BECAUSE IT WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE?

I commend Jim Dwyer for his well-reasoned commentary, "Amnesty? Let's help
our own, also" [Bisbee Observer July 26, 2001.] He was right on target
calling the American drug war a political one and "... a practice which
should be condemned as a denial of the human rights of those who choose
what we call drugs, while those who choose tobacco and alcohol, America's
major killers, are considered merely exercising their right to slow suicide."

I once tried to have a reasonable conversation with a member of the Bisbee
Police Department about why marijuana, for example, was illegal.

"Because it will ruin your life," he answered easily.

"How is that?" I asked.

"Because you'll go to jail, and that will ruin your life."

Aside from the fact that the vast majority of marijuana users don't go to
jail, this is the best argument I've heard yet to legalize it. When I
pointed out that it wouldn't ruin your life in the way tobacco and alcohol
can, then, if it weren't illegal, he responded, "It's just one more thing
we don't need."

Just one more thing - as if we didn't already have it. And as if it became
illegal in response to any more than DuPont's desire to wreck the hemp
industry in order to bolster the use of plastics in making rope.

Where is the body of evidence (as is readily available against tobacco and
alcohol) proving that marijuana presents a risk to your health? Where is
the medical proof that this substance, which is sold in a more natural
state than refined sugar, is so harmful as to justify the billions of
dollars spent pretending to stop its flow into the hands of users? (I say
pretending, since it's quite obvious they aren't stopping it.)

And what are our chances of changing the marijuana laws, when citizens in
some states permanently lose their right to vote after having been
convicted of violating these laws?

What about our children, I can hear someone shouting. What about them? Any
parent who smokes tobacco in the same house with a child is endangering
that child. Period. "Alive with pleasure," goes the cigarette ad, an
apparent response to substantial proof that smoking tobacco will kill you.

And don't get me started on alcohol - that substance so protected by our
government that it doesn't even have to list its ingredients. What about
the allure to children of beverages like Mike's Hard Lemonade - sweet and
lemony (although we may never know if any lemons actually made it into the
formula) enough to disguise its significant alcohol content from the
untrained taste buds of young drinkers.

Meanwhile, here's your typical beer commercial: Sexy rich lady in bikini
taunts young man grunt (the ad's target) working by the pool. She
provocatively slathers herself with tanning oil, but then can't open her
beer because of slippery fingers. Young man comes to her rescue, but
instead of trying to get anywhere with her, hands her the bottle cap and
drinks the beer. The message - Tired of women controlling you with sex?
Take charge of your life by drinking beer.

Years ago I was in the position of creating public service announcements
for the top-ranked radio station in Phoenix. A sales rep was putting
enormous pressure on me to run some anti-marijuana messages on the air. She
provided me with a booklet that was chock- full of misinformation about
illegal drugs. There was not one single reference to back up any of the
booklet's "facts," nor was information on how to contact its publishers
listed. When I asked the sales rep about the source of this booklet, she
said it was from her client - a beer company.

Yes, it's true, the beer companies would rather not have the competition
that intoxicants like marijuana present. But is that adequate rationale for
the multi-billion-dollar drug war? I think not.