As recently as a couple of years ago, the mere thought of legalizing any drug for any reason struck me as unconscionable. So when I read about Proposition 215, which legalized marijuana for medical use in California (where else?), I envisioned the oft-cited "slippery slope" theory at its worst, with sick people taking marijuana cascading into 16-year-olds mainlining heroin in broad daylight.
But viewing Prop. 215 against the backdrop of the ever-expanding federal drug war provides an enlightening take on the situation. Estimates as to the cost of the drug war currently run about $35 billion a year. The enemy is disproportionately pot smokers; they constitute 10 of the 13 million regular drug users. Cops made 600,000 marijuana arrests in 1995 alone, and some one sixth of federal prisoners are in jail for smoking up (Rolling Stone, Oct. 30, 1997).
We are spending massive amounts of money, allocating prodigious human resources, and filling already overcrowded prisons with...a bunch of occasional stoners. These are not foreign drug-lords or crack dealers; they are recreational users whose activities, though unacceptable, are not dangerous to the general public. Thus we have a disturbing situation in which early release programs allow child molesters out of prison after serving a fraction of their sentence in order to alleviate an overcrowding problem caused by marijuana offenders. The problem is most vexing when AIDS patients are jailed for attempting to alleviate their pain with the drug.
With these concerns in mind, voters passed Prop. 215 in November 1996, despite strong opposition from state and national leaders, including California's governor and attorney general and President Bill Clinton. The so-called "Compassionate Use Act," is vaguely worded as not to permit the sale or growth of marijuana, but only to sanction the possession of marijuana upon recommendation of the patients "primary care-giver." Prop. 215 represents the greatest act of resistance ever to the war on drugs.
Although the true medical uses of marijuana are considered dubious by many, a report issued by the National Institute of Health recognizes that the drug can be helpful, particularly in alleviating the nausea brought on by chemotherapy and various manifestations of AIDS. To be sure, legitimizing illegal drugs by designating them medically helpful presents a potentially sticky situation, but the federal government has already granted this status to morphine and cocaine without altering public perception or use of those drugs.
In many ways, the crusade by federal agencies against legalized medical marijuana evidences the desperate intractability of those waging the drug war. Already under heat for the failure of the war to produce results, the officials who lambaste Prop. 215 are, in many cases, scrambling to protect the goose that has been laying the golden eggs from being slaughtered. They depend on the drug war for funding, and the drug war depends on marijuana for its largest and most visible enemy. Police departments, security firms and the private prison industry are just a few of the war's financial beneficiaries.
The crusade against drugs also provides a unifying enemy for mainstream America, a scapegoat for crime, urban decay and the failing education system. According to James Copple of the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America, "It's a cultural symbol, what we are and aren't going to embrace."
While pot may indeed be a cultural symbol, the voters of California have decided to defy symbolism in favor of common sense and compassion. They have said that they can distinguish between a cancer patient finding relief from the ravages of chemo and a kid cutting class to smoke some weed in the parking lot.
Yet despite the questionable nature of their motives, the concerns of those fighting the drug war can't be dismissed until enough time has passed to gauge the effects of Prop. 215; worries about the message that it sends to kids seem particularly valid. Early signs have, however, been positive. According to California Drug Enforcement Agency agents and local policemen, the bill has had no effect on drug use in the general public.
While Prop. 215's effects on the public at large, and particularly children, are uncertain, logic indicates that making small amounts of marijuana available to the very ill will not create a more permissive culture or an explosion of drug use. What it comes down to is the message issue, and California has decided that denying relief to dying people is not the appropriate way to maintain the message of the drug war. The question is will the rest of America, as it has with emission controls and property taxes, follow?
Parker Stanberry is a Trinity junior.
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