So it seems fitting that I was sitting here with my coffee reading a Globe & Mail article about California's bid to legalize marijuana. Written by an Australian professor, published in a Canadian newspaper. What a globalized world we have become...
I could go and dig up studies and anecdotes, but let's just take a step back and look at some of the classic arguments made in this article. I would like to state that although I've always been pro-legalization, I am not pro-usage necessarily. I personally treat it like alcohol. If it's legal, then it's mainstream, it's talked about, it's regulated, and when people get in over their heads, help is more readily available, instead of being available but taboo.
"...broad predictions can be made. First, openly tolerating a market in a previously illegal commodity will expand the number of users, especially if the retail price is lower than the black-market price (as is proposed in the California bill). Experience with alcohol suggests that marijuana will be available to underage users, whatever the minimum legal age. This probably means more use by more young people, and probably more daily use later into adulthood."There's a smattering of conditional language in there. Predictions "can be made", "suggests" something will happen, "probably means". I can't really fault the man for being academically hedging, since it's true that you cannot predict something will happen with absolute certainty. Still, the thing that kept striking me is: Will the usage expand in comparison with the current usage, or will it just be more visible?
I can completely see a surge in usage immediately following a legalization ruling. It's new a shiney! But it's already available to underage users, and there's no data correlating legal usage to more usage in adults.
"If current estimates are correct, around 10 per cent of users may become dependent on marijuana. Only a minority of these problem users will seek professional help to quit. Dependent marijuana users are more likely to experience road and workplace accidents, impaired performance, increased respiratory disease and exacerbations of some serious mental disorders."If you smoke up while driving a forklift, I would completely agree that you're more likely to experience a workplace accident. But are these current estimates based on the current trend of usage in already existing pot smokers? If 10% of pot users, regardless of legalization, become dependent, then I don't see that number changing just because it's legal. What I can see happening is wider available help being accessible to addicts. I can see the mythos that pot is a "non-addictive" drug being shattered, and that leading to better social understanding as to the potential dangers of pot use.
I've encountered this strange idea that it's completely wrong to drink and drive, but ok to blaze and zoom. There's so much information out there as to the dangers of alcohol usage -- I remember being bombarded in highschool with it -- that I'd like to see weed be legalized and have the same kind of campaign behind it.
Plus, let's be honest. As soon as you tell someone not to think about pink elephants, they think about pink elephants. If you tell a kid they can't have a cookie, then having that cookie is a matter worthy of a full blown temper tantrum. Remove the taboo allure, and all you have left is a recreational good time with potential pitfalls.
Everything in moderation.
