nothing left to talk about

8/3/2019 Nothing Left to Talk About

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This book is dedicated to my Family


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Dear Friends,

I am writing this letter primarily because this

discussion has no identifiable beginning, but also

because we require absolute community in the

gravest of matters. Firstly, I have been cautioned

against speaking or writing as we, but the

ideological underpinnings of sensory prohibition

have as much to do with the intangible concept of

us as they do science and law, so please forgive

me if I succumb to that temptation. When

challenging a tradition as war-torn and well-established as cannabis prohibition deciding where

to begin is the most difficult part, and no fact or

anecdote could sweep in the changes.

I am tremendously grateful to have been

born into a generation which has matured

alongside the largest and most awe-inspiring

repository of information in the history of the

world; the Library at Alexandria pales dimly in

comparison. This project would have had no

chance of completion without the internet, plain

and simple. Logical reasoning and unfettered

access to information are the twin pillars upon


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which our future will proudly stand, and ensuring

the integrity of these freedoms might be the

defining struggle of this generation, and all others

into posterity. In this way, the internet is self-

sustaining, as individuals who inherit the right offree-flowing information usuallyand most

admirablybecome very hesitant to sacrifice it.

The existence of our Republic is a testament to the

historical inquisitiveness of the American people,

and this was apparent long before the average

citizen had access to scientific literature. Some

notable (and necessarily paraphrased) examples

might include:

Why are we being taxed for tea without any

legislative input or recourse?

How can we possibly withhold suffrage from a full

half of our population?

Is separate but equal not an obvious and odious

contradiction in terms?


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Science is often considered a job or a

discipline; a series of tasks hammered by rote into

the brains of lab-dwelling hermits. This is an

incomplete analysis. Science is not a thing. It is a

way of thinking that provides a framework for thesystematic challenge of even our most dearly-held

assumptionsespecially and necessarily these.

Science can accurately be described in embryo

with a single symbol: the humble and eternal

question mark. Science begins with questions and

ends with even more, rendering the answer

significantly less important than the trans-

historical pursuit of knowledge which bolsters our

most sacred rights; those of health, personal

freedom, and a reasonable chance at enjoying

both.

Prohibition itself is not unlike a drug; a tonic

we have been compelled to imbibe. Its wickedalchemy cannot, however, be attributed to any

one individual or secretive cabal. Its base

compound was a fundamental and widespread

lack of scientific knowledge seared with heavy

doses of bombast and fear-mongering. It was fully


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potentiated by a lengthy steeping in the seething

racism that pervaded the early twentieth

centuryunsurprisingly the nadir of American race

relations.

Let me be clear from the start: almost everything

the layperson has heard about cannabis is patently

and demonstrably false. This is not an indictment

of the public intellect, but rather an explanation of

the preciousness of prescience. There are several

theories regarding the origin of the word

abracadabra, but one of the more highly-regarded notions is that it comes from the Hebrew

phrase avra k'davrawhich roughly translates to

I will create as I speak. No single word captures

the confabulatory nature of prohibitionist

arguments more precisely than this ancient

invocation.

I humbly submit that there is no scientific

evidence whatsoever that can attest to any

benefits of the continued prohibition of cannabis

and, crucially, that there has neverbeen any

evidence demonstrating to the alleged

destructive propertiesphysiological,


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psychological, or societalof the

aforementioned.

When analyzing the collective evidence

proffered by prohibitionists, beginning in the mid-

nineteenth century and extending to the present

day, it becomes clear that the evidence is

inarguably in the corner of those seeking re-

legalization; it always has been. Cannabis is only

physiologically harmful in the way that any inhaled

plant matter might be. Cannabis is empirically less

addictive and biologically harmful than tobacco,which makes claims of institutionalized

hypocrisyin the form of breathtakingly massive

subsidiesmatters of both public record and

scientific fact. Americas favorite drug, alcohol, can

be shown to induce violent urges in a laboratory

setting; the very opposite is true with cannabis.

Prohibitionists who dismiss the comparison of ourtwo fumbling attempts at nationalized temperance

are, at the very least, shown to lack some

conscience in their gleeful pursuit of happy hubris.

Cannabis does not cause cancer (in fact,

promising research suggests that the opposite


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might be true) and it does not cause insanity.

Taken together, one might deduce that the

information that allegedly supported prohibition

must have been overturned, falsified, or

misunderstood. The truth lies in some sweaty greyamalgamation of the second two; overturned

would imply that this evidence once existed. There

is no far-reaching conspiracy; do you really,

honestly, think there could be?

Even the term cover-up grates on the ears

and carries with it an implication that I cannotlogically condone. A crime has been committed,

but it has been mainly one of negligence, and one

without an isolated perpetrator. This is the

difference between a story (i.e. a conspiracy

theory) and a rational policy assessment.

Punishment is fleeting; pain is temporary; pride is

forever. Love, however, my dearest friends, isabsolutely and undeniably eternal. Throw it all out,

and start again with the greatest of loves:

empathy.

While cannabis isnot harmful in any useful

sense of the word, the prohibition of cannabis


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does have measurable, manifestly destructive

consequences. It represents the arbitrary

subtraction of a personal liberty in a misguided

attempt to patrol the health and consciousness of

every American, smoker or not. Prohibition makessubjects out of citizens, and prisoners out of

otherwise-upstanding Americans; on this

ideological intrusion upon Madame Justices

necessarily impartial nature I might rightly

consider resting our case. But a full rebuttal is

required here.

Prohibition places an unconscionable burden

on both minority groups and Americas young men

and women: two of our most valuableand

vulnerablepopulations. Even if cannabis were

equally deleterious in its effect on the human body

as heroin, for example, we would still be

compelled to reassess our approach to its legality,as the capricious and authoritarian nature of

prohibition eats away at the structural integrity of

the United States; its acid is our fear and its

panacea rational empathy. I did not forget to

mention our friends in other nations who suffer in


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the name of our policy. Their voices already tug on

our heartstrings; sweet, now silent to maintain our

silly sameness.

This book does constitute a direct challenge

to this ancient ban, but not to the authority of the

Executive Branch; it should be considered an

urgent appeal instead. I have been careful to

marshal my facts as accurately and concisely as

possible, and I intend on making my case using

evidence alone, a claim which my opponents

cannot truthfully stake. At the risk of incurring the(well-armed) wrath of any number of brave and

underappreciated federal agencies, I could no

longer stand idly by as a century of scientific

perversion is used to uphold an unmistakably

immoral law. It may come to light that I am a

future physician, and I carry the mantle with

blushing pride, always attempting to avoid thesame hubris which has propagated prohibition. I

consider this book equally as my duty to science,

as well as my country.

The war which gave us the very term

authoritarian ushered in a new era of legal


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responsibility on the national level. No longer

would murderers be exonerated under the

pretense of following orders, and an

international mandate for reasoned dissent even

among the most traditional of institutions wasborn. It was science that originally tugged at my

conscience, but the palpable notion that seems to

pervade the public consciousnesses, just below the

surface of mainstream discourse, is what has

sustained my efforts. That gut feelinga way of

thinking I usually take great pains to avoidwas

summarized shortly after the beginning of this

nations firstfailed experiment withprohibition by

H.L. Mencken, when he lamented that The land

rocks with the scandal.

It would be very easy to dismiss this book as

yet another in a long line of stoner manifestos

looking to stick it to the man. I have alreadyexplained that I found no evidence of any man

to which anything might be stuck. I therefore ask

that you dismiss this notion ab initio. The problem

is more diffuse than any conspiracy could possibly

account for, but the repugnant odor of prohibition


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is by no means ethereal. The unprecedented

length of cannabis prohibition has permitted a

profound national apathya crippling lack of

emotion which Horace Greely referred to as a

living oblivionto take root: Why should I care?I dont even smoke! Even those who fall into this

category have been gravely wounded by

prohibition. Our drug policy, with special regard to

cannabis, is the laughingstock of the international

scientific community, and it has done irreparable

harm to the trust that should exist between the

federal government and the citizens whom it exists

to serve and protect. The trillions of tax dollars

wasted are of secondary importance, though this

is the yarn spun publicly; a devastating shame.

Prohibition may well be the most egregious

incursions on individual liberty in the history our

nation, but its most insidious consequence hasbeen to instill a customary attitude of subversion

for the law in the minds of more than three full

generations of Americans; this is its gravest sin and

its foulest legacy. An incredulous civilian

population has been unwillingly pitted against


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their fellow citizens, as often-begrudging keepers

of the peace are forced to imprison those who

disobey a self-evidently victimless crime. The term

War on Drugs is kicked about so casually that I

wince internally every time I hear it. Within thisstruggle are very real belligerents and very real

casualties.

I hope that my intentions are not

misunderstood. This is not a long-winded polemic

seeking to indict the law or the system as

though such generalities have any practicalapplication. I respect the rights bestowed upon us

by the Constitution far too greatly to allow such a

gross miscarriage of justice to continue unchecked.

We owe it to those who swore to protect us

many of whom lost their lives in the effortto

straighten our spines, clear our throats, and

resoundingly confess We were wrong. And thegenerations before us were wrong. But we will

persevere. We must.

The best components of nationalism are

pride in laws and institutions, and prohibition

makes a dismal charade out of the very idea of


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American justice. There is a temptation to retreat

into the illusive comfort of tradition and

consensus, but this only encourages the licking of

wounds and the concealing of shame; two selfish

habits of little constructive value. It will beimportant to embrace the awkward and repulsive

millstone that prohibition has yoked us with, so

that we might fully understand it and

consequently rid ourselves of this generational

burden.

Thomas Paine wrote that a long habit of notthinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial

appearance of being right, and raises at first a

formidable outcry in defence of custom. This oft-

used quip from Paines scintillating introduction is

so blindingly salient in its relation to our modern

debates on drug policy, that without context one

could be fooled into thinking Paine had actuallybeen writing a pamphlet on the tyranny of

temperance rather than the absurdity of

leadership by birthright. In the final calculation, it

becomes apparent that prohibition is not the

inviolate monolith that it seems, but rather a


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loosely-networked litany of half-truths and

complete fabrications, pasted together in slap-

dash fashion by unscrupulousbut more often

simply apatheticindividuals, who cared more for

themselves than for the health of their homeland.The argument from tradition is one of the

easiest logical fallacies to which one can fall victim,

and the entire family tree of prohibitionist

arguments take its root, in some form or another,

in this familiar corruption of logic. The repeal of

cannabis prohibition is a debt owed to those who

came before us and, maybe more importantly, to

every future generation of Americans.

I freely admit that tackling prohibition is

downright frightening. The debate will bear

witness to cartoonish stereotypes, outright

mockery, and probably open hostility. But the

Constitution is what protects the individual from

governmental overreach, so the responsibility of

ensuring its continued integrity falls as equally

upon those in power as it does the citizenry from

which that power is exclusively derived. There will

always be a reason to delay. Defeated parties


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often regress to the time is not ripe argument, a

flustered attempt at succoring a guilty conscience.

The prohibition of cannabis, so imprudently

signed into law almost immediately after alcohol

prohibition was repealedincidental insanity in

distilled formis one of the blackest marks on our

history, and addressing it as such would go a long

way toward creating a sane set of drug laws. The

use of cannabis, like the use of alcohol and

tobacco, is not immoral in and of itself, but

disallowing its use most certainly is. We havereached an inflection point in our discussion of

mind-altering substances, and the removal of our

timorous cannabis legislation requires nothing less

than a full resection. Only in this way can anything

resembling logical progression be expected.

This time we refuse to march to the

drumbeat of war. This time, our standards stay

clean, unsullied by partisan hackery and scientific

ignorance. The primary existential injunctive of

physicians is always, Primum non nocere: First do

no harm. Do not mistake this for petty non-

interventionalism. Those who study and live the


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practice of medicine must be the ones who

regulate the industry; our police are better served

elsewhere. It is time to resolutely reject arbitrary

and capricious domestic tyranny. Demand

Resolution, and never again Prohibition.

Best Wishes For Our Future,

Jim


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Prologue

Any good debate begins with a reasonable

set of ground rules, so in the interest of

completeness, I submit the following. There are

many arguments which logically support the re-

legalization of cannabis, and a few very poor

arguments which support our current stance.

There are also several arguments which I do not

believe have a place in this discussion at all. The

first of these extraneous arguments is the

Economics Argument which holds that the re-legalization of cannabis would have a profoundly

positive effect on our ailing economy. The benefits

of creating, wholesale, an entirely new market for

trade should be self-evident, so this argument will

only be addressed here. Any casual student of

economics sees the enormous potential for

economical growth, and these arguments can beleft to experts in this field.

The second argument which will not be

addressed is the Argument from Morals

occasionally taking the form of religiously-oriented

protests against re-legalization. To religious


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adherents who support continued Prohibition, I

ask that, after reading the entire book, you

consider the full scope of damage which our

intrusive policies have wrought, and reassess

whether Prohibition or Resolution is actually closerin theory and practice to the tenets of your faith.

Secondarily on this subject, while I support and

defend the rights of believers to practice as they

see fit, I find it equally important that ecclesiastical

decisions never interfere with civil law or, at a

more base level, personal liberty. If a believer

chooses not to smoke, obviously the right is theirs.

Tolerating religious restrictions on persons of

other faiths or no faith is an entirely different, and

unacceptable, proposition.

The final argument which has no merit is one

which surprisingly gets a lot of air-time and is

frequently touted by the DEA, the ONDCP, andother regulators of illicit substances. This is the

Potency Argument and it allegesmaybe

truthfullythat since cannabis is much stronger

than it was in the 1970s that its not your fathers

weed and should be approached with caution. As


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I will discuss shortly, cannabis has no lethal dose,

unlike many common medications like aspirin

(which results in tens of thousands of deaths each

year). The only consequence of stronger cannabis

is that users would have to smoke less plantmatter overall, thus protecting lung function in a

very simple way. Whether or not this argument is

forwarded as a legitimate concern or simply as a

canard (more likely) it is baseless in its allegations,

and dubious in how strength has been measured

over the years. It will not be addressed more than

it already has been here.

As a gesture of good faith, I would like to

cede a position which some proponents of re-

legalizationI will refer to them as resolvers from

here on outhave erroneously forwarded. Some

hold that newspaper magnate William Randolph

Hearst was involved in a conspiracy (in associationwith the DuPont family, depending on the telling)

to outlaw cannabis in an effort to corner the

market on printable materials, namely in assuring

that wood pulp would be the dominant material of

paper manufacturing into perpetuity. While


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Hearts newspapers may have run some explicitly

racist headlines and articles, I found no substantial

evidence that this was part of anything more

sinister than a shrewd businessman triangulating a

profitable position based on established fears andplainly-visible market trends. Hearst may well have

been both racist and interested in keeping

cannabis illegal for the sake of profit, but the

evidence for any kind of back-room dealings is so

scant that it may as well be considered


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The Damage

I claimed that no evidence exists for the

dangers that cannabis poses, and this is true

physiologically, psychologically, and in regard to

society as a whole. Ill take the evidence in reverse

order, as the effects on society have been so

devastating that they deserve attention above any

possible medical ramifications of inhaling cannabis

smoke. One only has to look at the federal

agencies which are nearly bursting at the seams

with money reaped from self-sustaining evidenceseizure which actually takes the form of federal

police literally confiscating the money from the

pockets of patients at state medical dispensaries.

These are legitimate and legal medical

establishments, mind you, though the Executive

Branch occasionally forgets the en vogue states

rights argument when convenience is tooconvincing. The money is bloody and greasy, and

its odor so repugnant as to be unbearable to any

lover of liberty. In May of2010, the Seattle Weekly

ran a piece explaining that police took $80 cash

from a 9-year-old girls Mickey Mouse wallet in


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one of these infamous trash-and-dash faux-sting

operations. What could I write that would

exemplify the horror and cruelty of Prohibition

than this under-reported and absolutely shameful

act of civil savagery?

Overall, the War on Drugs has cost an

estimated $2 trillion, a staggering amount

compared to the piddling $700 million Congress

saw fit to retract from National Public Radio. The

DEA itself has an annual budget of $2.5 billion

which is so clearly a waste of money that wordsseem to fail me. Add to this cocktail the individual

lives ruined and we have ourselves a senselessly

swarthy potion. Imagine being arrested three

times for cannabis possession (again, a clearly

victimless crime) and, on the fourth go-around,

you are imprisoned for life. A life in prison is no life

at all, and the suffering of one of these poorindividuals weighs heavily upon our collective

conscience, whether or not we choose to

acknowledge them.

Robin Spottedcrow, a mother from

Kingfisher, OK, was handed a 10-year prison


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sentence for selling $31 worth of cannabis to a

police informant. Entrapment or not, the suffering

this woman has endured at the hands of

unscrupulous lawmakers (more breakers) is

chillingly Orwellian. Cannabis prohibition truly issensory prohibition, and it was not just a literal

authoritarian regime that we were warned against.

Rejecting 1984 in 2012 must be one of our main

priorities. There are no boogey men, but grey suits

can be just as terrifying. Lawrence Krauss put it

perfectly when he claimed that there is no size

pre-requisite for tyranny. What we can see are

well-armed paramilitary groups barging into

legitimate and licensed medical practices; this

must cease immediately.

There is a measurable way to assess the

damage Prohibition has done; not quite an

equation, but a metric for equality it can be. Thethree variables are Users, Preventers, and Liberty;

the balance between these has been skewed and

skewered so that Users vastly outnumber

Preventers, and Liberty is lost almost completely in

the tussle. This is why the United States currently


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has the highest prison population in the world.

Second place goes to Rwanda. Minorities are ten

times as likely to be imprisoned rendering

Prohibition, almost impossibly, just that much

more insidious. Beneath the civilized veneer of ourdusty legal system lies the ever-present threat of

arms. How can a legal maneuver called rational

review possibly stand up for itself when the little

guy is threatened by unprecedented firepower?

Cannabis smokers are allegedly not a protected

class but a law which persecuted drinkers

would be just as unwelcome as the ban against

smokers is.

Jazz musicians in the 1920s referred to

fellow musicians who enjoyed cannabis as vipers

and those who preferred alcohol as lushes. The

lushes have been allowed to flourish while the

vipers heads have been crushed under theunyielding jackboot of an embarrassing number of

paramilitary organizations ready to kick down the

doors of otherwise-upstanding citizens. This is

what I mean when I call Prohibition a charade. We

pretend to honor the heroes who have perished in


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the line of duty with flowery parades while

steadfastly refusing to address the rotten core of

chronic miscalculation. We have to choose one of

two options: either we impose stricter penalties

for users and dealers--similar to Singapore orMalaysia--or we act adult and assume that

individuals can best decide what is proper to put in

their own bodies. Our interdiction efforts have

served only to galvanize criminals into submarine-

piloting super villains, the ugliest capitalism the

world has ever seen. The total damage of

Prohibition is self-evident to any citizen, and to

pretend otherwise is to spit in the face of great

men who have fought for our collective and joyous

freedom.


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Think of the Children

I must address the concerns for children

smoking cannabis. No serious resolver would

suggest that a child should be given cannabis in

any form. Since love for children is such a

profoundly deep emotion, my first argument will

demonstrate why legal cannabis is substantially

safer for Americas than the illegal brand which

currently dominates the market. I hope by

addressing this very crucial topic I can exemplify in

embryo why Prohibition is so deeply disturbing.Consider a brief thought experiment: twin

brothers are sent to study at the same college,

taking identical courses and working towards the

same degree. Imagine, however, that one brother

is a renowned and talented drinker while the other

chooses to abstain from drink completely and

instead enjoys the occasional cannabis cigarette--

usually called a joint. Though the drinking brother

might be a complete scoundrel in school, the

worst offense he can be convicted of is underage

drinking. If the smoking brother is caught with one

of his joints, his future may be forever ruined.


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Depending on the amount he is caught with, he

could be convicted of a felony, his student loans

might be rescinded, and he might forever be

barred from entering the military. I have not yet

presented the evidence for cannabis safety whencompared to alcohol, but the disparity between

punishments for two similarly intoxicating

substances is so grossly indecent that it may begin

setting off alarm bells in the back of your mind.

This brings up the two contrasting concepts

of gatekeeper and dealer. The first is a type oflicensed specialist, in place to ensure that

intoxicating substances are only served to adults

those who society deems fit to make conscious,

rational decisions about their own health. The

other is simply an individual purely interested in

profiting from the sale of an illicit substance. The

gentleman at the gas station who asks for IDbefore an individual purchases tobacco or alcohol

is a deterrent to underage sales, while dealers, on

the other hand, have no interest or need in asking

for personal identification, rendering efforts to

curb sales to children doomed to fail before they


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have even begun. In other words, to a dealer, the

money of a 12-year-old is just as good as that of a

21-year-old. It has always struck me how obvious

this disparity is, and how foolishly the argument

for the children is often used for purposes whichdirectly contradict prohibitionists purported goals.

If children are to avoid cannabis, then attempting

to turn dealers into gatekeepers should be

considered a critical stepping-stone in this

movement.

Two of the most important fundamentalrights are not even listed in the Constitution. Every

citizen in a republic is entitled to dignity and

propriety, essentially protection of your person as

well as your name. Prohibition defames individuals

unto the status of numbered convicts; a scarlet

letter for a victimless crime. Are these the lessons

that our children should be taught? To this alreadysignificant abrogation of basic rights, one must

consider the ramifications of the prevalence of

quickly-banned synthetic cannabis substitutes.

Presently, much of South America has been

wracked with the horrors of a new drug called Oxi.


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It is a mixture of cocaine paste, gasoline, kerosene

and quicklime and this addictive hallucinogen is

much cheaper even than crack cocaine, and

reportedly much more powerful.1

These back-alley concoctions are much more

dangerous than cannabis, and we have historical

medical evidence of the danger that synthetic

substances pose. The Case of a the Frozen Junkies

is a 1995 book by J. William Langston which

describes the horrific side effects of a type of

synthetic heroin known as MTPT.

2

This back-alleypotion is now known to interfere with the

production of dopamine, a lack of which induces

Parkinsons-like symptoms. For those junkies

who were unfortunate enough to have ingested

the substance more than a handful of times, they

eventually became completely deaf, dumb and

immobile. They became literal prisoners in their

1Oxi: Twice as powerful as crack cocaine at just a fraction of the price, the

Guardian, May 30, 2011, sec. Society,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/30/oxi-crack-cocaine-south-

america.

2J. William Langston and Jon Palfreman, The Case of the Frozen Addicts

(Pantheon, 1995).


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own barely-functioning bodies. The modern

equivalent to this nightmare scenario is the

synthetic cannabis which has flooded our dry

market. Often made from derivatives of the

nightshade family of plants, these abysmalsubstitutes are responsible for an increasing

amount of deadly emergency room visits from

young Americans.3

The nation-wide coalition of young

Americans who support Resolution, Students for

Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) have as their bylineThe War on Drugs is a War on Us. While they are

certainly correct in their assessment that

Prohibition unjustly yokes young Americans with

the brunt of our decrepit burden, the Us to

which they prefer is actually a much larger group;

everyone. The lessons we teach via Prohibition are

as outdated as the blue laws which litter our tiredtomes of justice. There is no argument as to

3Duluth ER doctor disputes notion of harmless synthetic marijuana,MPR

News, n.d., http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/12/05/duluth-

synthetic-marijuana/.


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whether Prohibition or Resolution is more harmful

to Americas youth.

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 cannabis that prohibitionists

frequently deride. Arguments regarding the plantitself can be generally classified into the following

sentiments:

1.) Cannabis is harmful to human health.

2.) Cannabis is bad for society.

3.) Cannabis 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 cannabis to

another substance with similar qualities, and


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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.4 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

4Jamie 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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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 andsoil 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 oflead 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 of78%. For a point of


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reference, CDC considers 10 g/dL of lead to be an

elevated blood level and cause for concern.

More insidiously, lead has an especially

pronounced effect on children. Levels of just 10

g/dL have been shown to cause a four point dropin IQ.

5 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 time is statistically indicative of violent

crime rates: as atmospheric/blood lead increased,

so did violent crime.6 While the exact mechanism

5

Lanphear, 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 ChildrensIntellectual Function: An International Pooled Analysis"EnvironmentalHealth Perspectives.Volume 113 Issue 7 pp.894-899.

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

6Jessica Wolpaw Reyes Environmental Policy as Social Policy? The

Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime Sep. 25, 2007.The B.E.Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy.Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 7(1)


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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 thiscorrelationwhich was statistically significant

has 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 cannabis 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


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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 tohuman 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 cannabis abuse. Henry Anslinger

was feeding Congress racist lies to further hiscareer 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 drive home fat

and happy, stuffed full of moralizing gibberish


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from their favorite drug-obsessed bigot, they

unwittingly topped off their mad tea party by

squirting toxic flatulence into the atmosphere

and 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 cannabis smoking was

an epidemic, and it need to be outlawed

immediately. While the man at the very top ofenforcing 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


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a dope fiend was doing far more harmand

measurably sothan any amount of cannabis 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 cannabis prohibition is nearlyunrivaled in both scope and absurdity.


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The Year of the Locus

This book has been relatively short, and the

decisions we make from this point forward need to

be quick and decisive. We have run out of room

for error in this matter. In 1937, the Marijuana Tax

Act was passed. While some bills regarding

cannabis production and distribution were passed

before, and many after, I simply cant express the

ridiculous nature of the evidence submitted for

Congressional approval for this specific piece of

legislation. One witness, a pharmacologist fromTemple University claimed that cannabis turned

him into vulture. That is not a joke, and you can

find the full text at druglibrary.org. This is the only

external source of information you require for a

complete rebuttal of prohibition. I strongly

encourage everyone reading to take a moment

and peruse the sources provided at your pleasure;you will find the evidence as outstanding as I

claim.

Seventy-five years later, we stand at yet

another critical inflection point. Do we continue on

a path like Singapore, where drug smugglers are


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murdered by the state, or do we choose sanity?

The correct answer has been apparent for over

seven decades. I strongly believe that hope and

change are finally coming.

nothing left to talk about

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