From The Every Other Weekly; Whatcom County Washington (Dec. 30, '99 to Jan.12, 2000)

Having spent the past three years researching and writing about the social and environmental effects of  Marijuana Prohibition in the United States and abroad, I have not yet directly discussed the foundational  premises supporting this stubborn and pernicious policy.

My regular column News of the Cruel generally defers to the notion that facts laid out in concert and context  will argue sufficiently for themselves. But as I am occasionally asked by readers looking for compact answers-"Why is marijuana still illegal?"- I thought it would be prudent to distill the complex juggernaut of  Marijuana Prohibition down to 3 contributing factors- bad journalism, money, and inertia.

 Hopefully, armed with these tools of understanding, interested readers and students of drug policy can apply  critical thinking skills and learn to read between the lines of mainstream media reports.

The most profound force necessary to maintain Marijuana Prohibition is "bad journalism." This factor can  be subdivided into-1) lazy reporting skills where fact-checking is deemed unnecessary; 2) the use of puns and stereotypes; 3) censorship of information that contradicts the "myth of consensus."

Lazy reporting is most evident when media outlets do not bother to fact-check even the most outlandish claims  by government officials. For example, when Drug "Czar" Barry McCaffrey toured Europe in 1998 he repeatedly castigated Holland, warning that their open marijuana policy has fueled a Dutch murder epidemic  that dwarfs America’s morbid statistics (supplying very specific, arbitrary figures to state his case). Many American and European newspapers obediently broadcast the "Czar’s" antagonistic statements. When irate Dutch government officials appealed that Holland’s murder rate was only one-fifth that of the United States, the media fell mysteriously silent. McCaffrey was confronted directly on the issue during his trip to Holland,  and responded "I learned in college, don’t argue about facts."  Indeed.

Another ubiquitous feature of mainstream marijuana reporting is the use of puns and stereotypes. "Drug Foes  Say Hemp Ads Blow Smoke at Pot Issue" claims the headline of the Illinois Daily Herald (12/8/99). "Mass  Arrests as Dope Demo Goes Up in Smoke" chimes The Big Issue in the UK (8/23/99). All too often,  journalistic standards "go to pot" when reporting about the "high hopes" of collecting signatures to "hash out"  a new medical "dope" initiative, but it may be just a "pipe dream," etc.

Puns and stereotypes are tools used by lazy reporters and editors to discourage critical thinking and remind  the reader that the marijuana issue is not a "serious" topic for "serious" people. In fact, the term "Marijuana  Prohibition," implying the possibility of change, exists nowhere in the vocabulary of most mainstream news  outlets. In the minds of many editors, marijuana has always and will forever remain illegal.

Censorship of critical information, (example- arrest statistics), is routine in mainstream marijuana reporting.  Here they are. Remember them. Twelve-million Americans have been arrested on marijuana-related charges since 1970. Over 3.5 million marijuana arrests during the ‘liberal’ Clinton years, so far. Another person is  arrested every 49 seconds. Non-violent convicted marijuana offenders routinely spend more time in prison  than people convicted of rape, manslaughter, and child molestation.

A grievous example of censorship: In one of the largest events of its kind in the world, 90,000 people gathered  to protest the American cannabis laws at the 1999 Seattle Hempfest in Myrtle Edwards Park, across the street from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer building. However, neither the P-I nor the Seattle Times covered the  event or mentioned its occurrence. Social policy cannot change if the public is denied information regarding  such a significant body of dissent.

II. Money. Marijuana Prohibition is the bread and butter of the War on Drugs. Currently, American taxpayers  spend $7.5 to $10 billion dollars annually to arrest and process through the criminal justice system 650,000 of  the nation’s estimated 10-30 million marijuana consumers. Meanwhile, these same consumers annually spend  an estimated $7.5 billion dollars on marijuana, purchasing their plant material at artificially-inflated prices. At  $250-350 per ounce, marijuana is worth more than gold.

Marijuana Prohibition feeds the criminal justice system and the new prison-industrial complex, enriching drug  testing equipment manufacturers, the "rehabilitation" industry, organized crime, pharmaceutical companies, and manufacturers of defoliants and other environmentally toxic chemicals. Marijuana Prohibition has given  rise to helicopter-snooping domestic paramilitary eradication teams, DARE and other drug "education"  programs, countless DEA bureaucrats, and legions of court-appointed "experts."

Marijuana Prohibition helps to subvert third-world sovereignty, promote the militarization of local, state, and  federal law enforcement agencies, encourage the erosion of Constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties, foster  pandemic corruption among politicians, police and Customs officials, particularly through the wholesale abuse  of private property forfeiture law, and generally create a self-reinforcing system whereby the inevitable effects  of prohibition are used to justify the continuation and expansion of… prohibition.

If marijuana was legalized, the drug war would be forced to focus upon 1-3 million hardcore addicts of other  various illegal substances- people often living in poverty with little of value worth seizing. Such an obvious medical conundrum would inevitably deflate the $18 billion dollar annual drug war budget, with its attendant  troop of enforcers, agents, guards, prosecutors and jails. The screeching sound you hear would be the Drug War gravy train coming to a halt.

III. Inertia. Another major pillar of current marijuana policy is the comfortably entrenched inertia of 60+  years of governmental misinformation. Since 1937, the American government has knowingly engaged in an  unscientific, destructive and irrational campaign against a plant for which there is no known fatal dose.

Though 25-33% of all living Americans claim to have at least tried marijuana, with 10-30 million (or more)  regular users, few have thus far been willing to risk inviting the attention of the criminal justice system by  publicly admitting their use. But Allen St. Pierre, 34, executive director of National Organization for the  Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) suggests that marijuana will never be legalized as long as the vast majority of smokers refuse to go public. St. Pierre, likens the effort to early American colonists fighting for  independence by sending King George letters from "anonymous in Philadelphia."

In this century, eleven worldwide blue ribbon commissions have studied the ramifications of marijuana’s legal  status. Every finalized report has concluded that the greatest threat from marijuana lies in the hapless individual being ensnared in the criminal justice system. Every report, with the exception of the Dutch Baan  Commission (1972), has been ignored by the country that assembled it.

On numerous speaking occasions in the past two years, Drug "Czar" Barry McCaffrey explicitly stated that  "the most dangerous drug in America is a 12-year-old regularly smoking marijuana." Disregarding the  grammatical incoherence of this statement, to suggest that marijuana is inherently more dangerous than  heroin, alcohol, crack, methamphetamine, household inhalants, cocaine, or tobacco is to commit a crime  against not only children but against rationality itself.

It is not enough to simply say that Marijuana Prohibition has "failed" or is "failing." Marijuana Prohibition is  one of the greatest frauds of the 20th Century. It is a policy of institutionalized denial that is causing more  harm than legalized marijuana ever could.

Kevin Christopher Nelson, kcnelson@premier1.net is a freelance writer living in Bow, WA. He welcomes any and all comments.

For further substantiation, see http://my.marijuana.com/index.php

> FROM   RainerScott@ukgateway.net
>
>
> Hi,
>
> in any war, you must know your enemy; I don't believe most opponents of
> cannabis prohibition do.
>
> Cannabis was criminilised for (from the point of view of industry and it's
> "owners") very logical reasons.
>
> 1) the processing of cannabis into a versatile fibre, especially using modern
> methods, would have prevented a large number of industries, eg wood pulp,
> ever taking off. Randolph Hearst and his cronies realised this early on.
>
> 2) More importantly, and scarier; cannabis was prohibited for the same reason
> that liquor was in 20's America; this was NOT for reasons of right-wing
> patrician morality,  it was NOT in fact for any of the reasons popularly
> imagined and found in most historical analysis.
>
> The aim of alcohol prohibition was to re-direct the necessary funds to
> establish a parallel enforcement agency to the "Feds" - the FBI. We came to
> know this organisation as the Mafia - generically, organised crime. It's
> power, it's money originated entirely from alcohol bootlegging. This
> organisation has been depended on  ever since to carry out such things (in
> the pursuit of their own interests) as;
>
> -the terrorisation of anti-establishment groups such as labour unions
> -the killing of  anti-establishment (read left-wing or even liberal)
> political activists, (nothing they hated more than  a "commy" or "pinko").
> -and of course, drug trafficking
>
> Cannabis prohibition is simply a matter of ensuring the huge cash flow within
> the "black economies" of the Western world. In the US, illegal drug
> trafficking and dealing, particularly heroin and cocaine, is estimated to be
> the biggest "industry" in existence - some estimates of it's turnover run
> into TRILLIONS of dollars annually. This is "skimmed" by covert groups within
> the CIA, NSC et al to finance such despicable operations as the Nicaraguan
> "Contra" terrorist campaign. Money for these types of activities could hardly
> be raised by asking Congress for it.
>
> Surely cannabis is only one of the less important commodities in the black
> market? In fact, no. The demand for "A" class narcotics is maintained by the
> induction of as many people, as young as possible, into "drug culture".
> Anyone who decides they are going to use cannabis will then, as a matter of
> course, be able to acquire most other illegal substances. Were it legalised
> unilaterally in the UK for example, I believe we would then see a steady
> decline the demand for destructive narcotics like heroin.
>
> The irony is that many well-meaning anti-cannabis lobbyists maintain that it
> is the first step to hard drug use, and they're right, but not for the
> reasons they believe.
>
> To get back to my original contention, that pro-cannabis campaigners do not
> know their enemy. If you accept the above, you will realise that the real
> opponents of legalisation are not politicians, or the conservative public,
> but extremely powerful vested interests who have tools at their disposal to
> control the opinions of the former, and the public in general. I, for one, am
> pessimistic about any change in legislation in the foreseeable future.
>
> Few seemed to notice, or at least remark on, the volte-face the UK's now-Home
> Secretary Jack Straw made almost immediately "New Labour" took office. His
> previously liberal stance on cannabis was replaced by a hard-line orthodoxy,
> for instance ruling out a royal commission on it's medical uses . Did he
> simply change his mind? I suspect it was made clear to him that his continued
> career as a government minister depended on his following the briefs he was
> given from those with real power.
>
> regards,
> Rainer Scott