3rd Generation Kennedy Fears End of Prohibition Might Lead to People Making Lots of Money

Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)
has just published an
op-ed in Ozy titled, “What No One is Saying about
Marijuana,” where he sounds the alarm that “Addiction is big
business, and with legal marijuana it’s only getting
bigger.”

A
recidivist drug and alcohol abuser (who has miraculously
avoided jail time despite committing crimes while under
the influence that would send lesser mortals to prison on felony
convictions) arguing for the continued imprisonment of adults
choosing to responsibly consume a substance is rich in its own
right. But for a third-generation Kennedy to argue against ending
marijuana prohibition because major profits will be made off of it
is head-exploding irony and hypocrisy.

Perhaps the ex-Congressman missed the just-concluded
final season of Boardwalk Empire, which included a major
subplot depicting his grandfather, Joseph P. Kennedy, shrewdly
anticipating the end of alcohol prohibition and getting in on the
ground floor of legally importing liquor into the United States.
With that one move, the politically connected and ruthlessly
ambitious Kennedy patriarch built the fortune which to this day
affords the Kennedy scion the ability to avoid both work and
prison. 

In today’s op-ed, Kennedy’s greatest fears for a world without
marijuana prohibition are “Big Tobacco” swooping in and profiting
off the newly legalized substance with a potentially huge consumer
base, and that the “mainstreaming” of marijuana will harm
the mental health of the nation’s youth. He
writes: 

I’ve spent the last several years after leaving Congress
advocating for a health care system that treats the brain like it
does any other organ in the body. Effective mental health care,
especially when it comes to children, is critically important.
Knowing what we now know about the effects of marijuana on the
brain, can we really afford to ignore its consequences in the name
of legalization? Our No. 1 priority needs to be protecting our kids
from this emerging public health crisis. The rights of pot smokers
and the marijuana industry end where our children’s health
begins.

Citing one study tying
marijuana with mental illness, Kennedy not only goes nowhere
near the effects
of alcohol on mental health, he makes no
mention of the billions of dollars spent on marketing alcohol to
youths, merely lamenting that when “Big Tobacco” becomes “Big
Marijuana,” they will surely “target our kids and profit from
addiction.”

Essentially, a man who owes his money, power, and freedom to
profits made off of selling the
most toxic and deadly drug in existence, wants people to
continue to be locked up for recreational drug use, lest other rich
people make money off of selling drugs. 

For more on “The Patriarch” and the booze business that enables
a grandson’s passion for prohibition, watch this Reason TV
interview with Joseph P. Kennedy biographer David Nasaw: