THE TRUTH ABOUT POT

On a fall day in 2002, my childhood friend, Brendan Butler was left
dead along a rural road in Kootenai County, strangled to death, and
throat slit for good measure. It is still hard for me to envision
Brendan as a drug dealer, because most of the images I have in my head
of him are of snowball fights and sledding at his parents' home in
Hayden, or debating the coolest cars and trucks with him. But I have
no illusions: Pot killed Brendan.

In fact violence, whether through the organizations that compete to
supply demand for the product or through the negligence and clouded
abilities of its users, is a defining characteristic of marijuana. The
argument that legalization will debilitate cartels is erroneous; a
fiction devised by the cartels themselves to profit from the hatred of
their existence. The fiction is furthered by advocates' stating that
enforcement of drug laws is the enemy of the vulnerable. The Elks Club
has a drug awareness page, and it states, among other things, the
following: "An early major marijuana smokers' lobby, NORML (National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) admits receiving drug
dealer money." NBC reported in April 2010 that the effort is now a
multi-million dollar, bipartisan effort.

Monte Stiles, former Deputy United States Attorney addressed this very
issue in Coeur d'Alene for the Kootenai Alliance on Families and
Children last month. His mission is simple: Combat the misinformation
campaign around marijuana. Part of this battle is keeping "medical"
marijuana out of our state. As he says on his website, through his
work as a prosecutor, he has "been an eyewitness to one of the darkest
sides of society - organizations that traffic in human misery" through
the sale of substances. Whether or not we are winning the war on drugs
right now, he argues, but we can't afford to lose it. Taking
government out of the picture is not the lesser evil.

The very reason that American's are skeptical of government is because
of the power that is exerted over us. The irony of the libertarian
argument for legalization of marijuana is that the power behind the
drug trumps the evil of our government. The power behind the push to
legalize marijuana is not comprised of the dimwitted foot soldiers in
rainbow colors blubbering on about rights. These people are the public
face of the campaign, and an inaccurate faade. The power behind the
marijuana is the millions of dollars of those who stand to profit from
the misery of the vulnerable.

And just as the argument that legalization will dampen that power is
erroneous, so is the oft uttered comparison of cannabis to alcohol.
The Elks awareness page says it well: "A majority of adults who use
alcohol on occasion as a beverage avoid intoxication... Marijuana and
illegal drugs are used solely for their intoxicating effects by adults
and youth." Use for intoxication is abuse.

As one Kootenai County judge tells the youth that are sentenced in
front of him for drug offenses: There are two ways to really mess up
your future: "Do poorly in school and develop a substance abuse
problem." Marijuana is the first step to a substance abuse problem and
one that the marijuana lobby would seek to have normalized. Why?
Because once the marijuana damage has occurred to the human brain that
allows for lowered inhibitions, addiction and escalating abuse can
thrive. And there is no better customer than an addict.

Activists and proponents that frame this issue as a freedom issue are
wrong. This struggle is about power and money. The money behind the
pro-marijuana movement would have you believe that legalizing
marijuana opens up to a bright government-free future. The truth is
that normalizing pot use is a dark abyss. With drug cartels, there is
no due process. Ask Brendan.