Hippies Ruin Everything
A couple of years ago, I wrote about my support of medical marijuana :
I can understand why advocates would try to find ways around the racist, elitist, hypocritical, and mostly evil “war” on drugs. Even worse, the FDA has been notorious in their unwillingness to even consider approving marijuana for pharmaceutical use. That said, going the state’s rights route towards legalization was pretty wrongheaded at the outset. Even when these laws originally passed, there was always a feeling of “civil disobedience” in the air. The inevitable conflict with federal law was a ticking clock that hung over every “cannabis club” in the country.
. . .
I think the “war” on drugs is awful, but I thought we were talking about the ways marijuana helps ease the enormous pain and suffering of cancer patients. Yes, the two issues are related, but nobody should be exploiting the sympathy for the terminally ill to piggyback the larger, but tangential, issue of the excessive criminalization of narcotics onto this particular fight.
. . .
A far more reasonable approach would be for Congress to pass an amendment to the Controlled Substances Act that would move marijuana from its Schedule I status to Schedule II. While getting Congress to relax drug laws may seem like a pipe dream, the real world implications would be to simply move pot from the class that includes LSD and heroin to the one that includes cocaine, morphine, and crystal meth. While this probably wouldn’t do much to satisfy the “Legalize It!” crowd, it should give doctors the leeway to prescribe the drug for their patients, open the door to FDA approval, and subject it to more than enough regulations to keep the drug out of the hands of recreational users.
Unfortunately, as The Raw Story notes, the overlap between medical marijuana advocates and those who seek to decriminalize recreational use has lead to “chaos” :
In September, the DEA raided the California Healthcare Collective in Modesto and arrested the store’s chief financial officer, Luke Scarmazzo. “They handcuffed me and put me on my kitchen table,” Scarmazzo told 60 Minutes. “One of them … said ‘you knew I’d be coming soon.’”Scarmazzo acknowledged that he had been earning $13,000 a month for running the dispensary but insisted “I was working a lot of hours.” Scarmazzo’s lawyer described his client’s situation as a case of “selective prosecution,” because the 26-year-old Scarmazzo is also a hiphop artist, with a widely distributed Internet video in which he appears as a high-living drug dealer, chanting “Fuck the feds.”
Complicating the legal situation, California’s pot shops have admittedly become an easy source of supply for people who just want to get high. According to 60 Minutes, the California law was originally intended to provide access only to the most needy, but in an attempt not to exclude any category of illness, it wound up with language so broad that it covers ever the vaguest complaint of pain. Now anyone with a note from their doctor can buy medical marijuana, and some doctors even advertise for patients in alternative papers.
“Fuck the feds”…really mature. This kind of shit is an embarrassment and it completely undermines the movement to allow medicinal use of marijuana.
I’ve had friends with cancer who swear by marijuana as the perfect drug to treat the side effects of chemo (it relieves pain, controls nausea, and increases appetite). Yet it’s hard to make the broader case that the FDA should evaluate marijuana when the most visible examples of the drug in action are “clubs” that intentionally blur the line between medicinal and recreational use. How can you convince the government that marijuana is a safe and effective way to relieve suffering when it’s most visible advocates seem to be spending their time helping provide legal weed to people who are more interested in marijuana’s extra-curricular effects. It would be nice if the medical marijuana dispensaries would take the responsibility to crack down on recreational users and realize that centers for the distribution of controlled substances for medical use are pharmacies, not social gatherings.
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I agree with you in theory, but at the same time, expecting recreational pot users and growers not to take advantage of easily available marijuana under quasi-legality is like expecting all illegal immigrants to go back to their home countries until we sort out better economic situations for them at home and relaxed work-permits here.
This pot exploitation was bound to happen–even before marijuana was legalized, head shops and marijuana merchandise have been available to the public basically illegally under the guise of being “tobacco pipes” or harmless paraphernalia that still get head shop owners busted every once in a while when the cops have some free time to examine what’s really being sold. Tommy Chong’s arrest comes to mind.
These stoners are incensed (no pun intended!) that something so obviously harmless is illegal that they are taking any avenue available to them to fudge or work around the law. Ditto for the people who want to provide this service.
In that regard, the owners of these collectives are no worse than any other corporate entity that breaks laws because they’re not enforced or are fuzzy enough not to be prosecuted for. I’m not saying that this quid-pro-quo puts the hippies in the moral high ground, however. “High” ground perhaps, but not moral high ground. They just want to get high, and better regulation, not self-policing, is the only way to stop it. I don’t see that we need federal laws changed to first get our state laws specific enough to cover only the truly sick, if indeed we even want that.
Comment by dAnimal — January 2, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
BTW, I’m still recovering from seeing the Rose Parade, then “No Country For Old Men” within a 16 hour period. So forgive me for my rambling sentences.
Comment by dAnimal — January 2, 2008 @ 3:10 pm
But that “ditto” is the problem here. It’s one thing for stoners to fake ADD to get their hands on the good shit, but it’s shameful for self-styled healthcare providers who are ostensibly motivated by the desire to reduce human suffering turn into little more than a drug dealer with an office. It makes the entire medical marijuana movement look unserious and irresponsible.
There are people all over the country who could benefit from marijuana to treat the symptoms of a serious illness, but as long as medicinal marijuana “clubs” are seen as loopholes for scoring weed for recreational purposes, I think it will be next to impossible to get it regulated by the FDA (not that political momentum is the only stumbling block there).
Comment by greg — January 2, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
I applaud your compassion for those who suffer,but why should the goverment have the power to select the drugs people use? I agree that the “clubs” sell grass to anyone with a doctor’s prescription ,and many are written for a variety of conditions.What puzzels me is how one could believe that in a free country the goverment should have any power over its citizens personal habits,medical or otherwise.The idea that the goverment has a right to use deadly force,and prison detentions,to force citizens into only consuming state sanctioned products reminds me of that historic “tea party” ,and those who rejected such tyrany.Its kind of you to allow cancer paitents to recieve cannibus thru goverment sanctioned pharmacies,maybe you could explain to those recreational
users why it should be your’s,or the goverments right to dictate thier personal habits in the first place?After all a lot of nonviolent people would be attacked and imprisoned to archive that which yow suggest,is this how we should address those who commit the horrible crime of smoking pot?The war on drugs is a vast industry of police,judges,social workers,beuracrats,and pison gaurds trying hard to keep the people convinced that they are “public servants”,while serving as revenue
collectors and mercenaries for the state,most enjoy immunity from the very laws they claim to repersent. You must really hate these pot smoking people,to wish more goverment attention on them.however since you have decided they can’t run their own lifes,I guess the all powerfull goverment must step in to force your wisdom down their throats at gun point.
Comment by pogo — January 2, 2008 @ 4:38 pm
Yeah, that must be it. I hate freedom. Ron Paul ’08!!
I’m not talking about the “war” on drugs though if you read my posts a little more carefully you might pick up on the fact that I don’t really care recreational marijuana use one way or another. I know you’d love to build up some strawman in which I’m some anti-drug crusader, but re-read the post, man. The second damn sentence refers to the “racist, elitist, hypocritical, and mostly evil ‘war’ on drugs.” Is that not clear enough for you?
The reason I didn’t go off on a tangent about the “tyranny” of a government that tells its citizens what they can and can’t ingest is because I’m talking about the real world here, not some libertarian fantasy in which every government agency consists of jack-booted thugs and that the only viable alternative is to do away with every regulation on the books. In that Rand-ian utopia, in which no laws and no taxes is the cure for all of our ills, we’re somehow supposed to forget that people can be selfish and greedy and unfathomably cruel to each other.
Which is why we have agencies like the FDA in the first place. The fact that we have an agency whose sole purpose is to ensure the safety of our food and medicine supply is a good thing. Yes, I’m fully aware of how corrupt and ineffective the FDA can be, but “deregulation” would just make any problems much, much worse. If you don’t believe me, go re-read The Jungle and wonder if a return to that age will improve the quality of the prescriptions you pick up at Walgreens.
Having said that, as someone who advocates the use of medical marijuana, the most likely way this will happen is within the system (however flawed it may be). That means reclassifying marijuana and having it approved by the FDA. Trying to make that happen, however, requires a political change that won’t be possible as long as medical marijuana advocates look like a bunch of hedonistic potheads who are hiding their ulterior motives behind the needs of sick people.
Comment by greg — January 2, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
If you acknowledge that our nation’s drug laws are more destructive than the drugs themselves, how can you be so smug and scornful toward someone who advocates changing that status quo? If you think that reasonable, compassionate changes can be made “within the system,” then you are likely proceeding from an assumption that “the system” is well-meaning but misguided. That assumption flies in the face of the history of drug prohibition in the U.S. The racism, hypocrisy, elitism, and “evil” of the ‘war on drugs’ aren’t bugs in the system, they are the system. And treating everyone who wants to dismantle that system as a lunatic, libertarian Paul-bot is neither mature nor constructive. Pogo’s language may be a bit strong at points, but he/she is on the right track: you aren’t going to get reason and compassion out of a “system” that has been established and maintained without either in mind.
This construction–
–demonstrates what I’m talking about; it puts the cart before the horse in a way that would make Richard Nixon proud. Focusing on a time-tested scapegoat (the Dirty F–king Hippie), when the real problem is the drug prohibition paradigm, is doing the authoritarians’ heavy lifting for them.
If we actually get a Democrat in the White House in 2009, see how far the FDA goes toward legalizing medical marijuana. My guess is the best you’d get is a mealy-mouthed policy (kind of like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for pot) that will not be mandated to states and that can be easily circumvented by the Republican who’ll take the reins in 2013. More likely, though, you’ll see the status quo: cracking down on suffering medical patients while pandering to fears of Dirty F–king Hippies laying out on sidewalks in pot-induced hazes and enticing precious white children (the children!!) into their degenerate slacker lifestyles.
Comment by Church Secretary — January 2, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
I think you’re the one making assumptions here. I don’t assume anything about the motives of “the system”. I’m just being pragmatic. Along these same lines, although I think our nation desperately needs a single-payer universal healthcare system, I’m realistic enough to see that the many stumbling blocks and flaws in our system of government make a massive paradigm shift like that virtually impossible. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, so obsessing on perfect solutions is rarely as productive as chasing compromises that have a chance of sneaking through Congress.
But the whole point of my post was medical marijuana, not the evils of the drug war. If the people who are running medical marijuana clubs are doing so to “dismantle that system” then they’re being disingenuous and hiding their true motives behind the suffering of others.
That’s a pretty pessimistic (but not unrealistic) view. Here’s my question to you : given your views on the feasibility of the FDA approving medical marijuana, how likely do you think it is that the “drug prohibition paradigm” will end? To me it seems that the chances of FDA approving medicinal use of marijuana and ending the drug war are “doubtful” and “never gonna happen in my lifetime” respectively.
Comment by greg — January 2, 2008 @ 10:34 pm
Good points, Greg; please allow me to address them. First of all, I am being pragmatic as well. But pragmatism is only valuable when one has a good grasp of the existing conditions. You suggest this:
I do not suggest that ending the ‘drug war’ is a perfect solution to anything; it would be a hell of an improvement over the status quo. However, it bears repeating that the ‘drug war’ was not initiated as a solution to a drug problem; it was conjured and promoted by people with ulterior motives, which is why it so easily metastasized into the counterproductive, authoritarian monster that it remains today. Trying to sneak through practical or even compassionate compromises is a wasted effort here, because the drug prohibition paradigm has no place for compassion or pragmatism. Pogo’s and my diagnoses of the situation might read as hysterical, tin-foil hat, Big Gov’t paranoia for another issue, but in this case we’re on the right track because the big picture is all-encompassing. In other words, you ain’t going to get medical marijuana approved unless you work to subvert the federal police-state paradigm of the drug war.
If you’d like a little less pessimism from me, I can suggest that your pragmatism would be more useful if you understand who your natural allies are. I believe the drug war can be ended (which would mean medical marijuana for all who need it), but only if enough of us organize to make it so; it wouldn’t be easy, but it can be done. (Practically speaking, this might mean that we sensible, dignified liberals and progressives will have to hold our noses as we lock arms with a few Dirty F–king Hippies for a while.) Attempting compromises that adopt the scapegoating narratives of the authoritarians won’t work, and in the long run will only serve to divide natural allies and strengthen the enemy (see Clinton, 1993-2000).
Comment by Church Secretary — January 3, 2008 @ 5:50 am
i agree with your points about the problems with this system. but i think the problem was approaching it as “medicine” to begin with. sure it has medicinal benefits, but so can most natural things on this planet. but it’s main purpose is recreation. i think people latched onto the “medical marijuana” bandwagon because it seemed like the best way to push it through, but the result is a mess of potheads arguing that we need marijuana for cancer patients.
no matter how they try to legalize marijuana, those on the forefront are, unfortunately, going to be potheads. just like every time the news shows something about animals or vegetarians, the ones they focus on are the morons splashing blood on everyone. not everyone who is “abusing” the system is a “fucking hippie”. the less vocal “users” are plenty of normal, responsible adults who just want to smoke pot in a semi-legal and safe way without going to a scary drug dealer.
i think the bigger picture is that the doctors and “dealers” and “patients” are trying to set an example that normal people can use marijuana responsibly. the more examples of responsible adults who can use marijuana and not be ashamed of it, and not turn into burn-outs, the closer we get to ending the prohibition on pot. the goal should be to set an example that people can use marijuana responsibly just like they can drink whiskey responsibly and then maybe the laws will finally be relaxed. unfortunately it has become a convoluted system where they have to pretend to need it for medicinal purposes.
i don’t know if it will ever be completely legal, but it has become at least somewhat regulated and a bit safer for now. and it hopefully is taking some of the drugs off the street.
cannabis-clubs are the new speak-easy.
Comment by tom — January 3, 2008 @ 9:36 am
I realize you have not advocated the war on drugs here,but who do you think will stop these so called “hippies” from growing and selling grass to those with medical need or those who just want to get high?I dare say it won’t be some nice doctor from the FDA,but it will be a well armed group from the DEA.Your point is taken regarding the use of “clubs” meant to serve the truely ill,being used as cover for the dealing of cannibus,to say those engaged in this activity are all “hippies” is just narrow minded,bigotry.Do you have a name for the owners of legal pharmacies who peddle oxycontin to anyone with a doctors perscription?The idea that “hippies” ruin everything is a sad attempt at stereotyping, and an effort to dehumanize a portion of the American population,its no wonder you maintain faith in a system which runs the prisons you will need to roundup those you deem inferior.I do not advocate the destruction of all goverment functions,simply a return to the natural right of each citizen to live free from an army of do-gooders useing the goverment as a tool for imposeing their own morality by force.Its a cheap shot to say that the “hippies” are to blame for a prohibition designed as a cash cow for the goverments benefit.Nothing personal Greg,I enjoy The Talent Show very much,and believe it or not I agree with many of your post,however on this topic i must repectfully disagree.
Comment by pogo — January 3, 2008 @ 9:45 am
Greg, I too enjoy this site very much, and agree with most of your posts. However, you are not listening to the arguments presented by pogo (and church secretary), who, I must say has written a most cohesive rebuttle to your position that ” hippies ruin everything” (that is the title of your post, no?
The fact that we pretend to live in a free country, all the while, respecting the governments authority to regulate what we put into our own bodies is absurd.
“The idea that the goverment has a right to use deadly force,and prison detentions,to force citizens into only consuming state sanctioned products reminds me of that historic “tea party” ,and those who rejected such tyrany.”
(that is eloquent)
Think about that for a minute. Using deadly force against its own citizens, just for possessing an herb. Is that the country you want to live in? I believe it is time to stop placing anybody who wants to get high in the “hippie” catagory. You ARE playing into the authorities hands by believing that shit.
As for the original intent of your post, yes, I agree, some dipshit chanting, “Fuck the Feds” seems idiotic, (by the way hip-hop is in NO way “Hippie”), but what do you expect? That the people who will take the risks of selling to medical mj recipients should do so at a loss? There is the inherent risk of having that afformentioned “deadly force” used against them for providing such a service to those in need.
There really is no room for being pragmatic about the changes that NEED to be made in this country to prevent a fully fledged facist state. (I personally believe it is to late, after hearing first hand accounts from my grandmother, who was born in Prussia, and watched as it was torn apart after WWI, then taken over by true fascists later. She has told me she sees to many “good germans”in the USA, who roll over for “security”. but I digress)
My point is, it is ok to conceed every once in a while, you have very intelligent readers/commenters here, it would do you well to listen to them. No offense intended, just sayin’ thats all.
Comment by Mark C — January 3, 2008 @ 8:26 pm