OneotherWorld / Guest Editorial
Prohibition’s Legacy
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he Controlled Substances Act, passed by Congress during the Nixon era, tossed cannabis, aka marijuana, into the same category as heroin. Assigned a “Schedule 1” rating, this group of opiates, psychedelics, depressants, and stimulants was characterized as possessing “a high abuse potential without accepted medical use.” So prevalent was the hysteria and misinformation that the nation’s legislators felt justified in ignoring the plant’s millennia-old proven pharmacological value. At the time of this legislation’s creation in 1970, Congress believed it was bringing clarity to a Byzantine web of restrictions enacted over the course of a hundred years. Its motivation was to regulate the drug industry for the good and protection of the public. The cure, as it so often does, proved to be so much worse than the disease. Each year, over 50 billion dollars of the nation’s budget is devoted to fighting “the war on drugs.” Millions and millions of cannabis users are officially considered outlaws, and nearly half of our nation’s two million imprisoned (only China has more prisoners) are serving time because of drug-enforcement policies. As with today’s cannabis prohibition, the banning of alcohol in 1919 with the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution created the same sets of societal pathologies. Called the “noble experiment” by many of its sympathizers, outlawing the manufacturing, sale, importation, and exportation of intoxicating liquors was the culmination of a full-century-long battle aimed at reducing drunkenness, insanity, and crime. And, as history shows, the 18th Amendment’s enactment had the exact opposite effect. With a stroke of the pen, it made instant criminals of the majority of the population, it singlehandedly facilitated the rise of organized criminal syndicates, and it greatly diminished respect for the law. In short, it was a disaster for the country. Just 13 years, later the 18th Amendment was repealed in full. The federal government abandoned its alcohol-policing business, leaving the individual states to sort out the mess made by its attempt to dictate personal behavior. The lesson of Prohibition, however, was not learned at all. Just five years later, with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, the federal government traded its hatred of “demon rum” for the hysterical fright of the “devil’s killer weed.” The government’s efforts to control alcohol consumption were now redirected toward controlling cannabis use. The Marihuana Tax Act, part of which was found to be unconstitutional in 1969 by the
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SANTAFEoneheart.com
By Gershon Siegel
Supreme Court in Leary v. United States (yeah, that Leary) initiated the federal outlaw status that is still born by cannabis today. Until this time, there was a lot less controversy around this innocuous little weed, which grows wild in both hemispheres. In fact, for 12 thousand years our ancestors intentionally cultivated cannabis because they knew it to be the most useful of plants on the
So prevalent was the hysteria and misinformation that the nation’s legislators felt justified in ignoring the plant’s millennia-old proven pharmacological value. planet. The earliest forms of rope, fabric, and paper were made from hemp-derived cannabis. Its seed, which is 25 percent protein, was an important food source. Might an argument be made that the spread of civilization itself was cannabis enabled? The British colonies in America mandated that farmers grow it. Washington and Jefferson both did so all their lives — by the ton. And Ben Franklin, clever businessman that he was, owned a mill that made hemp paper. Additionally, humanity has, for many thousands of years, known this plant to be a tried and true medicinal. Its long-celebrated euphoric properties aside, cannabis gives effective relief for a huge variety of maladies including, but not limited to, addiction, arthritis, appetite loss, nausea, side effects of cancer chemotherapy, AIDS Wasting Syndrome, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, depression, Parkinson’s Disease, movement disorders, dystonia, asthma, brain injury, stroke, Crohn’s Disease, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, hypertension, migraine, PTSD, schizophrenia, and Tourette’s Syndrome. And, believe it or not, there is mounting evidence that cannabis inhibits the growth of certain kinds of cancerous tumors! Before its government ban, cannabis was a main ingredient in hundreds of cures proffered by the pharmaceutical industry. And in spite of federal interdiction, synthetic THC, a human-made form of the active ingredient in cannabis, has once again appeared on the patented medicine shelf. Sixteen states, including New Mexico, now have medical marijuana programs. Another 17 states are preparing, by legislation or public referendum, to create their own form of medical
marijuana program, or even legalize marijuana altogether. In these tight economic times, more and more state legislatures are recognizing the potential funding source of the medical-marijuana industry. This apparent breakdown around marijuana’s federal banishment has been making the U.S. Justice Department, first under Bush and now under Obama, very nervous. Even as individual states attempt an end run around federal laws, Washington continues to prosecute those who traffic in marijuana, medical or otherwise. This has been especially true in places like California, Colorado, and Wyoming, where the Justice Department believes the medical cannabis production is too loosely regulated and far in excess of that required for the registered patient population it serves. Interestingly, other states are modeling their programs after New Mexico’s. The lack of federal busts in New Mexico, so far, indicates that the Justice Department may be willing to live with the Land of Enchantment’s tighter restrictions. Currently, New Mexico has 23 grower/dispensaries and nearly 6,000 patients registered in its five-year-old program. All of this might beg at least one question: Since cannabis is so useful, both industrially and medicinally, why is the federal government so intent on its banning and vilification that it spends billions of our scarce tax dollars prosecuting and imprisoning those who use it? Some people have claimed that certain influential businessmen secretly lobbied for cannabis’s prohibition. Amongst the suspects are William Randolph Hearst, who had extensive timber holdings and felt threatened by efforts to use hemp in the newsprint industry; Andrew Mellon, who had invested heavily in nylon, which was in direct competition with hemp; and Standard Oil founder J.D. Rockefeller, whose business may have been threatened by bio-fuel refined from hemp. It’s also conceivable that the pharmaceutical industry was lurking backstage, given the difficulty of patenting traditional herbal remedies. Such conspiracy theories aside, is there a simpler underlying cause of the federal government’s tragic attempts to ban pot? Could it be that the nation’s Puritan roots are forever suffocating America’s expressed love of liberty and freedom? Might the federal war on cannabis be fueled by the fear that other people are having too good a time? Perhaps, as a nation, we are now mature enough to recognize that the controlling of personal behavior must fall to individual responsibility. And perhaps, as with the failed policy of alcohol prohibition 80 years ago, it is time for the federal government to quit policing cannabis and let individual states clean up its mess.
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gershon@santafeoneheart.com