Nation’s marijuana laws were founded in bigotry
http://forum.grasscity.com/general-marijuana-news-around-world/149447-nation-s-marijuana-laws-were-founded-bigotry.html
By Roshan Bliss
Publication Date: 04/20/07
President Jimmy Carter once told Congress that "penalties against drug
use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug
itself. Nowhere is this clearer than in the laws against the possession of
marijuana in private for personal use."
That was in 1976. Today, despite the efforts of Carter and many others
like him, laws prohibiting marijuana continue to carry penalties and
consequences far more damaging than an individual's actual use of marijuana.
Not only does marijuana prohibition harm the individual, but it is taking a
grave toll on American society as well. The damage done by marijuana
prohibition far outweighs the good it is doing, and for this reason
marijuana should be decriminalized.
To understand why marijuana should be decriminalized, we must first
understand why it was made illegal. Early in the 1900s, Mexico's political
conflicts sparked a surge of Mexican immigrants into America's southwest
region. Although marijuana already existed in various forms in the U.S., the
new immigrants are credited with being the first segment of the population
known for marijuana use. The practice also became popular in African
American culture around the same time.
The popularity of marijuana among minorities made racism a powerful
tool for the opponents of marijuana. Racist politicians used hate to push
anti-marijuana legislation through. One Texas senator claimed that "all
Mexicans are crazy and this stuff is what makes them crazy." A 1934
newspaper complained that "marijuana influences Negroes to look at white
people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at white women
twice." Media sensationalism put forward blatant lies and misrepresentations
of marijuana that misinformed the public and stigmatized the harmless herb.
The San Francisco Examiner went so far as to claim that "three-fourths of
the crimes of violence today are committed by (marijuana users)." As a
result of the pandemonium worked up by politicians and biased media about
the marijuana "epidemic," marijuana was made illegal at the federal level in
1937.
Previous prohibition laws were reinforced in the '90s by the new "War
on Drugs" ﾐ a campaign aimed at reducing the demand for and the supply of
illegal drugs. But the war has failed on its own terms. Despite its legal
status, 83 million Americans admit to having used marijuana. Punishing
smokers for their use has not decreased demand for marijuana, it has only
increased arrests of otherwise law-abiding citizens. In 2005, marijuana
arrests reached 786,000, of which fully 88 percent were simply for
possession ﾐ a completely non-violent crime.
This rise in arrests adds to the already heavy workload of the justice
system. According to a study by BBS News, at least 135,488 people were being
incarcerated for felony marijuana charges in 2002, not including another
20,000 being held while they awaited trial. With overcrowding already being
a serious problem for the U.S. prison system, the influx of these harmless
offenders is making it harder to put and keep real criminals in prison. But
overcrowding is not the only problem. It cost $22,174 a year to house a
federal inmate and $16,600 a year to house a state inmate in 2002. By the
end of 2002, American taxpayers spent $1.8 billion to imprison marijuana
offenders for that year alone. This does not include costs associated with
the new inmates from the next year, juvenile incarcerations, police salaries
and equipment, legal investigations or lost economic productivity of the
imprisoned.
In fact, a Harvard economics study, endorsed by over 500 economists,
concluded that the U.S. stands to save up to $13.9 billion every year by
ending marijuana prohibition. Imagine how many under-funded social programs
that could be revitalized by that kind of money. In light of the futility
and harmfulness of marijuana prohibition, decriminalization's benefits are
hard to ignore.
Space does not permit a discussion all of prohibition's injustices
(the racial disparities of arrest rates, the unfair denial of education to
marijuana offenders and the personal costs victims of marijuana arrests and
their families, to name a few). Still, it is plain to marijuana supporters -
and hopefully now to you, as well - that not only is prohibition not
working, it is causing our country and its citizens untold damages for
almost no gain whatsoever. Marijuana prohibition is a policy founded on
hate, ignorance and distortion that is doing Americans no good. The rational
and responsible response to these glaring inadequacies in our county's
policies is change - change that will stop injuring innocent people,
burdening our justice system and wasting valuable resources. It's time to
finally take the hint that Jimmy Carter dropped more than 30 years ago.
Roshan Bliss is a sophomore in the College of Liberal Arts and a
member of Pudue's chapter or the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws. He can be reached via e-mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more information on marijuana and how you can help, visit
www.purdue.edu/~norml or www.saferchoice.org.
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