Personal Marijuana Use

As I noted earlier, the meteoric rise of the 4/20 marijuana holiday into a national phenomenon is really something to behold. While some may flinch at the spectacle of widespread open consumption, there's a message here about the unity of marijuana culture in America and the futility of criminalizing so many people.

Just look at the reaction of law-enforcement:

SANTA CRUZ -- For those who arrest people who use, abuse or sell drugs, Sunday's pot-smoking festival at UC Santa Cruz was "a moral slap in the face to the cause," said Rich Westphal, task force commander with the Santa Cruz County Narcotics Enforcement Team. [Santa Cruz Sentinel]

Here's how it went down:

Police may find all of this embarrassing, but it's not really their fault. Marijuana shouldn't be illegal. Any law targeting this many Americans is just flawed on its face. These gratuitous events are a symptom of the bunker mentality of our marijuana culture, which now erupts into a public free-for-all every year on April 20.

It is marijuana prohibition that glamorizes these events and makes them fun. That is just a fact, and one which shouldn't be lost on law-enforcement. These are anti-prohibition pot riots and they are the safest riots you'll ever find. You'd have to call the national guard if any other type of criminal gathered in such numbers.

So if you can't catch them all on the highways or in their homes, and you can't even catch them when they're all together in one place, maybe it's time to stop trying to catch them.

In 2006, Colorado University police photographed participants in a 4/20 celebration and offered rewards for information leading to their capture. It didn't just fail, it backfired colossally, galvanizing contempt for the drug war and the petty police tactics that have spawned in its name.

Two years later, this quote says it all:

"We can't do the same thing year after year," [CU police Cmdr.] Wiesley said hours before Sunday’s smoking began. "So I doubt we'll do anything like the pictures. ... There's no way our 12 to 15 officers are going to be able to deal with a crowd of 10,000. We just can’t do strong enforcement when we're outnumbered 700 or 800 to one." [dailycamera.com]

This video, via Steve Bloom, shows that 4/20 has now evolved from a spattering of small secretive gatherings into a full-blown civil disobedience protest against the war on drugs:


Huge turnouts at 4/20 events this year, along with a Chicago Tribune report on the commercialization of the marijuana holiday, are a powerful signal that this phenomenon is becoming rather public. Pete Guither notes in a lovely reflection that we're on an unstoppable trajectory towards victory in the larger fight for drug policy reform and it's hard to argue when you see these teeming masses taking control, if only for a day.

I don't think smoking pot in a field is going to end the drug war. But the existence of these events, their size, the surrender of police, the fact that nothing bad happened; these things are illustrative of the resilient and massive drug war resistance.

If the war on drugs can be overwhelmed for one day, there is no doubt it can someday be overcome altogether.

Via MPP (sorry no link):

"The Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008," introduced by Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), would eliminate the threat of arrest and prison for the possession of up to 3.5 ounces of marijuana and/or the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce of marijuana. It would not affect federal laws prohibiting selling marijuana for profit, importing and exporting marijuana, or cultivating marijuana. It also would not affect any state or local laws and regulations.

Because almost all marijuana arrests are made by local and state police, the primary impact of this federal bill is twofold: First, it would offer protection to people who are apprehended with marijuana in federal buildings or on federal land (such as national parks); and, second, the bill sends a message to state governments that the federal government is now open to the notion of states reducing their marijuana penalties, too.

This historic legislation comes 36 years after the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse made a similar recommendation to President Richard Nixon, suggesting that he decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.

Congress can send the right message by passing this bill and demonstrating its commitment to defending individual freedom, while focusing federal law-enforcement resources on real crimes. As Barney Frank argues:

"I do not believe that the federal government should treat adults who choose to smoke marijuana as criminals. Federal law enforcement is a serious business, and we should be concentrating our efforts in this regard on measures that truly protect the public."

Despite bi-partisan co-sponsorship (Ron Paul, of course), I'm kinda not expecting this thing to become law anytime soon, but it will be fun to see who our friends are. Any debate over the bill will just reveal the idiocy of those in Congress who want federal law enforcement agents busting hippies for half-eighths, instead of defending the homeland from terrorists, zombies, and dancing libertarians.

Let it be known that one can stand for sensible drug policy without being voted out of Congress.

With British Prime Minister Gordon Brown poised to reclassify marijuana as a more serious drug subject to stiffer penalties, the United Kingdom appears to be in the grip of an outbreak of Reefer Madness that would make Harry Anslinger blush. Bizarrely, much of the British concern about marijuana is centered on the dreaded "skunk." The Daily Mail, which makes the New York Post look like the New York Times, has been a leading proponent of skunk mania. In an article headlined Cannabis: A deadly habit as easy for children to pick up as a bag of crisps, after blaming marijuana for the problems of British youth culture and prohibition-related violence, the Mail breathlessly reports that skunk isn't your father's marijuana. (Haven't we heard this one before?)

The other problem for the Government and others who urged the then Home Secretary David Blunkett to downgrade cannabis in the run-up to 2004, is that the drug on sale to young people on the streets today is very different from the one ministers thought they were downgrading. Doctors believe that this new strain has the potential to induce paranoia and even psychosis. Some of those we met who work with young criminals link the advent of the new drug with the growth and intensity of street violence. Uanu Seshmi runs a small charity in Peckham, where gun crime is rife, which aims to help boys excluded from school escape becoming involved in criminal gangs. He has seen boys come through his doors who are "unreachable" and he blames the new higher strength cannabis sold on the streets as "skunk" or "super skunk" for warping young minds. "It isn't the cannabis of our youth, 20 or 30 years ago," he told me. "This stuff damages the brain, its effects are irreversible and once the damage is done there is nothing you can do.

This new strain of marijuana? Skunk? Odd, since it's been around since the 1970s (read the description of Skunk #1) and is just another of the countless indica-sativa hybrids. Thankfully, we have "drug experts" like Mr. Seshmi to raise the alarm about its irreversible effects. There's more from the Mail, which apparently has made reclassifying cannabis its moral crusade of the day. In another article, How my perfect son became crazed after smoking cannabis, the Mail consults an unhappy mum whose child ran into problems smoking weed. Last fall, the Mail was warning of--I kid you not--"deadly skunk". Here are some more skunk headlines from the Mail in recent months: "Son twisted by skunk knifed father 23 times," "How cannabis made me a monster," "Escaped prisoner killed man while high on skunk cannabis," "Boys on skunk butchered a grandmother," and "Teen who butchered two friends was addicted to skunk cannabis." While one expects such yellow journalism from the likes of the tabloid press, even the venerable Times of London is feeling the effects of skunk fever. Under the headline Cannabis: 'just three drags on a skunk joint will induce paranoia', the Times managed to find and highlight some guy named Gerard who doesn't like that particularly variety of pot:

I smoke around six joints of regular cannabis every week, mostly at the weekends. What I like about smoking hash or weed is that it keeps me calm and gives me a more amusing outlook on life. With skunk, it’s a completely different story. Just three drags on a skunk joint will induce paranoia on a massive scale. I’m not talking about the difference between a beer and a vodka shot. I’m talking about being unable to get out of bed in the morning because you feel paralyzed, about being incapable of holding a conversation. I would like to think I’m a pretty lucid guy, but after smoking skunk I find myself struggling to string a sentence together. In the skunk haze of my student days, I would sometimes find myself unable to leave the house at all. It’s like a mild form of dementia. Once, a friend passed me a skunk joint before going to a birthday party. After just a few drags, I went into a room full of people, barely able to talk. I headed straight for the bar and drank as much alcohol as possible to counteract the effects. It helped, but using one vice to neutralize another is not exactly ideal.

My advice to Gerard (and it's something he apparently still has the brain cells left to figure out by himself despite smoking the evil skunk): If you don't like it, don't smoke it. But more broadly, what does the Times piece tell us? Nothing except this guy doesn't like skunk. Honestly, I don't understand this British mania over skunk. Something similar is going on in Australia, only down under, it's not skunk but the dreaded "hydro" that is causing murder, mayhem, and madness. Blaming a particular cultivation technique is about as stupid as blaming one variety of cannabis. I think this is something I'm going to have to write about in a feature article this week. I'll consult cannabis cultivation experts, media critics, and the latest science to try to get a handle on this.

Ever since I pointed out last week that the drug war will soon be fought mostly by robots, further examples have come pouring in. We're now well past the point at which anyone can plausibly deny the inevitability of a future in which drug war robots patrol the streets thrilling children, terrifying the elderly, and wreaking general havoc of epic distopian proportions. Skeptics will know I'm right when the lighter gets shot out of your hand with lasers every time you try to smoke some drugs.

Yeah, if I was wrong about anything, it was how soon my horrific predictions would come true:

The U.S. Forest Service has purchased a pair of flying drones to track down marijuana cultivators operating in remote California woodlands.

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, tells The Associated Press the pilotless aircraft will allow agency law enforcement officers to pinpoint marijuana fields and size up potential dangers before agents make arrests.
…

The SkySeer drones cost $100,000 each and weigh only four pounds. [AP]

Isn't that just the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? F'ing robots flying around the woods trying to catch you growing weed? I predict that outdoor marijuana cultivation remains unaffected, but reported UFO sightings increase dramatically.

And the creepy thing about all this is that it was reported just one week after my initial expose on this topic. Could it be that the drug war geniuses are taking cues from my blog? Just in case, let me clarify that my point wasn't that it's a good idea for the drug warriors to build horrible robots, but simply that they are mad enough to do it. I guess I was right either way.

[Thanks to tv/movie star Aaron Houston for the link]

If you took the Drug Czar's word for it, you'd think all marijuana users were helpless dope fiends who just need the cops to take their pot away and throw their sorry asses in rehab. But if you take the Drug Czar's word on this, or anything else for that matter, you'll be wrong. People smoke pot because they want to, and that's a scientific fact.

Via NORML, a new study helps clarify what we've all been struggling so hard to explain:

Understanding the Motivations for Recreational Marijuana Use Among Adult Canadians

Substance Use & Misuse, Vol. 43, Issue 3 & 4, February 2008: pages 539-572

The primary purpose of this study was to develop a better understanding of what motivates a selected group of adult[s] to use marijuana and to explore the social contexts in which it is used. …. Using interviews to gain insight into the subjective experiences of the participants, this research corroborated the results of previous studies that found that most adult marijuana users regulate use to their recreational time and do not use compulsively. Rather, their use is purposively intended to enhance their leisure activities and manage the challenges and demands of living in contemporary modern society. Generally, participants reported using marijuana because it enhanced relaxation and concentration, making a broad range of leisure activities more enjoyable and pleasurable.

It is so rare to hear the typical marijuana user described in this way (accurately) that I had to reread this just to be sure. The abstract is revealing as well:

They were predominantly middle class, employed in a wide range of occupations, and used marijuana recreationally to enhance relaxation and concentration while engaged in leisure activities.

Holy hookah, Batman! These hippies have jobs and happy lives!? Somebody better drug test them soon, otherwise they might make it their whole lives without anyone realizing what losers they are.

Seriously though, the idea that marijuana users are somehow mentally and physically handicapped is easily the most pernicious and inaccurate absurdity ever infused into the marijuana debate. It's just not true at all. Yet this mindless stereotype continues to be reinforced as the counterculture tends to embrace the drug openly, while more typical users remain stigmatized by the fear of arrest, drug testing, or being mistaken for a hippie.

The point here isn't just that marijuana use is seldom more than a harmless hobby, although that is true. Arguing that marijuana is harmless hasn't advanced our cause, so we must look beyond opportunities to simply make that argument on its own. The point here is that the typical marijuana user isn't someone who can benefit from criminal justice intervention. Just think about how damaging these punishments for marijuana can be and imagine what happens each time they are applied to someone whose life was previously going just fine:

Possible jail time
Substantial legal costs/fines
Loss of employment
Loss of drivers license
Loss of child custody
Loss of federal aid for education
Loss of federal aid for housing
Loss of federal aid for food

For many decades now, we've been ruining the lives of healthy, happy people for using marijuana. We're able to do this because we tell ourselves that they need us to help them. They are addicts. They are lazy. They are going to get cancer or depression. But wait, what if they're not? Oh my God, what have we done?

A new global study ranks the Netherlands 9th in the world in stability and prosperity. The U.S. follows at a distant 22nd. I'll give you one guess where I'm going with this. Ok, times up. If you said, "Scott will argue that superior quality of life in the Netherlands proves that an enlightened marijuana policy won't destroy society," you win a cookie.

Indeed, superior quality of life in the Netherlands proves that an enlightened marijuana policy won’t destroy society, and there are no complications which ought to prevent anyone from understanding this. A bunch of white Europeans have been prancing around for decades allowing one another to sell and smoke marijuana openly, culminating in their designation as the 9th best nation in the world. Not to mention their progressive policies on psychedelic mushrooms, safe injection sites, drug sentencing, and criminal justice spending, none of which have produced outcomes resembling those we've been told to expect should we abandon our obscenely harsh approach to these matters here in the U.S. The numbers speak for themselves.

If you ask a drug warrior about this, they will change the subject, but it is just a fact that you can allow adults to manufacture, distribute, and consume marijuana and everything will be fine.

Advocates for harsh marijuana laws can be counted on to infuse their rhetoric with incessant declarations that marijuana is highly addictive. Rarely, if ever, could one expose oneself to such discussion without being told something like this:

Decriminalizing marijuana – the drug which sends the most of America's youth into substance abuse treatment and recovery – is a dangerous first step towards complete drug legalization. In fact, marijuana sends the highest percentage of New Hampshire residents into drug treatment than any other illicit drug.
…

I strongly urge responsible leaders in New Hampshire to stop any effort to decriminalize or legalize the highly addictive drug marijuana."

These words belong to the Deputy Drug Czar and they are less than a week old, thus they represent what his office currently believes to be the strongest and most important argument for marijuana prohibition: that the drug is highly addictive.

As Paul Armentano at NORML points out, however, the government's own data on marijuana dependency shows that a plurality of people entering treatment for marijuana hadn't smoked it in a month or more. Isn't that just amazing? I mean, wow. 36% of people entering treatment for pot addiction had already kicked the habit on their own. Highly-addictive my ash.

But how could this be? The answer can be found on this page, which shows that 58% of people entering marijuana treatment were referred by the criminal justice system. They didn't ask for help, rather they were found in possession of marijuana, which led a judge to issue a diagnosis of "marijuana addiction" and order them to get help for that.

When more than half the sample consists of people who were forced into treatment, it should come as no surprise that so many of them haven't actually been smoking marijuana. Some may never have been marijuana users to begin with and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. More commonly, I suspect, a large number of marijuana arrestees simply quit after getting busted, either voluntarily or because their lawyers recommended it, pretrial drug screenings, etc. Since marijuana isn't actually very addictive to begin with, this is easy to do.

And yet we continue to waste limited government resources investigating, arresting, adjudicating, and treating these people for an addiction they never actually had. In sum, the Drug Czar's best evidence of marijuana addiction comes from the fact that the government categorizes people as marijuana addicts if they're found sitting near a bag of marijuana. The instant we stop calculating it that way, the evidence ceases to exist and the drug warriors' favorite and best argument against marijuana reform is, well…cashed.

For your amusement, I've posted the full text of a press release the Drug Czar's office sent out last week in opposition to a marijuana decriminalization bill in New Hampshire. I disagree with it, of course, but that is not why I've posted it. I share this because it is so filled with factual and grammatical errors that I'm told NH legislators have been forwarding it around and laughing at it. (sorry, no link)

Press Release
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

STATEMENT FROM DEPUTY "DRUG CZAR"
SCOTT M. BURNS ON MARIJUANA
DECRIMINALIZATION EFFORTS IN
NEW HAMPSHIRE

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Scott M. Burns, Deputy Director for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), made the following statement regarding marijuana decriminalization legislation, which is currently being debated in New Hampshire.

"Decriminalizing the illegal and highly addictive drug – marijuana – sends the wrong message to New Hampshire's youth, students, parents, public health officials, and the law-enforcement community.

"The supporters of decriminalizing marijuana are fooling themselves if they believe the manufacturing, possession, and/or distribution of 1.25 ounces or – over 90 marijuana joints – is good public policy.

"Decriminalizing marijuana – the drug which sends the most of America's youth into substance abuse treatment and recovery – is a dangerous first step towards complete drug legalization. In fact, marijuana sends the highest percentage of New Hampshire residents into drug treatment than any other illicit drug.

"The last thing New Hampshire need is more drugs, drug users, and drug dealers on their streets and communities – further straining limited law enforcement manpower and resources.

I strongly urge responsible leaders in New Hampshire to stop any effort to decriminalize or legalize the highly addictive drug marijuana."

To learn more about the dangers of marijuana use, please visit:
http://www.ondcp.gov/drugfact/marijuana

Not a word of this is true, of course, but the highlight is the 3^rd paragraph in which Burns reveals utter confusion about what the bill even says. The proposed law decriminalizes possession of up to 0.25 ounces of marijuana. It does not decriminalize up to 1.25 ounces and it applies only to possession, not manufacture or sales. Burns is either lying, or he is just dramatically and embarrassingly wrong.

Furthermore, 1.25 ounces isn't 90 joints anyway. An average joint is a gram, so 1.25 ounces is 35 joints, give or take. Since the bill in question decriminalizes only 0.25 ounces, however, we're really talking about just 7 joints. Nothing could be more typical of our friends at the Drug Czar's office than to claim that 7 joints = 90 joints.

Finally, we learn that marijuana must remain illegal because so many people in New Hampshire are in treatment for it. This isn't a lie necessarily, but it is pretty funny. How many of those people were forced into treatment following a marijuana arrest that wouldn’t have happened under the proposed law? We are arresting people for marijuana, forcing them into treatment, then citing those stats as evidence that marijuana is addictive and that we should be allowed to arrest people for having it. That is how stupid the modern marijuana debate has become.

Fact and fiction aside, the whole thing is just ugly to read. Its grammar and sentence structure are reminiscent of the incoherent anti-drug rants one might find on this blog after a big link draws hostile attention. Could they be written by the same person?

"In fact, marijuana sends the highest percentage of New Hampshire residents into drug treatment than any other illicit drug."

"The last thing New Hampshire need is more drugs, drug users, and drug dealers on their streets and communities – further straining limited law enforcement manpower and resources."

It's usually best not to get too caught up in correcting the grammar of one's opposition, and in most cases I'd consider that an indulgent and childish distraction from the real matters at hand. In this case, though, I think the high-schoolish tone in which the Deputy Drug Czar addresses politicians and the press is just lazy and disrespectful. Factual errors and bad writing are ubiquitous in any political debate, but when it arrives on White House letterhead, questions about basic competence merge with the broader ideological conflict.

It's just that simple. If there is one universal truth in the marijuana debate, it is that the punishment for pot is always vastly more damaging than the effects of the drug itself:

NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - When a Westchester father found a marijuana cigarette in his son's pocket he went to North Salem High School for help. The 16-year-old boy told his dad he bought the joint in the school library for $20.

The school suspended the teen, Pablo Rodriguez, for nine weeks.

Many of his neighbors hearing the case believe the suspension is too long and they've begun a petition asking school officials to reconsider.

The teen's father, also named Pablo Rodriguez, says they would never have known about the marijuana in his son's pocket if he didn't tell them. The elder Rodriguez says he now believes parents should keep quiet if they learn their children are doing drugs. [Newsday.com]

Yeah, don't bother asking the school for "help" when it comes to marijuana or other drugs. That's not a service most schools provide. Marijuana policies both large and small are typically structured around the theory that badly injuring those who are caught will deter others. In the process, parents become disillusioned, students who need help are afraid to ask, and students who were doing just fine are suspended for 9 weeks.

Let's just review once again the lesson learned by Mr. Rodriguez:

The elder Rodriguez says he now believes parents should keep quiet if they learn their children are doing drugs.

Nothing could more perfectly illustrate the failure of a drug policy than its ability to encourage secrecy among parents who want help. Anyone who is concerned about marijuana affecting academic performance can begin by not denying marijuana users the opportunity to perform academically.