Bud Talkinghorn: Losing the war on drugs

Losing the war on drugs

My heart goes out to the four RCMP Officers who lost their lives while raiding the grow-op. Their killer was a career criminal, possibly a psychopath [Note: one of the psychopaths as described in Bud's blog which will be posted tomorrow -- I am booked today. NJC.] There is the suggestion that marijuana was only one of his many criminal enterprises. However, Jonathan Kay, in his column entitled "Why the war on drugs can never be won" (The National Post, March 4, A-4) has stated the truth of the marijuana debate. Just as the various Prohibition movements did not stem alcohol use, but rather created a vast criminal organization to feed the appetite for booze, so too, the American "Zero Tolerance" initiative on marijuana production has failed. The best that can be said about our crackdown is that Canada has had the good sense not to cram our prisons with drug offenders, as the Americans have. Despite the DEA's zealousness, there is not a single state where marijuana is not grown and readily available. Their earlier billion dollar efforts to interdict shiploads of low potency grass from Colombia or Mexico merely led to home-grown marijuana of high potency. In a number of states it is now the leading agricultural product.

Kay neatly sums up the hypocrisy of allowing far more dangerous drugs to be legally sold. From my perspective, in years of attending parties where marijuana was used, often in conjunction with alcohol, I never saw a single fight break out. I can't say the same where alcohol was the sole drug consumed.

A bit of historical perspective is in order. In the U.S. during Nixon's presidency there was a large study done on marijuana. To stack the deck for prohibition, Nixon personally selected the top doctor/researcher who headed it. After a year of studying hashish and marijuana use around the world, they found that cannabis use, even in high potency/use areas like Jamaica, was essentially benign. Nixon fired his head man and appointed another. "Go back and study it some more" was Nixon's command. They did, and the final report said, "Legalize it." Nixon and his Attorney-General, John Mitchell, suppressed its findings. Mitchell admitted later in a Newsweek interview that the reason for the suppression was "It didn't reach the conclusions the administration hoped for." How's that for political honesty? Then Trudeau set up the LeDain Commission to look into the same topic. It also said, "Legalize it, or at the least decriminalize it." That report was published, but it was thought that the Western voters might not like it, so it was shelved. Finally, after marijuana useage had grown exponentially and the product was more potent, the Canadian Senate studied it. Their conclusions: "Legalize it."

Just as the foreign interdiction brought about the law of unintended consequences--more and better marijuana--so has the continued illegality of the domestic production. The criminal element sends its marijuana south and gets cocaine in return. What a trade-off! Finally, it is worth understanding why marijuana was ever make illegal in the first place. It was mainly at the instigation of Harry Angsinger, the U.S. anti-drug czar of the time. In the late thirties, he started a campaign that centered on racial fears. Rumours were started that blacks were going beserk under its influence and raping white women. The KKK must have loved that one. Angsinger then commissioned a film, Reefer Madness, to be shown as a movie trailer. The plot was absurd. A guy comes home to find that his wife has thrown away his stash, and of course there is nothing left to do except hack her to death. The supposedly drug-crazed actor is actually rolling his eyes as he is sentenced by the judge. Definitely effective in influencing the cornpone audience of its day, but today it is a comic cult classic to a generation. Hilariously absurd it might have been; nevertheless, it was incredibly effective. Thus began the real war against a drug that Queen Victorian took for menstrual cramps (tincture of cannabis--today's hash oil). So maybe it is time to play this controversy backwards and come to some logical conclusion.

© Bud Talkinghorn

Note: I do not necessarily agree with Bud for reasons which it is too late in the day to enumerate; however, I believe that views on controversial topics must be allowed so people may make up their own minds -- so I give you Bud's perspective. If only our MP's were allowed uninhibited debate and free votes on contentious issues, we might actually get good government -- but that would never do, so we have a powerful clique / claque of Members of Parliament led by the PM, along with leaders of some other political parties, deciding for MP's how they should vote; otherwise the strongmen apply pressure. I want MP's responsible to their constituents, not to the party, and voting accordingly. NJC