I must object to…the absurd beliefs harbored by totally unqualified law enforcement officers as to what could be defended as “normal” amounts of marijuana for medical use. It only takes a moment to understand it’s the same numbers game that bemused the Supremes with respect to heroin addiction and addiction maintenance in their critical Harrison deliberations. In essence we have been allowing untrained LEOs and Jurists to practice Medicine without the requisite skill or training since 1914…
The policy absurdity became worse in 1937 when Harry A used the same transfer tax ploy to outlaw “reefer”, but failed to anticipate the appeal its anxiolytic benefits would exert on “kids” three decades later. Although the most absurd examples of drug policy logic were provided by Henry Anslinger & Richard Nixon, there are many similar examples in other policy areas. As Richard Lawrence Miller pointed out in Drug Warriors and their Prey, similar false beliefs are nothing new for modern humans: think of how easily the Nazis persuaded their fellow Germans to endorse an extreme racial doctrine, or, for that matter, how easily the Southern US planter aristocracy led their fellow citizens into a destructive Civil War on similar grounds.
The most outstanding thing about drug policy in general and “marijuana” prohibition in particular is that Draconian laws were enacted and rigorously enforced on the basis of zero hard evidence. In fact, the evidence I was able to gather from marijuana applicants quickly refuted many of the policy’s major assertions and exposes several of its most glaring errors…. unfortunately, such evidence is apparently considered too heretical by orthodox stoners who have developed their own model of “allowable” medical use.
Dr. Tom
