthcare system is reformed and our medical records are digitized, it will become easier to regulate the use of tobacco. Legalizing and regulating recreational marijuana use would be simply adding another 'sin tax' to our coffers. Making it available in all states as a pain remedy to the desperately ill would be a blessing. It's not an unsupportable assumption that, minus the cost of administering the regulation, this new industry would still yield a tidy profit. This isn't raising taxes, mind you, it's snatching another source of revenue out of thin air.
There are many logical supply chains for such a crop. Can you imagine the revenues our federal prisons could generate by having their inmates do all the farming? Built in cheap labor, already existing security, plus a guaranteed way to keep the inmates happy! Here's another one: Native Americans run casinos on reservation land with the government's full blessing, so why not license this business to them as well? There would be a certain poetic justice in letting them raise a profitable crop on the land systematically stolen from them during the past two centuries. Finally righting past wrongs, making restitution that doesn't cost a dime -- what a PR coup that would be for Uncle Sam!
Our government needs to grow up, reassess, stop wasting our money on a fight that isn't working, and use this crop to defray some of the enormous debt currently being piled onto the backs of the next generation. When so many more important fights face us today, does it really make sense to continue fighting marijuana? When the time comes to answer that question, please, Just Say No.
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