... But the real problem lies in the premise: that what we are dealing with is some kind of special, deadly serious issue, when it most certainly is not. Marijuana is simply not very harmful, and everyone with a lick of sense knows it. Of course it can be abused, but so can dark-chocolate nonpareils, which is why my mother makes sure there’s only a small handful of them in her apothecary jar when I come to visit.
All of the complications, headaches and frustration we’re grappling with right now spring from nearly a century of American society’s ground-level, fundamental bungling . Cannabis was demonized for a goulash of reasons we won’t rehash here, but not one of them passes the Martian test: Could you explain this to a Martian and not sound like an idiot?
Human: “Okay, well, we allow people to ingest liquids that alter consciousness. The negative short-term effects can be disorientation, nausea, and, if too much is ingested, death. Long-term effects can include chemical dependence, organ damage, and death. Adults are allowed to drink it, but its sale is regulated; special licenses must be obtained, one for selling it in sealed bottles and cans, another for ingestion on the premises. It is heavily taxed. Leaders of countries traditionally drink a nominal amount in each other’s presence, for broadcast around the world.”
Martian: “Is the same true for inhaling marijuana smoke that likewise, if in a different fashion, alters human consciousness, but to which not a single death has ever been attributed, and to which some medical benefit has been ascertained?”
Human: “No. There are people who smoke marijuana, and others who grow it and sell it to them. But if we catch them, we put them in cages.”
There’s a line about marijuana in “Dispatches,” Michael Herr’s soul-jarring book on the ground-level madness that enveloped the war in Vietnam. The author hears that, in response to a report that the North Vietnamese are using elephants to carry supplies, the American forces were responding by sending attack helicopters to destroy them. Herr muses that — and dammit, I can’t find the quote, but it goes something very much like — “In a world in which men shoot elephants from helicopters, folks are just naturally going to want to get high"...
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