LETTER OF THE WEEK

MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IS IMMORAL, DESTRUCTIVE

By Ivan Smason, Ph.D., J.D.

Re: Medipot Harassment Lets Illicit Use Thrive, August 2-8, 2007

In the final paragraph of his featured opinion essay, Tom Elias
essentially said that "if marijuana is truly destructive," why not
focus anti-marijuana police and adjudication monies and forces
against large-scale commercial growers of cannabis "whose sales have
truly destructive potential." Respectfully however, the problem with
what he said is that marijuana is NOT truly destructive. On the other
hand, the federal anti-marijuana laws are destructive, immoral and in
violation of the supreme law of the land that is the U.S. Constitution.

The marijuana prohibition is immoral and destructive because
destructive punishments initiated by police for its use almost never
bear a relation to a crime itself. That is to say that the act of
consuming cannabis is not an immoral, dangerous or a destructive
act. Conversely, consuming natural cannabis is much safer and
healthier than consuming alcohol, tobacco, many foods and drinks and
many-to-most pharmaceutical "drugs." Poisonous house-cleaning
products are available for purchase every day by the endless gallon,
but mostly healthy cannabis is banned from purchase, or even
cultivation. Tellingly, while marijuana use is not destructive, the
fines, torments, adulterations, disenfranchisements and murders meted
out for its acquisition are immoral and highly destructive.

The marijuana prohibition is, technically, unconstitutional. The
reason for this is that the Constitution enumerates the limits it
places on the federal government in relation to the individual states
and the citizenry. The U.S. Constitution does not give the federal
government the right or power to prohibit the personal consumption of
anything at all. That the so-called "Supreme Court" has collectively
enabled this unconstitutionality and immorality, says much more about
a lack of wisdom or humanity among its "justices" than it does about
the utility of cannabis. By extending federal authority onto matters
of state and personal sovereignty, both Congress and the Supreme
Court have, technically, broken our peoples' supreme law.

Moral democracies such as ours are supposed to have tolerant
governments that are responsive to the will of the people, and the
people have made it clear that we do not want cannabis prohibition as
a matter of law or policy, unconstitutional or labeled otherwise.

Ivan Smason, Ph.D., J.D.

Santa Monica

Pubdate: Thu, 09 Aug 2007

Author: Ivan Smason

Source: Santa Monica Mirror (CA)

Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n925/a09.html