Are we sick enough yet?
Users of medical marijuana took some blows recently, and not just from their vaporizers.
On June 6, the United States Supreme Court upheld federal authority over marijuana, even in states where its use for medical purposes is legal. On June 15, the U.S. House of Representatives defeated, by a vote of 161-264, an amendment that would have stopped the executive branch from arresting and prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers.
I’m not a big fan of medical marijuana legislation because marijuana prohibition is much more than just medical abuse. It’s an affront to our health, enterprise and environment. It is also an insult to human rights because it violates, among other things, the rights of people over their own bodies and property.
One of the most important human rights issues involving marijuana concerns the power of government over plants grown for private, personal and non-commercial uses. If government has the legitimate authority to outlaw people growing marijuana for themselves, then theoretically nothing can stop it from outlawing any and all foods, herbs and the like in our gardens - including the gardens themselves. The power to destroy one plant is the power to destroy all of them.
I have combed Indiana’s two constitutions, and there simply isn’t any authority given to bullies who don’t like the fruits of gardening. Whether in 1816 or 1851, the idea of government telling agrarians what NOT to grow would have been considered egregious - just as it should be today.
But today, in contrast, we debate on what grounds government agents can enter our states and our homes to jail us and confiscate our property for their anti-plant programs. Today Indiana’s senior senator opposes marijuana, though he calls himself a farmer. Our other U.S. senator is a former user of the beloved thistle.
Medically, marijuana is used to fight nausea from chemotherapy, to gain hunger against wasting-away syndrome, and to fight some kinds of cancer. Its seeds are the most complete plant source of essential fatty acids, which are the key to healthy hearts.
The plant also has the strongest tensile fiber of any plant, making it a source of durable cloth, paper and building materials, without cutting down trees. It can readily be converted to methanol and biomass fuels. Government’s prohibition of marijuana has ensured our dependence on pharmaceuticals, synthetics, trees and fossil fuels. Thanks prohibitionists!
I’m for treating marijuana as we do tomatoes. I don’t know if you call that legalizing the plant or decriminalizing it, but I think our constitutions guarantee people the exercise of such natural God-given rights as putting a seed in the ground, watering it and watching it grow for their own use - whether it becomes a tomato, a marijuana plant or a Chia Pet. And I believe that people have a right to use reasonable force to protect their plants and other property from people who wish to take them.
This is antithetical to the medical marijuana movement. Proponents for medical marijuana advocate that sick people should ask government-licensed medical agents for permission to purchase and use plants over which government has no inherent jurisdiction. That’s a backward and ineffective way to argue for the rights of people, particularly sick people.
Asking government for permission to use marijuana is like asking government for permission to eat tomatoes. We would laugh in the governor’s face if he told us we needed a prescription to buy Brandywines, Early Girls and Romas, yet we don’t even blink when our state legislature denies doctors power to prescribe marijuana and when 750,000 Americans - a fraction of American users - are arrested each year for illegally possessing the plant.
Even wackier is that some state governments would force the sick to get their marijuana prescriptions from doctors. During my entire life, the medical industry and government has conspired to keep doctors ignorant and misinformed about the plant.
The bottom line is that no one should have to be sick to use marijuana, and no one should have to ask government’s permission to grow anything in his or her own garden. But prohibitionists have convinced most of us that our society is different than that when our constitutions were written, and therefore our unalienable rights should be different also.
On June 6, the United States Supreme Court upheld federal authority over marijuana, even in states where its use for medical purposes is legal. On June 15, the U.S. House of Representatives defeated, by a vote of 161-264, an amendment that would have stopped the executive branch from arresting and prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers.
I’m not a big fan of medical marijuana legislation because marijuana prohibition is much more than just medical abuse. It’s an affront to our health, enterprise and environment. It is also an insult to human rights because it violates, among other things, the rights of people over their own bodies and property.
One of the most important human rights issues involving marijuana concerns the power of government over plants grown for private, personal and non-commercial uses. If government has the legitimate authority to outlaw people growing marijuana for themselves, then theoretically nothing can stop it from outlawing any and all foods, herbs and the like in our gardens - including the gardens themselves. The power to destroy one plant is the power to destroy all of them.
I have combed Indiana’s two constitutions, and there simply isn’t any authority given to bullies who don’t like the fruits of gardening. Whether in 1816 or 1851, the idea of government telling agrarians what NOT to grow would have been considered egregious - just as it should be today.
But today, in contrast, we debate on what grounds government agents can enter our states and our homes to jail us and confiscate our property for their anti-plant programs. Today Indiana’s senior senator opposes marijuana, though he calls himself a farmer. Our other U.S. senator is a former user of the beloved thistle.
Medically, marijuana is used to fight nausea from chemotherapy, to gain hunger against wasting-away syndrome, and to fight some kinds of cancer. Its seeds are the most complete plant source of essential fatty acids, which are the key to healthy hearts.
The plant also has the strongest tensile fiber of any plant, making it a source of durable cloth, paper and building materials, without cutting down trees. It can readily be converted to methanol and biomass fuels. Government’s prohibition of marijuana has ensured our dependence on pharmaceuticals, synthetics, trees and fossil fuels. Thanks prohibitionists!
I’m for treating marijuana as we do tomatoes. I don’t know if you call that legalizing the plant or decriminalizing it, but I think our constitutions guarantee people the exercise of such natural God-given rights as putting a seed in the ground, watering it and watching it grow for their own use - whether it becomes a tomato, a marijuana plant or a Chia Pet. And I believe that people have a right to use reasonable force to protect their plants and other property from people who wish to take them.
This is antithetical to the medical marijuana movement. Proponents for medical marijuana advocate that sick people should ask government-licensed medical agents for permission to purchase and use plants over which government has no inherent jurisdiction. That’s a backward and ineffective way to argue for the rights of people, particularly sick people.
Asking government for permission to use marijuana is like asking government for permission to eat tomatoes. We would laugh in the governor’s face if he told us we needed a prescription to buy Brandywines, Early Girls and Romas, yet we don’t even blink when our state legislature denies doctors power to prescribe marijuana and when 750,000 Americans - a fraction of American users - are arrested each year for illegally possessing the plant.
Even wackier is that some state governments would force the sick to get their marijuana prescriptions from doctors. During my entire life, the medical industry and government has conspired to keep doctors ignorant and misinformed about the plant.
The bottom line is that no one should have to be sick to use marijuana, and no one should have to ask government’s permission to grow anything in his or her own garden. But prohibitionists have convinced most of us that our society is different than that when our constitutions were written, and therefore our unalienable rights should be different also.
posted by Kurt St. Angelo at 3:50 AM
5 comments
