The real question goes much deeper than just medical marijuana, which is obvious. It has medically recognized benefits and should be available. More importantly, as a Probation Officer I recognize the totally useless and destructive “war on drugs”. It fills our prisons and jails with non-violent substance users, guarantees continued organized crime activity and causes corruption of law enforcement and a breakdown of civil liberties.

Wise regulation would do much more to prevent the negative impacts on society from substance abuse. It will be interesting to see the numbers of addicts we get out of the Afghan war. Many of whom also will have TBI and/or PTSD. We better start building prisons now.

@Rodney L. Glasspoole Marijuana is a gateway drug to using harder drugs. Hard drug use has a demonstrable effect on the violent crime rate. The most obvious example of this connection was the simultaneous increase in the violent-crime rate and the explosion of the crack epidemic between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s.

I’m okay with medical use, so long as it’s properly used, unlike the way it’s done in California. Legalized use of pot for other than medical use will have a disastrous effect on our country — think of how much the obesity rate will increase with everyone getting the killer muchies all the time .

Person should be allowed to have anything he can grow in his living room. Stuff that requires dangerous chemicals to manufacture should be controlled.

@Kevin
When you argue that “gateway” drugs lead to harder drugs, then you need to start with tobacco & alcohol (both being drugs…) before you mention marijuana. If you look at the lost souls now hooked on heroin, crack, & meth, and work your way BACK to the drugs they started with, then yes, tobacco, alcohol, and THEN marijuana would be the 1st drugs they tried. But the VAST majority of people who have tried drugs in their lifetime do not end up as junkies or using hard drugs. They are for the most part, good, law-abiding citizens in your community. They may very well be your friends, family, and your neighbors.
I agree, hard drugs, and the crime & violence surrounding them, SHOULD be vigorously enforced. However, Prohibition, which seeks to control the supply of illegal drugs, only serves to drive up the price, which in turn, drives up criminal activity. We should fight more important battles with our limited resources than to persue people who use marijuana medicinally or recreationaly.

@Pete DeCamp I have looked and I can’t find a single scientific study that shows either tobacco or alcohol to be a gateway drug to harder drugs, including pot. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, just that it is far more infrequent than pot to harder drugs.

@Kevin
Kevin, I’m not sure where you looked, but a simple Google search of “gateway drug facts” should provide enough evidence to hopefully change your mind. The only “study” in support of the gateway theory I found was provided by “American Council for Drug Education”, which seems to be a part of Phoenix House, a drug rehab program/business.

As far as legalized marijuana having a disastrous effect on our country, recent articles on Google News (again) point out the Dutch have one of the lowest usage of cannabis in Europe, dispite it being “legal” to purchase in their “Coffeeshops”.
A more pressing matter should be that the obesity rate in this country is out of control and getting worse, thanks to our sedentary lifestyle habits of too much television, computer games, & a steady diet of fast food high in fat and sugar. Obesity has been linked to an increase in nearly every major health risk we might face–Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke. (Not only that, but you look worse naked). The costs of will soon overwhelm our health care system as we treat an ever-increasingly fat society.

@Pete DeCamp And the simple Google search will lead you to the studies I’m referring to.

From Columbia University: Children who use marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than non-marijuana users. (Ninety percent of children who used marijuana smoked or drank first.)

Seems we’ve learned once again that the “facts” can be manipulated to support any point of view.

@Kevin
Dear Kevin:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12507801

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11994231

http://www.ccsa.ca/2006%20CCSA%20Documents/ccsa-011346-2006.pdf

Right up front: tobacco & alcohol

My spouse had “terminal cancer”. IF medical marijuana had been available to quell the nausea and vomiting, that would have made the chemo more tolerable. We regulate other medicines. I believe we could find a way to make it available to cancer patients and others who have a genuine need.

@Kevin
Kevin,
I don’t mean to flog this subject until it drives you to drink,
and please correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t your post #8 contradict both your points in post #5?

I apologize, didn’t mean to sound flippant there. However the 1st result listed from a Google search, “Marijuana Facts”, lists “Myths and Facts about Marijuana”. That page opens “Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts–A Review of the Scientific Evidence”. It’s worth checking out.
The point I’m trying to make is in how we’re setting priorities as a nation in a post-9/11 world. The United States is struggling right now. Unemployment is at 10.2% and climbing. We’re buried under a multi-TRILLION dollar deficit. We’re fighting two wars on the other side of the world while also trying to protect our self’s at home. ( 43 cents of every tax dollar now goes toward defense spending). Out of control Health care costs, a crumbling infrastructure, reduced services, and schools that fail to prepare our kids to compete in a modern world–just to name a few. And yet we still chose to prosecute people who responsibly use marijuana medicinally or recreationally. (826,720 arrests last year, with around 85% for simple possession.)
I’m just saying, Kevin, that there are more important issues to be spending our limited resources on. Decriminalizing marijuana should be our 1st step.

(correction)
According to FBI statistics
872,721 arrests in 2007. 89% for simple possession.

@Rodney L. Glasspoole
Rodney, I agree with everything you said in comment #1 except one–building more prisons as a response to the large number of veteran’s with substance abuse problems as a result of their war experiences.
You might not have meant it that way, but it typifies how the United States deals with people with substance abuse-as criminals–as opposed to people who are sick and require health care. Our wartime casualties will go far beyond those troops physically wounded in battle to include those mentally wounded from the horrors of war.
We started these wars, we sent them there, therefore we morally obligated to care for them when they return damaged. It’ll be a HUGE burden on our already shakey health care system, the costs of which I don’t believe we’ve even begun to consider…

@Pete D. Yes, it does. That was the point of the post and the final comment.

@Pete D. OK, decriminalize it. Which illegal drug is next? Extasy? Coke? Heroine? The same argument you make can be made for them as well. They’re all receational drugs that thousands of people use every day.

Simply as a point, no one can use an illegal drug responsibly. Rightly or wrongly, it’s illegal.

@Jaime Jaime, I’m sorry for your spouse’s situation, and I agree with you. Please see my initial post (#2). “I’m okay with medical use, so long as it’s properly used, unlike the way it’s done in California.”

AG Holder has said the U.S. is no longer going to pursue cases against medical marijuana users, so that’s that.

I think marijuana use (medical or otherwise) is another one of those issues where the tide is turning as the population ages. It’s not just a hypothetical to the younger generations. They’ve been around marijuana users to see the impact it does/doesn’t have and are much more likely to have tried it or know someone that has.

I don’t know enough about cannabis – can you put the active ingredient in a pill?

Just this week, we had a request for some research on the history of violence in our state by someone doing a chapter in a book. At the turn of the last century, marijuana and cocaine were not regulated. Peddlers with patent medicines apparently also sold cocaine – I don’t know the distribution system for the marijuana. Anyway, the resultant mayhem is why we have the state laws we do in the first place.

So I have mixed feelings about decriminalizing it.

The active ingredient in cannabis is available in pill form as Marinol. Most who have tried it say it’s difficult to dial in the correct dosage for their needs. I’ve read many users of Marinol find it’s effect to be too heavy–kind of like swimming through honey–that it would interfere with their job functions or other everyday tasks. Whereas with smoked marijuana, one can take a few puffs, coast awhile, and monitor it’s effects, while still going about one’s daily routine . Later. when that starts to fade, maybe another puff or two is all it takes to dial the correct dosage for them. A main point to consider, when someone on chemotherapy is suffering with extreme nausea, NOTHING stays down–including pills! In addition, these patented pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive. Often too expensive for those on limited income, out of work, or with no insurance. On the other hand, marijuana can be grown in the garden beside your tomatoes for just a few dollars.
Some of the “Peddlers with patent medicines” you spoke of would have to include Coca-Cola, who fortified their soft drink with coca extracts-hence the name.
Lastly, starting with the 1898 Spanish-American War, the resultant mayhem you refer to was largely a product of William Randolph Hearst (through his newspaper empire), to smear Latinos, Chinese, and later, Blacks. He did this through hysterical headlines, creating “Reefer Madness”, that many today still hold as true. The 1937 Marijuana Tax Act (which effectively outlawed marijuana), was just a pretext for hemp prohibition. Hearst, Kimberly-Clark, St. Regis, DuPont, (among others) used their political influence to protect their vast timber holdings from the competition that mass-produced hemp would have created.

For an excellent reference to the historical record of
Hemp & Marijuana Prohibition refer to
“The Emperor Wears No Clothes”, by Jack Herer,

A Google search of Marinol prices:
60 5mg capsules–$874.07

@Pete D.

Thanks for the Marinol info.

Yes, I knew about the Coca-Cola. They checked with the pharmacy school here, and they said the peddlers were selling the powder form. And as for minorities, that was not the issue in our case. We have never had enough to be statistically significant. The laws that I am talking about were passed in the first decade of the 20th century. According to the accounts of the time, the combination of whiskey, cocaine and unregulated guns often turned out poorly. I am less clear about the impact of marijuana in that period, since we have only spoken briefly about their work. This chapter of a book I am referring to will be in a scholarly work, and from what I have observed, the PhD’s doing the research are using primary source materials.

You don’t have to go back to the 1st decade of the 20th Century to find that the combination of alcohol, cocaine, & firearms is a bad mix.
Just consider, according to the FBI, violent crime rose for the first 10 years after Prohibition of Alcohol was enacted in the 1920’s, and decreased for the 10 years after it’s repeal. It was the huge profits involved with the supplying of this illegal substance that brought about crime & violence–just as it is today with marijuana.
Decriminalize marijuana, while vigorously prosecuting hard drugs is the key to bringing about a pragmatic drug abuse policy that will gain control by removing the huge profits that draws the criminal element into the business….

Pete, I am only demonstrating that what happened in my state was due to a dynamic other than William Randolph Hearst.