LEGALIZE IT

Hash Bash Should Focus On Legalization

This Saturday, the air around Central Campus will take on a very
distinctive odor as thousands of people, students and non-students
alike, gather on the Diag to roll a joint in honor of the annual Hash
Bash. A tradition in Ann Arbor since 1972, Hash Bash was born not only
as an excuse to smoke pot but as a way to protest the criminalization
of marijuana. Indeed, the protest is the most important aspect of the
event. Based on the existing evidence, there is no good reason for
marijuana to be illegal.

The dangers posed by smoking marijuana pale in comparison to those
posed by the use of many other legal substances. Unlike nicotine,
alcohol, and even caffeine, marijuana has never been proven to be
physically addictive, nor has there ever been a recorded case of a
fatal overdose. Marijuana's vaunted status as a "gateway drug," which
introduces users to more dangerous substances such as heroin, cocaine
and LSD, is based on similarly dubious statistics. In general, the
effects of marijuana use are comparable to those of alcohol, yet
alcohol is legal while marijuana is not.

Another reason to legalize marijuana is its medicinal value. It has
been used to relieve the symptoms of glaucoma, multiple sclerosis,
epilepsy, paraplegia and quadriplegia, as well as to reduce nausea in
cancer and AIDS patients. However, most states ban the drug even for
medicinal use. This punishes the sick for therapeutic use of a
substance that should not be illegal in the first place.

Many of the legitimate dangers caused by marijuana use would be
alleviated were the substance legal. For instance, once legal and
regulated, it would be far less likely that people would smoke
marijuana laced with more dangerous substances.

Legalization of marijuana would also remove the social problems
associated with its use. It would free space in the already
overcrowded prisons, as many marijuana offenders receive unduly stiff
sentences even for possession. Indeed, possession arrests count for
approximately 85 percent of marijuana-related arrests. As many of
these offenders are no doubt otherwise law-abiding, it is a waste of
taxpayers' money and a misguided action on the part of the criminal
justice system to punish marijuana users so harshly.

It is for reasons such as these that Hash Bash was formed - to support
the decriminalization of a relatively innocuous drug. The key issue
here is not merely marijuana but freedom of choice: The right to put
anything one wants into one's body. In recent years, Hash Bash has
become something of a commercial event, as people in and around Ann
Arbor think of it primarily as a pot-smoking party. But the event
should not be as much about getting stoned as it is about standing up
for personal rights.