HELP STOP THE MADNESS BY VOTING YES ON PROPOSITION 203

In the interest of full disclosure, let me state that I use
high-grade, American-grown marijuana pretty much every day, both for
its pleasant psychoactive effects and its medical benefits.

A proven muscle-relaxant, it really works well for my chronic back
issues. It has helped prevent the sort of scary asthma attacks that
I've suffered a couple of times before.

An effective antiemetic, it enables me to read on planes and in cars
without the motion sickness that otherwise results.

It works wonders with the occasional bout of vertigo, the fallout of a
series of concussions. And it allows me to sleep through the night
without being chased through my dreams by the bogeyman and waking up
yelling thanks to a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

There is substantial research and anecdotal evidence supporting all of
these applications, despite the best efforts of the government to
suppress it, some of which spans thousands of years.

Although none of my usage will be covered by Proposition 203, the
medical-marijuana initiative on the Arizona ballot this year, I'm
voting for it anyway.

The initiative would allow victims of chronic and life-threatening
illnesses such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, Crohn's disease and
multiple sclerosis--people for whom marijuana is quite literally a
lifeline--to obtain and use the drug in a safe, legal and regulated
manner.

To me, Prop 203 is a baby step toward saner public policy, the very
definition of a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, proponents of the War on Drugs have chosen to approach
this issue with no brain, so you can expect to hear the same tired old
propaganda, including this standard refrain: "What message are we
sending to our children?" Good question--while cannabis is virtually
harmless and often beneficial for adults, psychoactive drugs in
general are not good for young people, who are still developing
mentally and emotionally.

But consider the messages that the Drug Warriors prefer to send to our
children: We don't respect you enough to tell you the truth about
marijuana. We don't trust you to make good decisions based in reality,
and we would rather manipulate you with lies. It is perfectly fine for
you to be dependent on some psychoactive drugs, like Ritalin and
Prozac, just not this drug. Extremely sick people should not be
allowed to medicate themselves with an effective, nontoxic drug that
happens to have pleasant side effects, simply because other people use
it solely for pleasure.

Chronically ill people should remain captives of a pharmaceutical
industry that routinely games studies and enhances its
multi-billion-dollar profit margins by putting expensive poisons on
the market that often provide little or no therapeutic benefit, but
plenty of unpleasant and dangerous side effects.

My job/funding stream/political career is more important than good
public policy that promotes the general welfare.

We will continue pursuing the same failed drug policies and expecting
different results--even though it is the definition of political
insanity--because we don't have the courage or common sense to admit
that we're wrong.

A little history helps explain this madness.

The 1930s criminalization of cannabis was driven entirely by the same
sorts of lies that are still told today, for many of the same
self-serving reasons.

Ruthless capitalists such as Hearst, DuPont and Mellon employed racist
associations and invented stories about the harmful effects of
marijuana to eliminate the threat that cannabis competition posed to
their profitable interests in timber, synthetic fibers, petrochemicals
and pharmaceuticals. Few today are aware that the American Medical
Association opposed the criminalization of cannabis at the time,
testifying to Congress about its obvious medical benefits.

There is no more emblematic indication of the insanity of drug
prohibition than the name of a group leading the opposition to Prop
203: "Keep AZ Drug Free."

What kind of la-la land do these people live in?! Illegal drugs worth
billions of dollars, including almost 10 million pounds of marijuana,
already flow through Arizona every year, much of which is tainted with
the bloody mayhem of violent Mexican trafficking organizations. The
argument that Prop 203 will somehow enhance access to marijuana is
based on the fantasy that it is in any way difficult to obtain now.
Many billions of tax dollars are wasted every year propping up this
ludicrous canard, while our schools and parks beg for funding, and
violent criminals go free because the jails are overrun by
pot-smokers. Eric Schlosser, in his excellent book Reefer Madness,
summed it up most eloquently: "A society that can punish a marijuana
offender more severely than a murderer is caught in the grip of a deep
psychosis."

Help end the psychosis.

Vote yes on Proposition 203.