Attitudes toward Cannabis – a useful discussion.
Cannabis is currently illegal under federal and state law. The existing order is creating outcomes that have not been well understood nor thoughtfully examined in the political sphere. The decriminalization or legalization of Cannabis rarely makes it into any meaningful public debate due to the tendency to associate the drug with crime, delinquency, laziness, and deteriorating social values. In order to have more than a surface-level idea of what Cannabis’ relationship should be with the law, the stereotypes that define how many people think about the drug’s place in society must be deconstructed and then set aside.
The issue is not an isolated one. Cannabis has found its way into every corner of the United States, its impact rippling through every socio-economic, racial, and generational group in society. Since it was made illegal its use has skyrocketed, making it the most widely used illicit narcotic in the country. Its existence has become commonplace and there is growing skepticism as to how harmful it actually is. Not believing their actions to be particularly criminal in behavior, many ignore the law to their own demise. It is very possible that Cannabis legislation over the past few decades has had deleterious effects on the most vulnerable among us and spawned a formidable host of new problems ranging from racial discrimination to the increased power of drug cartels that operate along our southern border. The potential benefits of its decriminalization cannot be ignored.
Cannabis now has a more penetrating influence in this country than it did at any time in U.S. history, yet it is not rooted in a set of social norms that have revolved its use in this country. Alcohol has always had a defining element in American culture. Many of the original colonies drew a majority of their success from the cultivation of tobacco. Marijuana, however, was a foreign substance introduced from beyond U.S. borders into a society that did not fully understand it. The drug did not have the same cultural and historical advantages that alcohol and tobacco did and has been met as a result with hostility. Its illegality was born of the irrationality that so often accompanies the fear of something foreign. Cannabis has long been a symbolic drug, often attached to whatever ill seems to be plaguing society during a given period. As violence along the U.S. – Mexico border continues unabated, the association between Cannabis and lawlessness is settling deeper into the national psyche. Negative stereotypes are being strengthened and the implications of decriminalization are becoming increasingly irrelevant to a large section of the public.
But it must be recognized that if cannabis were a legal substance, the Mexican drug cartels that draw a large amount of their revenue and power from its sale would be substantially weakened, in turn finding it increasingly difficult to maintain their power. The result would likely be the amelioration of the shocking violence carried out every day along our borders. Its decriminalization would shift the producers of the drug to entities that could be closely regulated by the government, rather than criminals who cling violently to their distribution networks.
It is a difficult situation to debate. The decriminalization of Cannabis would likely ease the violence, but the violence is perceived as a result of the drug itself. It is not easy to divorce our prejudices from our policies, but in order to address what is nothing less than a war spilling over our borders, we need to understand why it is we feel the way we do about this drug, make sure that this feeling is fair and accurate, and have the courage change our minds if it is not.
The argument that marijuana is harmful to the body has been persistent, yet the notion that the government is concerned with the health of its citizens when it comes to the use of Cannabis must be met with some skepticism. Alcohol and tobacco – both legal – are in many ways more harmful than marijuana. Cannabis does not induce an abrasive personality, its LD50 is astronomically higher than the average intake, it does not have the potential to immediately threaten your life in the way that alcohol does, and it is not a highly addictive substance like nicotine (Shafer, Raymond P). The issue, then, is clearly not about health risks; it is about a much deeper friction that the drug has with social norms and values in the United States.
Many argue that overall crime has been reduced partly due to laws that discouraged the use of Cannabis and that decriminalization or legalization would undo all the hard work of the past several decades. The high levels of crime during the 1970s and 1980s were associated in part with marijuana, and the drop in crime that followed in the 1990s was largely attributed to effective policing with a nod to the war on drugs. But during the height of the crime wave, the number of annual marijuana arrests was nearly half that of what it is today (National Drug Intelligence Center). At the same time that crime dipped, marijuana use increased. As criminal activity dropped nationally, the number of marijuana related arrests rapidly increased to a staggering 858,408 in 2009. This number is far larger than that of violent crime arrests and constitutes more than 50% of total drug arrests nationwide (National Drug Intelligence Center). Crime is at one of its lowest points in history while marijuana related arrests are shooting upward with no end in sight. Correlation between Cannabis use and overall crime is non-existent.
Perhaps one of the most disconcerting effects of marijuana laws is their ability to be used as racial weapons. People arrested in California for possession of Marijuana have been overwhelmingly black and Hispanic, even though they have been shown to use marijuana at a lower rate than their white counterparts (Blow, Charles M). Marijuana arrests are most common among younger members of minority groups, who, when charged with possession find it difficult if not impossible to make it into the system of higher education. African Americans and Hispanics, who are already in many ways marginalized in the U.S., find themselves disproportionately targeted by marijuana laws that further ensure their placement in the lower strata of society. Decriminalization of Cannabis would eliminate this form of covert racism, removing an obstacle to success and social mobility among minority groups.
In 1972, the Nixon White House commissioned a study on Cannabis, which read: ‘Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding.’ The report went on to extensively discuss and describe legal, social, and biological dimensions of the drug, overwhelmingly concluding that its continued criminalization would do more harm than good. President Nixon did not read it and its analysis was widely ignored (Shafer, Raymond P).
The biggest obstacle to reforming Cannabis law lies in our inability or unwillingness to recognize why we have certain prejudices against the drug. Cannabis was made illegal before any research could be done to find out what kind of relationship it would have with society. The 1970 Controlled Substances Act labeled the drug as a Schedule I pending further investigation, meaning that it has no medical use, a high potential for abuse, and no possibility of being used safely under medical supervision (Drug Enforcement Agency). The report that was commissioned by the Nixon’s office two years later proved that it was in fact none of these things, but the law has not been revised since. Current legislation is making criminals out of people would otherwise be law-abiding citizens while empowering the most dangerous felons who distribute the drug. The decriminalization of Cannabis, a substance less harmful than both alcohol and tobacco, would save lives along our border, stem violence, and help to liberate marginalized minority groups who bear the brunt of its impact.