the Pot Priority

Marijuana behind 45 percent of U.S. drug arrests

Marijuana - The Myths Are Killing Us

Drug prohibition has long been indispensable as a battering ram against civil rights, but I never cease to be amazed at how much support it enjoys among my brothers and sisters on The Left. Many will make an exception for cannabis, and while that's not something against which I'd argue, I think those same people are accepting prohibition and the drug war without ample examination. This, like so many problems, is fundamentally a failure of imagination, one of those "it's always been that way" beliefs which, thanks to the great propaganda war, has extended its taproot deep into the American psyche.


Drug prohibition across the board affects everything from due process of law to medical care. As a pain patient who sometimes - no, make that often - requires narcotic relief, I know what it means to be denied treatment as a result of the punative bureaucracy hiding behind a thin veneer of public safety. How many people are condemned to dysfunctional lives or worse, suicide, when they cannot obtain adequate pain relief?

The dark veil of prohibition is itself largely responsible for the laughingstock that passes for "drug education" in America. Lift it, and the woefully mis-and-dis-informed public will learn that all illicit drugs are not the same - and formulating policy as though they are is astoundingly ignorant and inherently dangerous from a public health perspective.

To those who contend reform of marijuana laws is a trojan horse for the broader issue of drug policy reform, let me be the first to say you're damn right it is - at least for some of us. We gotta start somewhere. I categorically reject the assertion the government has any business controlling the real estate of my brain... or, for the more spiritual among us, my soul. Frankly, I think the world would be a better place if more people were free to experience the personal and not-so-personal revelations triggered by many hallucinogens including LSD, psilocybin and mescaline.

Considering the prevalence of legally sanctioned neurochemical drugs in our society, drug prohibition seems to me especially ridiculous. Self-medication? You bet I'm for it. Americans do it every day.

At its heart, the concept of drug prohibition is one based on fear and our collective need to maintain the illusion of control. Perhaps one of these days we'll turn the distant corner and resolve to face our fears straight on.


Frank files legislation for medical marijuana

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank re-introduced legislation this week to let individual states allow medical marijuana use.

Although several states have legalized medical marijuana, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that federal law supersedes state law on the issue.

Rep. Frank said in a release that he believes the federal government is wrong to prohibit medical marijuana if states approve it and doctors recommend it for patients.