lead into gold

8/3/2019 Lead Into Gold

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We have seen the arguments that are constantly recycled by prohibitionists in order to support their

pseudo-intellectual arguments. Ignoring arguments regarding the byproducts of re-legalization such as

high driving, and the Gateway Drug Theory, (which have already been dispatched) I would like to

focus briefly on the innate qualities of marijuana that prohibitionists frequently deride. Arguments

regarding the plant itself can be generally classified into the following sentiments:

1.) Marijuana is harmful to human health.

2.) Marijuana is bad for society.

3.) Marijuana is dangerous for children.

You can read above why the arguments are erroneous in and of themselves, but I think it would be

reasonable to compare marijuana to another substance with similar qualities, and analyze how the

government handled such a situation.

Despite widespread knowledge of the dangers of lead as a potent neurotoxin, tetraethyllead (TEL) was

used in gasoline from the 1920s through the 1970s to reduce the problem of engine knock. Despite

arguments that lead did not actually rectify the problem of engine knock, the Etyhyl Gasoline

Corporation and Standard Oil Corporation colluded in pursuing TELs push into the automobile

marketplace, resulting in the deaths of many workers, and poisoning thousands more.1 Though

alternatives to TEL were available, it was very cheap, so business sense beat altruism into submission.

Our bodies do not have an efficient pathway for excreting lead; presence of lead in the blood is

detectable long after exposure, and deposits in brain and bone may be considered permanent. One can

imagine that lead being blown out of tens of millions of cars for dozens of years might have a significant

deleterious impact on human health, and one would be correct in this assumption. It was known from

soil and ice core samples that TEL correlated directly with increased atmospheric and soil lead. After

this information became too overwhelming to deny, the EPA used an extension of the Clean Air Act to

force the phase-out of leaded gasoline. Since Ethyl Gasoline Corporation and its cronies vehemently

denied the dangers of lead on environmental safety and even human physiology, they sued the EPA,

though they eventually lost on appeal. Usage of the TEL additive began to wane in the early 1980s, and

fell into almost complete disuse by the early 1990s. It was not officially outlawed until 1996, which is

paradoxically appalling and unsurprising.

The physiological effects of outlawing lead were obvious: a 1994 study found that the average blood

lead level in Americans dropped from 16 micrograms per deciliter (g/dL ) to 3 g/dL in 1991a

reduction of 78%. For a point of reference, CDC considers 10 g/dL of lead to be an elevated bloodlevel and cause for concern. More insidiously, lead has an especially pronounced effect on children.

1Jamie Lincoln Kitman The Secret History of Lead The Nation. Online. March 20, 2000.

Accessed via: http://www.thenation.com/article/secret-history-lead


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Levels of just 10 g/dL have been shown to cause a four point drop in IQ. 2 It doesnt require the mind of

a scientist to understand that altering the brain chemistry of children with neurotoxic metals is a

practice that might be considered an enormous public hazard, and one that is certainly more harmful

than any bag of weed could be.

Beside the inarguable and monumental health problems caused by lead, a graph of TEL usage over timeis statistically indicative of violent crime rates: as atmospheric/blood lead increased, so did violent

crime. 3 While the exact mechanism of this phenomenon may not be clear, it is well-known that

psychosis and dementia frequently result from chronic lead exposure, and the additional consideration

that lead can measurably decrease IQ are strong enough indicators that this correlationwhich was

statistically significanthas plenty of scholastic merit.

Lets summarize the situation thus far:

1.) Lead was spewed, at incredible rates, into the atmosphere for roughly 70 years

2.)Lead is objectively harmful to human health

3.)Lead is especially harmful to children,

4.) High levels of atmospheric lead caused a statistically significant an increase in violent crime

5.) Lead definitively harms the environment (potentially irreparably)

Numbers 1-4 are accusations that have been leveled at marijuana without so much as a shred of

credible evidence. On the other hand, even when research began to show that lead was negatively

impacting the environment in the 1940s and 1950s, it would still take the federal government over four

decades to outlaw the use of this pervasive neurotoxin in gasoline; a critical error in mis-weighing

parsimony and philosophy. Lead had been known since the 1600s to be harmful to human health, but

the low price and uncomplicated manufacturability of TEL was too seductive a siren song for Big

Businesss best pal, Uncle Sam, to resist. So, for seventy years, everyone in the United States was slowly

poisoned in the name of profit. I should mention that though the previous statement might appear

over-simplified or hyperbolic, it most certainly is not.

The clear and present danger of airborne lead was ignored while the Hill stood at rapt attention to those

who conjured the ever-pesky phantom of marijuana abuse. Henry Anslinger was feeding Congress

racist lies to further his career and his spell-bound audience gobbled them greedily while imagining all

the extra votes they would surely receive for being tough on crime. Not only did our elected officials

2Lanphear, Bruce P.; Hornung, Richard; Khoury, Jane; Yolton, Kimberly; Baghurst, Peter; Bellinger, David C.; Canfield, Richard L.;

Dietrich, Kim N. et al. (2005) "Low-Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Childrens Intellectual Function: An InternationalPooled Analysis"Environmental Health Perspectives. Volume 113 Issue 7 pp.894-899.

Accessed via: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1257652/?tool=pmcentrez

3Jessica Wolpaw Reyes Environmental Policy as Social Policy? The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime Sep . 25, 2007.

The B.E. Journal ofEconomic Analysis & Policy. Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 7(1)


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drive home fat and happy, stuffed full of moralizing gibberish from their favorite drug-obsessed bigot,

they unwittingly topped off their mad tea party by squirting toxic flatulence into the atmosphereand

into spongy American bodiesfrom the ass end of their lead-leaking automobiles.

Henry Anslinger, who was little more than a xenophobic goon with a government-issued badge (and

eventually a gun), was taken at his word when he told Congress that marijuana smoking was anepidemic, and it need to be outlawed immediately. While the man at the very top of enforcing drug

policy in the United States frothed at the mouth and gesticulated wildly on the floor of Congress, our

elected officials watched, spellbound, at this mad-dog performance. The irony of their ignorance

regarding the poisonous metal was apparently lost on those legislators. While evidence of leads

harmfulness was well-known and long-understood, the federal government thought that saving

America required jazz singers and migrant farmers to sacrifice their cherished cannabis, all the while

ignoring the fact that every squad car that busted a dope fiend was doing far more harmand

measurably sothan any amount of marijuana ever could.

When you consider the original testimonies given to Congress, the absence of evidence supporting

prohibition arguments, the legality and approval of other, more harmful substances, and the arbitrary

manner in which the federal government involves itself with the health of its citizenry, it become

painfully obvious that the hypocrisy of marijuana prohibition is nearly unrivaled in both scope and

absurdity.

lead into gold

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