MADNESS LIES IN IGNORING FACTS

We the people. The ink used to write those words, along with the rest
of our Constitution, were penned onto paper made from hemp.

For 150 years of our nation's history, hemp provided a low-cost,
environmentally friendly and renewable resource used to produce paper,
clothing, and many other products. On what basis was hemp suddenly
deemed so dangerous that if you are caught with more than an
ounce-and-a-half of hemp's biological cousin marijuana, sentencing
guidelines require penalties comparable to those for robbers, child
molesters, arsonists and rapists?

Consider these statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, the US
Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of
Transportation: Annual deaths due to tobacco consumption: 500,000; Annual
deaths due to alcohol consumption: 100,000; Annual deaths due to marijuana
consumption: Zero.

Is there anything else we might like to spend the estimated $7 billion
it costs to arrest, prosecute and jail simple marijuana possessors
every year? Nah, we don't need to plug funding gaps in education,
infrastructure, or social services. Let them rot, at the cost of
$24,000 a year per prisoner. More than three times the cost of
educating a child.

When the available facts make the policy look ridiculous, I've learned
to look for hidden agendas.

History shows that marijuana only became a big issue after the alcohol
prohibition of the 1920s was lifted. Why? First, the federal law
enforcement bureaucracy focused on alcohol had lost its reason for
existence. Facing unemployment, its leaders declared marijuana the new
menace. Powerful corporations backed the initiative when they saw an
opportunity to kill off hemp, a major competitor to paper
manufacturers (chemically processed paper pulp) and petrochemical
companies (nylon and other petroleum-based fabrics). Private companies
that build and manage prisons have joined the special interests
wishing to preserve current law. Their lobbyists have no facts and no
scientific evidence to justify our system of marijuana laws, but those
corporations make money off the status quo and spend tons of money
preserving the marijuana myth.

Look behind the myth and you find no integrity, moral, medical, fiscal
or otherwise, behind our multi-billion effort to suppress the adult
consumption of a substance less harmful and less addictive than
tobacco or alcohol. Seventy percent of voters nationally think our war
on drugs is a complete failure and 74 percent of Washingtonians agree
that we should reduce the penalties for marijuana possession. Yet our
politicians sit on their hands, intimidated by the powerful
myth-makers with accusations of being "soft on crime."

It's up to us. We the people must look at the hard facts and tell our
state legislators to act. They are currently considering reducing the
penalties for simple possession. If we stick to the popular mythology
about marijuana and ignore the results of our current policies, that
way lies the true reefer madness.