The Obama administration, in another move contradictory to its platform of hope and change, has come down hard on the medical marijuana community.  So far, sixteen states have approved the use and sale of pot for “medical” purposes, but federally pot remains illegal.

The government has trotted out the usual reasons for keeping pot illegal.  They include, but are not limited to:
– Marijuana is a gateway drug.
– Marijuana is addictive.
– Marijuana is the number two reason people are admitted to treatment programs (behind alcohol.)
– Marijuana has not been vetted by the F.D.A.
– Marijuana legalization will lead our children down the path of destruction.

Where to begin?

Marijuana is not a gateway drug.  Ask any addict and they will tell you alcohol is the gateway drug.  But alcohol is legal, and the alcohol lobby is very powerful in Washington.  When California tried to totally legalize marijuana a few years back, who do you think spent the most money in opposition?  The liquor industry, of course.  They don’t want the competition.  The only thing pot leads to is Twinkies.

While marijuana can be mentally addictive, it is NOT physically addictive.  Withdrawal symptoms, like those associated with heroin or alcohol, are non-existent.  Instead, what you may experience, after prolonged use, is a craving for pot, like a dieter might crave food.  Too much of anything is not good.  You can have too much food, too much water, too much money, etc.  Should we just outlaw excess of any kind?

The only reason marijuana is the number two cause of treatment is that pot remains illegal.  When people are arrested they are often given the choice of jail or rehabilitation.  What would you choose?  So the rehab numbers are artificially inflated by our court system.  Stop arresting potheads and the numbers will decrease.  But the authorities will not do that because it is big business.  Billions are spent on these programs, and billions more on catching these “criminals” in the first place.  Throw in the lawyers, and many people are making their living off these potheads.  Couldn’t that money be put to better use?

As to the F.D.A. approval, what would that prove?  The F.D.A. has approved many drugs that later turned out to be death sentences for those to whom it was prescribed.  Who can forget the Vioxx and Celebrex scandals of the last decade.  After the F.D.A approved the drugs in 1999, almost instantly doctors started to complain that the pain relievers were causing cardiovascular problems in patients.  Despite clinical tests that proved those drugs were unsafe, they remained on the market for five years.  In 2004 alone Vioxx brought in almost $2.5 billion for its maker, Merck Pharmaceuticals.  The F.D.A has been in bed with the pharmaceutical giants for decades.  Their approval is actually the kiss of death.

And finally on to the idea that our children will all become potheads.  Marijuana is actually easier for kids to by than beer.  To purchase alcohol you need money and a license.  To purchase pot you need money.  And because it is not controlled, you can buy it in almost any high school in America.  Take the sale of it out of the hands of criminals and you will go a long way towards curbing youthful experimentation, though you won’t stop it.

I recently saw a clip on You Tube where Bill O’Reilly was interviewing Cheech and Chong on the legalization of marijuana, and O’Reilly the pin head – to use one of his terms – told them that people were buying pot from co-ops in San Francisco and reselling it to young kids.  Chong looked at him incredulously and asked where he got that information, and O’Reilly, with a straight face, said “we got it from our investigators.”  I never knew Fox News had “investigators.”  And even if they did, don’t you think they would have an agenda?  I consider the so-called fair and unbiased network to be unfair and biased.  (And as a recent study indicated, anyone who gets their news from that network is sadly uninformed.)  O’Reilly simply dishes up conservative talking points, the facts be damned.

All in all, medicinal marijuana has its benefits.  It helps in the treatment of glaucoma, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and the nausea that accompanies chemotherapy treatment, amongst other things.  These are facts.  And if it helps folks deal with a debilitating disease, what’s the harm in allowing them a few tokes once in a while.  The only reason big pharma hasn’t tried to harness pot therapeutically is because they can’t patent the active ingredient.  As usual, follow the money.  The federal government should stop acting like a lackey for both the liquor and pharmaceutical lobbies and do the right thing.  Legalize medicinal marijuana in all fifty states.