The Case for Marijuana Legalization in the United States

Introduction: Lessons Not Learned from Alcohol Prohibition

Alcohol prohibition, enforced through a landmark Constitutional Amendment ratified in 1919, lasted over a decade. Not enforced through a Constitutional Amendment but by a series of legislation targeting a blanket group of narcotics, the prohibition of marijuana in the United States has lasted nearly a hundred years. Unfortunately, neither American lawmakers nor the voting public learned from the mistakes made during the era of alcohol Prohibition. Although alcohol consumption in America dropped significantly by 1921, within a few years after the 18th Amendment was passed, per-capita drinking levels rose and a thriving black market permitted the flow of alcohol around the nation (Thornton). Moreover, Prohibition did not end the moral degeneracy that temperance advocates had hoped for; rather, by pushing alcohol production, sales, and consumption underground, the American government contributed to a rise in organized crime and corruption symbolized by the Mafia and colluding law enforcement officials. The overall failure of the Prohibition Act caused Congress to reconsider and, in 1933, pass the 21st Amendment to decriminalize the production, distribution, and consumption of alcohol. Instead of following suit with moderate and realistic laws related to marijuana, American lawmakers targeted marijuana first on a state-by-state basis and later nationwide — first through the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act and later the Marihuana Tax Act, passed in 1937. The War on Drugs therefore began as Prohibition ended. Cynics could easily argue that law enforcement needed an easy scapegoat to compensate for the repeal of alcohol prohibition.

Like alcohol, marijuana has been used as a mind-altering substance throughout the world since the beginning of human civilization. However, marijuana played a far different role in European-American society than alcohol did. The wild cannabis plant provided human beings with strong fibrous rope and fabric for centuries and, known as hemp, was used functionally throughout colonial American history. So entrenched was cannabis in the early American economy that the colonial Virginia legislature mandated that farmers grow hemp in 1619; furthermore, hemp was allowed to be exchanged as legal tender in colonial Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland ("Marijuana Timeline"). Even its functional form as hemp has been overlooked in light of prohibition, and the only hemp products available on the market today are overpriced and marketed primarily toward counterculture.

As an intoxicant, marijuana played a minimal role in colonial North American society until the late nineteenth century. The blossoming of bohemian culture throughout Western Europe and the Eastern United States led to the fashionable use of intoxicants like marijuana, especially in artist and musician circles. Yet perhaps no circumstance sparked the use of marijuana in the United States as robustly as the influx of Mexican immigrants after the turn of the century. Recreational marijuana use remained confined largely to Mexican-American communities, but by the late 1920s the drug had also become popular with jazz musicians and urban bohemians, in part because it was relatively cheap (Bonnie & Whitebread).

Marijuana was therefore associated with counterculture and creativity long before hippies promoted pot during the 1960s. The prohibition on marijuana originally impacted minorities and the poor in disproportionate numbers and continues to pose an enormous problem for the poor and disenfranchised. America's War on Drugs escalated after President Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and increased penalties for marijuana-related offenses. Criminalizing marijuana has caused the American legal system to appear severely imbalanced and even ludicrous, with the majority of new convicts being non-violent offenders whose sentences often far outweigh those of murderers (Beatty, Holman & Schiraldi). A disproportionate number of poor African-Americans and other minorities serve the bulk of marijuana-related sentences, in keeping with the discriminatory standards set by the government during the 1930s. Marijuana prohibition reflects racial and class discrimination, ignorance, and poor judgment.

Schedule I Classification: Science vs. Policy

The American public was generally unaware of the existence of marijuana as an intoxicant before the anti-marijuana campaign began. Public opinion was swayed as law enforcement officials and lawmakers exaggerated the evils of marijuana by pointing to its use by "undesirable" elements of society. "To put it another way, the middle class had successfully frustrated alcohol prohibition because the public opinion process came to reflect its view that the law should not condemn intoxication," and yet "because marijuana use was primarily a lower-class phenomenon, the middle class was generally unaware of the proposed legislation" that would classify marijuana as a dangerous, even evil substance (Bonnie & Whitebread, Sect. IV).

The prohibition of marijuana was initially based on faulty evidence linking use of the drug to violent crimes. Whereas marijuana retained its value among the medical community, by 1970 it would become classified as a Schedule I narcotic — a designation many experts believe has "no rational basis" and which clearly violates the American Constitution (Hupy). Schedule I narcotics ostensibly fulfill three criteria: first, "the drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse"; second, the "drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States"; and third, "there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision." The cannabis sativa plant has therefore been grouped alongside insidious synthetic chemicals whose names most Americans cannot even pronounce. Yet research has revealed a fact that directly contradicts the DEA's classification: "No evidence exists that anyone has ever died of a marijuana overdose" ("Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Marijuana Use"). Numerous studies, disavowed outright by federal institutions, lawmakers, and government-sponsored organizations, point to the enormous potential of marijuana as a curative substance. The Schedule I classification not only categorically denies the medicinal uses of cannabis but also effectively prevents further scientific research into the drug's potential benefits.

The classification of marijuana as a Schedule I substance therefore flies in the face of scientific integrity and common sense. Recent attempts to decriminalize the medical use of marijuana in some states have drawn attention to the fact that marijuana has definite curative properties. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), one of the most vocal decriminalization organizations in the world, claims that the American Medical Association (AMA) opposed the initial ban on marijuana in the 1940s because evidence already existed as to the beneficial properties of the plant ("Medical Use"). The DEA claims that the AMA now repudiates the relevance of marijuana to the modern pharmacopoeia ("Exposing the Myth of Smoked Medical Marijuana"). It is highly likely that the current AMA opposition to medical marijuana use stems partly from mutual collusion with large pharmaceutical corporations, whose interest in a vast array of costly synthetic medicines might be threatened by patients' access to a common weed.

Conclusion: Toward Rational Reform

Marijuana is, above all, a plant. The drug is not synthetic, not processed using toxic solvents, and has never been known to cause an overdose. Banning a weed outright seems preposterous, and yet the American government has for nearly a century clamped down on the recreational use of marijuana, classifying it among the most harmful narcotic substances known. Americans have access to a wide range of potentially deadly substances, including alcohol, which is responsible for countless deaths every year due to overdose or long-term abuse. Ordinary household cleaners contain chemicals more harmful than THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. If the American public retains the right to choose which chemicals to spray on their kitchen counters or how many drinks to have after work, then they must also possess the right to choose whether to grow and possess marijuana for personal consumption.