U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has proposed loosening the illegal status of marijuana at the federal level — but that doesn’t mean the federal government now condones recreational or medicinal use in the many states that have legalized the drug…
— from an article by Jacob Fischler on Colorado Newsline, May 9, 2024.
We’ve come a long way, baby, since U.S. President Richard Nixon, on June 17, 1971, declared marijuana — and a number of other chemical agents commonly known as “drugs” — to be “public enemy number one.”
“In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive. […] This will be a worldwide offensive. […] It will be government-wide […] and it will be nationwide.”
There’s hardly anything more exciting than an all-out war. If you can make the war last 50 years, all the better. And worldwide.
But here in Colorado, I guess we just got tired of fighting, and losing. We voted to legalize the medical use of marijuana in 2000, and the recreational use in 2012. Here in Pagosa Springs, you can drive down to the edge of town, walk into a retail establishment, and buy as much marijuana as you want.
Be careful, though. The stuff is pretty powerful these days. If you smoked a whole joint, like the lady in the photo above seems liable to do, you will likely devour every single snack food in your kitchen.
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed? Several of the aisles in our local grocery store feature nothing but snack foods. I don’t think that was the case in 1971. Maybe the war went further off track than we realized.
Now we hear, from Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office, that marijuana is being reclassified, from a Schedule I substance (similar to heroin) to a Schedule III substance (similar to Tylenol with Codeine.). The Department of Justice has not released the text of Garland’s proposal, but it sounds suspiciously like the federal government is waving the white flag. Finally.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Does this marijuana reclassification have anything to do with the upcoming November election? Is Joe Biden trying to harvest votes from drug-addicted enemies?
Apparently, Republican candidate Donald Trump has not issued a statement opposing, or supporting, Garland’s proposal. Best to say nothing, probably. Just keep talking instead about other, more important problems, like Stormy Daniels.
I occasionally read the news (which is how I heard about the Attorney General’s announcement) and it seems like the drug providers who are actually killing people are big pharmaceutical companies like Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and McKesson. But this is war, as President Nixon explained. People are going to be killed. If pharmaceutical companies decide to do the killing, well, I guess that’s to be expected.
Actually, the women who have come a long ways, and can now smoke marijuana without going to jail, might be addicts, and thus, might be viewed as enemies. But probably not. If you read information coming from the federal government, you’d conclude that cannabis is highly addictive. If you read information coming from the Colorado marijuana industry, you’d feel perfectly safe sharing a joint with an attractive woman. Safe, in terms of getting addicted to cannabis, I mean. You could certainly get addicted to attractive women, but that’s an entirely different problem.
Long before anyone dreamed of a War on Drugs, we already had the War of the Sexes. (eg. Stormy Daniels.)
The War of the Sexes is now better understood as the War of the Genders. I’ve struggled a bit, trying to understand how “sex” became “gender”. Maybe my confusion will result in an interesting humor column someday.
I want to believe that women who smoke marijuana are not my enemies. In fact, I truly believe we don’t need to fight a war, of any kind. Except maybe against pharmaceutical companies.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Ron Wyden of Oregon reintroduced a bill last week to de-schedule cannabis altogether. The measure includes expanding the 280E tax break and several provisions meant to address social justice.
We’re all in favor of tax breaks. Social justice, too?
Social justice seems to imply that everybody has access to marijuana, equally. Sounds good to me.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.