Should Marijuana Be Legalized?
Why the move to a Schedule III drug is a scam
Steven King was my best friend. Not the horror writer. The kid who threw me down a flight of stairs in Middle School.
No biggie. I wasn’t hurt. And everyone was kicking the shit out of everyone at the all-boys school of my youth. Think Lord of the Flies with a first-class education.
I didn’t participate in the violence, except, occasionally, on the receiving end. For the most part, I used my wits and ice hockey maneuverability to dodge the XXL-sized alphas ruling the roost.
Also worth noting: Kinger (above) had a rough family life.
His father was a world-renowned nuclear physicist who developed the A-Bomb at Los Alamos. His mother was a beloved Lower School principal. His brother was a high-achiever.
Fast forward to 10th grade…
Kinger and I found ourselves in Music Appreciation Class. A “gut” course taught by a hippie who appreciated both classical music and the sarcasm I’d spent years developing.
One day after class, Kinger asked a question that changed my life: “Wanna get high?”
I’d had a fair few beers and one particularly ugly experience with Jack Daniels, but I’d never smoked marijuana. I was too much of a straight arrow for that, weed wary thanks to articles about its dangers my mother left on my bed.
When Kinger and I lit-up in my Ford Pinto station wagon, I felt something I’d never felt in my entire life. Relaxed. Happy. And oh my God did Kinger and I laugh.
I don’t remember what triggered us. Kinger was funny AF. A genuinely witty human being who saw life as I did: a fucking nightmare. We bonded over a joint and stayed bonded for the next two years.
Kinger was my first real friend. Marijuana a close second – until we added a piano-playing prodigy and Merit Scholar named Pat to our micro-clique.
I honestly don’t know if I would’ve survived my last two years of High School without Kinger, Pat, music and weed. There were times in my childhood when I was literally suicidal.
All that said, I’m no longer a fan of marijuana. Uncle Sam is. Now.
Schedule III
Currying favor with the youth vote, the Biden Administration is moving marijuana from a Schedule I drug to Schedule III.
From illegal to controlled, available with a prescription, subject to lesser penalties for possession and distribution.
Marijuana is set to join Tylenol with codeine, ketamine, anabolic steroids and testosterone on Schedule III. Drugs with "a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence."
While marijuana is certainly less dangerous than alcohol – responsible for more death and destruction than any other drug you can name – take it from me: marijuana has a sky-high potential for “psychological dependence.”
I got decent grades in [ironically named] High School. I played soccer, hockey and crewed. I had a successful career in radio. I didn’t get high before any of those activities.
But I can’t help but wonder what I might have accomplished without constantly toking-up. How much better I would have felt about life with therapy and Adderall (a schedule II drug).
Even so, looking back, I think I dodged a bullet.
Danger Will Robinson!
Studies have linked marijuana to an increased risk of anxiety, depression and psychosis. It’s almost as harmful to your lungs as cigarettes. Cannabinoid hyperemesisis a thing.
But hey, freedom of choice! Only… No one’s talking about the criminality associated with marijuana.
While 38 states have medical marijuana programs and 23 states have legalized “recreational use,” illegal weed is still the main source. It accounts for nearly half of drug cartels’ revenue.
Drug cartels are responsible for human trafficking (a.k.a., slavery), child prostitution, murder, torture, money laundering, extortion, arms trafficking, assassinations, kidnappings – all manner of crimes and corruption.
Not to mention the impact of exporting billions of dollars worth of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine into the United States. Terrorism? That too.
Moving marijuana to Schedule III will do nothing to stop the cartels. Burdened by taxation and regulation, legal suppliers can’t compete.
In fact, by reducing the penalties, “semi-legalization” will increase the illegal weed market. Further empowering cartels. Leading to harder drug use?
Gateway drug?
The 70’s articles my mother left on my bed often warned that marijuana was the first step on the road to harder drugs. The addiction to same.
The “gateway drug” theory – fallen out of favor – somehow failed to notice that alcohol was far and away addicts’ first drug of choice. And it’s certainly true that there are plenty of marijuana users who don’t progress to harder drugs.
A study of studies puts the possibility of the transition from weed to harder-drugs in perspective (emphasis theirs)…
Cannabis use per se is not a strong predictor of the use of other drugs. It is the early initiation and regular use of cannabis that are most strongly predictive of the use of other illicit drugs.
Legalize It?
I hate to say it, even with all its dangers, legalizing weed makes sense, on a lot of levels.
As the tech guys say, you can’t stop the signal. The marijuana market is enormous and it’s not going away.
The War on Drugs, the fight against the cartels, has been an abject failure. And whatever you can say about its dangers, weed is safer than alcohol.
Turning marijuana into a Schedule III drug does not make sense.
It does nothing to change the gun laws prohibiting marijuana use and firearms ownership or carriage, turning tens of millions of Americans into felons.
It does nothing to put the legal marijuana market into effective competition with the cartels; they will not meet the federal production, record-keeping, prescribing and other requirements for Schedule III drugs.
Less people will face legal consequences for marijuana use or possession, but again, not the evil cartels profiting from its growth, sale and distribution.
So why do it? To win votes for Democrats. How great is that? And just so you know…
Kinger RIP
Steven King never found his way in life. He died a poor, lonely alcoholic, felled by diabetes-related complications.
Pat is a successful musician. A recovered alcoholic who left marijuana and cocaine behind.
I stopped smoking weed on a regular basis, and never suffered the ravages of drug or alcohol abuse.
Make of that what you will.
Coming from a family of drug addicts, the whole idea of legalizing any drugs is totally repellent. My buddy Chuck, the philosopher, used to say: “the worst thing about the hippies is that they made drug use normal.” He was a hard-core beatnik and intellectual, and saw how marijuana and other so-called soft drugs would eventually destroy society. This is exemplified recently, here in Oregon, when street drugs were legalized and immediately the use of fentanyl went up 380%. The liberal government in Salem realized it was a bad idea and had to repeal the law. As far as marijuana, we have several friends who were dealers for years, and the legal market destroyed the illegal market. Even worse, there are still illegal dealers because they don’t want to pay taxes. So now you have the worst of both worlds here in Oregon: illegal pot AND legal pot being sold, to both teens and adults. And as one of the other readers mentioned, marijuana nowadays is 1000 times more powerful in the stuff we tried back in the 60s. As Chuck once said, “we gave up on God and made drugs our God instead”. There are a lot of reasons to complain about Muslims in America, but one thing I like about the Islamic religion is that it is opposed to drug use and promiscuity, and has zero tolerance of the vices that are considered acceptable by your average American. Maybe Cat Stevens was right when he converted?
Today’s weed is not the weed of your youth. Today the concentrate THC levels are much higher then the dime bages you purchased at the Delta House at college… just a thought.
Sorry about your friend, children of successful people some times don’t make it due to the inability to meet expectations, and it is sad.