By Walter Simpson
Buffalo, NY – Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a 6 to 3 decision, that the federal government can prosecute individuals using marijuana for medicinal purposes in states that have legalized this practice. I was disappointed in the outcome. I'm a compassionate person and I believe people suffering painful diseases should have the right to use marijuana, or any other drug, for needed pain relief.
But I would go further. I believe that marijuana should be decriminalized or legalized for any adult who wants to use it.
There, I said it.
Forgive the pun, but there is a stony silence about pot in our society. Yet seventy million Americans reportedly have tried it. And most probably came away from the experience either enjoying it or wondering what the fuss was all about. Why should a drug which enhances the enjoyment of music, food and sensual pleasures, and is arguably less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes, be illegal?
I am strongly opposed to substance abuse but, like the vast majority of Americans who enjoy an occasional beer or glass of wine, I believe there are responsible ways for adults to enjoy recreational drugs. And while I worry about addictive personalities going overboard with any drug, I don't think it makes sense to criminalize marijuana when it is clear that cigarette addiction and alcoholism pose much greater risks -- yet cigarettes and alcohol are legal. We need some perspective about dangers and risks. People don't die from smoking marijuana but each year 440,000 Americans die premature deaths from cigarettes and 100,000 from alcohol.
Philosophically, I agree with John Stewart Mill who, in 1869, wrote in his seminal work On Liberty, Over himself, his body and mind, the individual is sovereign. In a free society, government should stay out of our personal lives - which is a principle both liberals and true conservatives should agree on.
This is a hard topic to speak out on because I am a parent of two teenage children and I definitely don't want them smoking pot. I also don't want them to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Smoking anything is bad for your health and there is no need to exaggerate the dangers of marijuana to make it clear that it is not something for kids. In my family we talk about drug use honestly and openly. As a parent, I encourage self-restraint and a healthy, safe lifestyle.
But frankly I am more disturbed by demands in some school districts that children be subject to random urine testing than I am by the risks of occasional marijuana drug use. Our schools should not become extensions of the police. And neither should be demanding to see what's in our children's bodies.
A few years I clipped an article about a police raid on a high school in South Carolina. The police officers came in with guns drawn. Because they suspected marijuana, they terrorized the kids with police dogs and handcuffed children who protested. This is where the war on drugs mentality leads.
Here in Erie County we know that police become Big Brother and fly over rural properties looking for marijuana plants. Is that what we want in a free society?
In fairness to the police, I have no doubt that there are plenty of officers who know they shouldn't be senselessly harassing and spying on their fellow citizens and instead should be fighting real crime. They know that drug abuse should be dealt with through education and treatment.
But the war continues. Despite the fact that we now know that many important political figures have used marijuana - including George Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George Pataki, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clarence Thomas, Newt Gingrich, and John Kerry - Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner is championing a bill, H.R. 1528, which would send you to jail for 2 to 10 years if you fail to report suspected illegal drug use by neighbors, friends, or members of your own family. Sensenbrenner's law would make us a nation of informants, taking the militarization of drug policy one step closer to full-blown Orwellian insanity.
The war against drugs never made sense to me. The cost in dollars and lost civil liberties is staggering. And drug use is still rampant. When I think about the hundreds of thousands of non-violent drug offenders languishing in jail, and how the U.S. has the largest prison population of any nation on earth, I am firmly convinced that more lives have been ruined by this war than by the drugs themselves.
Eighty years ago prohibition drove alcohol consumption underground, creating a black market and a nation awash in crime. It had a disastrous effect and failed. Waging war on drugs is the wrong strategy, especially when applied to a relatively harmless drug like marijuana. It's time to end this prohibition.
"Reality Check" with Commentator Walter Simpson is a monthly feature of WBFO News.