This week, supporters of genuine marijuana legalization submitted enough signatures to have their eminently sensible petition placed in California’s notoriously wild and raucous plebiscite system. That such a heretical idea can be considered plausible by its backers shows how far we’ve come from the days of Reefer Madness. That its prospects for passage are in any doubt whatsoever shows just how far from sane we still are.
The criminalization of recreational chemical use has, quite possibly, caused more human suffering and harm than any other major government policy short of actual war. The costs are as high as they are widespread. Not only do we spend fantastic amounts of money in perpetually futile efforts to round up easily replaceable criminals, but we’ve shredded our own civil liberties to do it. The result is a massive waste of every kind, from putting non-violent people in prison (which wrecks their lives and costs a ton of money) to sending talented law enforcement officials off on wild goose chases when they ought to be looking for people who actually intend to harm others.
The cracks have been emerging in this system for years. When Al Gore admitted to smoking Marijuana in during his 1988 run for President it was huge news. In 1992, when Bill Clinton gave his famous line about not inhaling, it was lesser news. By 2000 both Presidential candidates had admitted youthful drug use and it wasn’t a story at all. And, of course, both our current President and his predecessor used cocaine – one of the most demonized of all drugs – when they were young. The only difference between presidents and prisoners is that presidents were lucky enough not to get caught.
The hypocrisy of it all is staggeringly obvious, and has been so for a very long time. After all, Don Barzini showed us the way forty years ago, “The traffic in drugs will be permitted, but controlled . . . and there will be the peace.” Now California has a chance to begin the slow process of calming decades and decades of drug related hysteria. Of course, the baseless fears are still powerful enough that the ballot measure has to contain a number of contortions, such as prohibiting the use in public places or just around minors. But those are acceptable compromises to finally, at long last, get the drug laws to start recognizing reality. According to the Times article linked above, a poll conducted in 2009 found 56 percent of Californians supportive of legalizing tetrahydrocannabinol. Let’s hope that number is able to withstand what will no doubt be an avalanche of dishonest fear mongering coming from the hysterical old-liners.
