During his recent
interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, President Obama
falsely claimed that reclassifying marijuana would require
an act of Congress, whereupon Tapper asked whether he would favor
that change. But Obama did not want to answer that question, so
instead he said this:
I stand by my belief—based, I think, on the scientific
evidence—that marijuana, for casual users, individual users, is
subject to abuse, just like alcohol is, and should be treated as a
public health problem and challenge. But as I said in the
interview, my concern is when you end up having very heavy criminal
penalties for individual users that have been applied unevenly and
in some cases with a racial disparity. I think that is a
problem.Over the long term, what I believe is if we can deal with some
of the criminal penalty issues, then we can really tackle what is a
problem not only for marijuana but also alcohol, also cigarettes,
also harder drugs, and that is try to make sure that our kids don’t
get into these habits in the first place. And the incarceration
model that we’ve taken, particularly around marijuana, does not
seem to have produced the kinds of results that we’ve set.
Here Obama conflates drug use with drug abuse, adults with
children, and penalties for marijuana possession with penalties for
marijuana productiion and distribution. Since each of those
distinctions is an important prerequisite for an intelligent
conversation about drug policy, let’s consider them one at a time.
Obama correctly observes that marijuana, “just like alcohol”
(and every other drug or source of pleasure), “is subject to
abuse.” That implies, contrary to what the Drug Enforcement
Administration claims, that not all marijuana use is abuse. As I
argue in my book
Saying Yes, equating use with abuse is the sort of
definition that obliterates meaning. Like alcohol, marijuana
can be used in a moderate, controlled, responsible way, a way that
does not harm the user or anyone else. To the contrary, that kind
of use is life-enhancing: It brings people pleasure, helps them
relax, enhances enjoyment of other experiences, and so on—all
without hurting anyone.
Yet in his recent
interview with The New Yorker, the same one in which
he
conceded that marijuana is safer than alcohol, Obama called pot
smoking “a bad habit and a vice.” In the CNN interview, he called
it a “public health problem.” Nonsense. Marijuana consumption not
only is not, properly speaking, a public health problem (keeping in
mind the distinction
between risks people voluntarily accept and risks imposed on them
by others); it is not even, by and large, a problem. In the vast
majority of cases, it is a harmless pleasure and therefore a
good habit, not “a bad habit and a vice.” The same goes
for drinking—although, as Obama notes, the possibility of harm is
greater with alcohol.
The ultimate aim of treating drug use as a public health
problem, Obama says, is to “make sure that our kids don’t get into
these habits in the first place.” But concerns about underage
access should not become an excuse for treating adults like
children. Grownups have a right to “get into these habits” if they
want to, which means they should not be punished for doing so. In
fact, it is hard to see why they should even be criticized for
doing so, provided their habits are temperate.
Although I reject the idea that marijuana is a “public health
problem,” I recognize that such rhetoric often implies a less
punitive approach, as Obama’s concern about “criminal penalty
issues” illustrates. The problem is that he mistakenly implies
marijuana users face “very heavy criminal penalties” and does not
address marijuana growers or sellers at all. Don’t misunderstand
me: It is absurd and unjust that police
arrest hundreds of thousands of Americans for marijuana
possession every year. There is no reason why people who have
violated no one’s rights should be subjected to the humiliation,
inconvenience, and expense of an arrest, not to mention the lasting
consequences of a criminal conviction. That injustice is especially
disturbing given how racially skewed pot busts are: The ACLU
calculates that blacks are about four times as likely to be
arrested for possession as whites, even though they are no more
likely to smoke pot.
It is nevertheless incorrect to suggest that many people are
serving long prison terms merely for possessing small amounts of
marijuana. A drug warrior can respond to Obama’s argument that pot
smokers should not be subject to “very heavy criminal penalties”
with an easy retort: They’re not. Meanwhile, the growers and
distributors who are subject to such penalties are swept
under the rug. That way Obama avoids addressing the moral
incoherence of decriminalizing demand but not supply: If actually
smoking pot should not be treated as a crime, then why should it be
a crime merely to help people smoke pot, let alone a crime that can
send you to prison for
the rest of your life?
The usual answer to that question treats consumers as victims of
predatory suppliers—even when they do not perceive themselves that
way, even when they seek out the product, eagerly consume it, and
come back for more. (In fact, if you believe that certain chemicals
have the power to enslave people who consume them, this eagerness
is evidence that drug users cannot control their consumption and
must be coerced into abstinence for their own good.) Judging from
his musings about the consequences of legalizing marijuana, Obama
subscribes to this view of consumers as mindless
automatons:
Those who think legalization is a panacea, I think they have to
ask themselves some tough questions too, because if we start having
a situation where big corporations with a lot of resources and
distribution and marketing arms are suddenly going out there
peddling marijuana, then the levels of abuse that may take place
are going to be higher.
First of all, who are these people who “think legalization is a
panacea”? I have never met them, and I spend a lot of time talking
to drug policy reformers. The activists I have met do not say
legalization is a panacea; they say it is better than prohibition.
I thought that was the question we were discussing.
In any event, Obama offers, as a possible reason why
legalization might be worse than prohibition, that legalization
would allow “big corporations” with big ad budgets to sell
marijuana. I know that anti-pot activists like Kevin Sabet
think we should all be terrified by that prospect, but it
sounds pretty good to me. My life is a lot better in many respects
thanks to big corporations with big ad budgets, and if I don’t like
what they’re selling, I can always say no. The scary connotations
of “Big Marijuana” are based on a critique of capitalism that
denies consumer sovereignty, portraying people as incapable of
judging their own interests or resisting come-ons for stuff they
don’t want.
I don’t buy it.
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