Since 2012, Marijuana has steamrolled into the forefront of our political cortex. With the majority of Americans, including Obama and a good percentage of Congress, reconsidering our country's reefer paranoia. The two states most likely to legalize marijuana for adults 21 and over are Oregon, the hippy hub of the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska, a Libertarian's winter wonderland.
But if Kevin Sabet gets his way, the war on drugs will continue to incarcerate minor drug offenders and cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. Kevin A. Sabet, dubbed the "quarterback" (read:meathead) of the new anti-drug movement by Salon Magazine, is the Director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida. He and former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy founded Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a group that focuses on marijuana's harms to young people and the threat of corporate marijuana.
Sabet told OregonLive.com, "Folks think they are voting for allowing otherwise responsible adults to grow a little bit of pot in their backyard and smoke a little weed without having the cops on their back. I don't think we fully realize as a country what we are getting into.This is not about your nice neighbor who likes to smoke a joint after work once a week," he said. "It's really about creating the next Big Tobacco, an industry that thrives off of addiction." While marijuana's addictive properties are still debated among scientists and researchers, Sabet seems to treat adult marijuana advocates as addicted consumers bent on getting stoned.
It's the children Sabet is most worried about. According to One study, released in August 2013 by the federally funded Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, marijuana use among 12 to 17-year-olds in Colorado was higher than the national average in 2011. He argues pot candies, treats, and tinctures are marketed to the younger generation in an attempt to hook 'em while they're young.
In the end, the opposition to marijuana legalization cloaks itself in science to detract from the fact they are nothing more than moral judgments on free-thinking individuals. If prohibition worked, alcohol would still be illegal and people wouldn't drive drunk and abuse their loved ones. If marijuana was half as culturally entrenched as guns, despite being responsible for zero deaths, there would be a massive lobby screaming heretic to all these claims of teenage drug addiction and corporate dangers.
Under the current regime, dope is readily available and the profits are, by and large, funneled to organized crime. While the black market would not be eradicated by legalization, it would be greatly affected. If you curtail the marginal profitability of this criminal activity, the criminal enterprises who engage in it will shrink. It's like starving a tumor. I'd rather have stoner kids growing in their attics and backyards than well-armed criminal enterprises cultivating in our wilderness areas. We're all comfortable with a certain amount of regulation -- good, bad, or evil -- but marijuana, a plant, should be the victim of it least of all.
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