High on the Possibilities

My bi-monthly column for The Times Herald, Jan. 21

As you are reading this, I’m in Amsterdam. I’ll be doing some of what the city is known for: Anne Frank’s house, the Van Gogh Museum and lots of laughing and seemingly deep conversation surrounded by a purple haze.
What follows has nothing to do with my pending (as I’m writing this) visit, but more of my previous thoughts brought back into focus by the expectations of what is to come.
For those who don’t know, marijuana sale, possession and public use isn’t exactly a crime in Amsterdam. And that should be the case here in the United States.
That marijuana is listed and ranked with heroine and crack as a Schedule I drug — the worst — is absurd. That means it isn’t believed to have a medicinal purpose, among other things.
From a myriad of health purposes (my ex’s doctor said to keep with it because of the benefits) to a pleasurable buzz without the offensive stench of tobacco smoke or the ability to slip a date rape drug when you aren’t looking, weed is one of those all-natural drugs that gets a bad rap, thanks to the tobacco industry propaganda in the early 20th century.
According to two studies, one by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and another by the University of California at San Francisco, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine are ranked far more addictive and dependent than weed, with nicotine being the worst, even more so than heroine or cocaine! Not to mention nicotine is linked to cancer of too many body parts to list.
Murder and armed robbery for weed are nearly unheard of — that sort of violence stems from drugs with serious withdrawal and ever-increasing tolerance levels.
Marijuana also gets a bad rap as a gateway drug, but I propose that most people who move beyond weed to coke, meth, etc. etc., would do so without it. The users already have addictive personalities; weed just comes across as the least dangerous to try for these curious types.
This isn’t exactly a pro-marijuana column, but I think the overflowing prisons and clogged judicial system of this country could quickly be fixed by lessening penalties for marijuana and improving treatment options for non-violent drug offenders. It could happen much like Canada recently did, but I wouldn’t expect that here, seeing as how the current Bush administration — headed by a former coke addict — admonished Canada’s move to decriminalize marijuana.
Since when is progressively fixing a problem a problem?
And what of the money that could be saved if the war on drugs actually made sense and targeted the problem rather than the supply and demand?
In 2002, the Office of National Drug Policy reported that nearly $3 billion a year is spent to incarcerate drug offenders. Couldn’t that $3 billion be better spent, say, rebuilding New Orleans? I remember hearing a reconstruction figure — $2 billion — which was being paid for by cutting spending on programs for college students, the elderly, sick and poor.
And in 2004, Pa. Gov. Ed Rendell signed into law changes that could cut jail time for drug offenders to a lower minimum followed by drug rehabilitation as a requirement at an estimated savings of $20 million a year, which could have been put toward public transit funding, making the bailout of last year an even easier thing to accomplish.
And speaking further of wasted money, from 1996 to 2002, the federal Bureau of Prisons budget increased 1,954 percent thanks to mandatory minimum sentencing for drug users.
Legalizing, or at least decriminalizing marijuana would cut the cool, taboo factor behind some of its use and cut out the drug dealers with guns and access to the truly dangerous drugs that are the real problem from the inner cities to rural Midwest America.
Changes to the drug laws in this country could also cut the racial inequalities one finds in the judicial system from the local to national level.
Changing drug laws — for marijuana, it isn’t going to create a stoner nation — can save money and lives, by providing more treatment and returning citizens to their place in society. If two parents are going to provide a stable family for children, then keeping families together provides a possibly happy home and a break to the downward spiral of broken homes begetting drugs and crime, begetting broken homes.
It’s called progressive thinking for a reason. The current situation is broken further from previous proposed fixes. How about something new?