Running head: LEGALIZE IT? 1

Legalize It?

The Past, Present and Future of Marijuana Legalization

Dustin Dye

University of Missouri-Kansas City

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Overview

Like many children who grew up in the Reagan/Bush years, I was inundated with antidrug

messages. Cartoon shows would caution against the dangers of drugs, with the president and

first lady themselves breaking in to talk directly to the young audience about the importance of

the show’s message. In elementary school a police officer came in to take over a class as part of

the D.A.R.E. program, scaring kids off all sorts of drugs and alcohol. Marijuana was considered

the most harmful drug because of its gateway properties, which leads users to seek harder

drugs for stronger highs once the addicts have built up a tolerance to the weed, rendering

marijuana far worse than its inherent properties would lead you to believe. This was the official

government stance on weed. The media reinforced that message with characters like Jeff Spicoli

in Fast Times at Ridgemont High becoming the template for the prototypical stoned loser pot

smokers inevitably turned out to be.

I learned marijuana may have medicinal properties from a John Stossel special featuring

a man who smoked to help counteract the effects of glaucoma. Given the staunchly antidrug

messaged I’d grown up on, I was skeptical of the use of medical marijuana. I figured medical

marijuana was a pretext for perennial potheads to smoke weed with semi-legal permission.

I started questioning this stance when I went in for an eye exam as a teenager.

Apparently I have the optic nerve of an advanced glaucoma patient. For some reason

optometrists can’t explain, this has no effect on my vision. Other than being slightly myopic, my

eyesight is fairly good. My optometrist wanted to do a full battery of tests, and scheduled

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specialists to examine me. This would take a few weeks to arrange. I asked jokingly, “In the

meantime, should I start smoking pot just to be on the safe side?” She replied in all seriousness,

“You know, that does help.” That a respectable medical professional wouldn’t immediately

dismiss medical marijuana, and actually condoned it, caused me to reexamine my belief

medical marijuana was just a smokescreen for smoking weed.

I chose the topic of cannabis legalization because it wasn’t something I felt particularly

strong about. I’ve had limited experience smoking pot, and don’t condemn people who do.

Having no dog in this fight, I thought it was a topic I could approach dispassionately and

consider the facts.

I chose three books and three articles that came at the topic from different angles. Two of

the books, Pot, Inc. (2012) by Greg Campbell and Weed the People (2015) by Bruce Barcott, turned

out to be so similar they might as well have been two parts of the same anthology. Both were

written by 40-something white journalists who were married with children living in legal

marijuana states (Colorado and Washington, respectively) who approached the topic

skeptically, but with an open mind. Both came to the conclusion cannabis should be legalized,

and the continued outlawing of marijuana is illogical and will continue to have negative

consequences. Both were written in a similar first-person style with chapters beginning with a

personal anecdote, then broadening the topic, before coming back to wrap up the story.

Joseph A. Califano, Jr.’s, book, High Society (2007), by contrast, is staunchly against

marijuana legalization. Like the two books above, Califano’s chapters follow a discernible

outline. They tend to start with a wild-eyed assertion, cite hundreds of statistics that supposedly

lend support to his argument, presented without context or much interpretation, then round

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out with an statement so extreme it borders on hyperbole. On page one of the book we find this

question-begging statement: “What funds terrorism, spawns crime, drives up health care costs,

breaks up families, spreads AIDS, promotes unwanted teen pregnancy, and frustrates so many

efforts to eliminate poverty?” I suppose you can keep reading the book to see if the answer is

something other than drugs. I would have liked for Califano to use more personal anecdotes

like Campbell and Barcott. Califano had worked as Special Assistant to President Lyndon B.

Johnson, and served as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Jimmy

Carter (a position from which he fails to mention he was fired because his abrasive style cost

Carter political allies). While he makes passing references to his work in public policy, the book

is largely devoid of first-hand testimony that would have at least made High Society more

entertaining.

All three articles I read were decidedly anti-legalization. Both “Medical marijuana laws

in 50 states” by Magdalena Cerda, et al. (2012), and “Correlates of intentions to use cannabis

among US high school seniors in the case of cannabis legalization” by Joseph J. Palamar, et al.

(2014), used statistical measures to demonstrate teens would be susceptible to abuse marijuana

if it were legalized. “Experimenting with Pot” was written by Colorado Governor John W.

Hickenlooper (2014). He states he was against marijuana legalization, but as the public voted for

it, his administration would uphold the will of the people. He goes on to speculate on the policy

implications legalized marijuana will bring.

Like the authors Barcott and Campbell, I approached the topic of legalizing marijuana

skeptically, but with an open mind. I was interested particularly in the history of anti-marijuana

legislation, the pros and cons of legalizing weed, and determining where policy will go from

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here. I read the literature with an eye for these aspects. I also looked for instances of one side of

the argument conceding points to the other.

History

I’ve heard a number of convoluted stories about why cannabis was originally outlawed, which

I’d previously written off as half-baked conspiracy theories. The ones I heard the most were that

it was outlawed as a pretext for arresting Mexicans, and businesses wanted to eradicate hemp

as the weed threatened the cotton and paper industries.

Surprisingly, all three books I read told the same basic outline of how anti-cannabis

legislation has arrived to where it is today, but with emphasis given to different areas. All three

authors mention the anti-Mexican aspect of the original laws against marijuana, with Campbell

giving this the most attention, and Califano mentioning and breezing over this potentially

damaging point against his stance.

Campbell recounts how Harry J. Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau

of Narcotics, led a campaign to outlaw marijuana. He was aided in this by newspaper magnate

William Randolph Hearst. Campbell suggest Hearst was hostile to all things Spanish, and used

his newspaper to propagate sensational and unverified accounts of the dangers of marijuana,

much as he had influenced the public’s opinion during the Spanish-American War (p. 53).

Anslinger, in turn, used the stories in Hearst’s papers to push for anti-marijuana legislation (p.

54-55). While the U.S. House of Representatives held hearings to obtain testimony from both

sides of the issue, the American Medical Association didn’t oppose it until the very end of the

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hearings, at which point their testimony was too little, too late. AMA’s Dr. William Woodward

claimed his colleagues didn’t realize Congress was debating cannabis. Referring to cannabis by

its then-obscure street name, “marijuana,” rather than the scientifically accepted name

prevented the AMA from intervening earlier. The AMA didn’t have sufficient time to put

together a defense for cannabis before the hearings ended (p. 55-56). Campbell also believes

Hearst and Anslinger used the Spanish word out of racist motives to associate the supposedly

dangerous drug with Mexicans, who would be considered dangerous by association.

Barcott cites other evidence of Anslinger’s racist motivation to outlaw marijuana. Citing

unsourced reports, Anslinger said: “Marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations

with Negroes. … Colored students at Univ. of Minn. partying with female students (white)

smoking and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result pregnancy.” (p.

22)

Califano recounts this history in a grand total of 87 words:

“As intolerance of illicit drug use rose, in 1930 President Herbert Hoover created the

Federal Bureau of Narcotics and named Harry Anslinger its commissioner. Anslinger became

the J. Edgar Hoover of drug control. On his watch, Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act of

1937, which required a sizable transfer tax from all sales of marijuana, effectively criminalizing

use of the drug that Mexican farm laborers and American sailors had started smoking in the

early 1900s and had spread to the Harlem jazz scene in the Roaring Twenties.” (p. 20-21)

I find it curious Califano mentions American sailors, but doesn’t elaborate, which was

typical throughout his book. Barcott saw cannabis use by sailors significant in the context of

marijuana criminalization, but not in a way Califano would favor.

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The U.S. Army actually investigated widespread cannabis use among personnel in the

Panama Canal Zone in 1925, fearing a breakdown in military discipline. The Army’s committee

of lawyers, military officers, public health officials and mental health experts found no evidence

marijuana had an appreciable influence on its users, and reports of soldiers flipping out after

smoking weed had “little basis in fact” (Barcott, p. 23). However, as this report was generated in

the ‘20s, few officials knew of its existence, and the study was filed away in a handful of

research libraries—the 1920s equivalent of page four of a Google search.

The way Califano breezes over the racist aspects of anti-marijuana laws and the

government’s previous findings on cannabis (which he was surely aware of as a knowledgeable

insider) makes his book come off as disingenuous.

Campbell mentions and dismisses the argument hemp was made illegal to protect the

paper industry. Even though Hearst was the main proponent for outlawing cannabis, he was

most likely motivated by anti-Mexican sentiments, rather than a desire to prop-up paper

industry. He was massively in debt to the paper industry and was probably not concerned with

keeping paper prices artificially high (p. 59-60). The U.S. is the only country in the world that

outlaws hemp simply for its association to marijuana and hashish. Americans currently import

100 percent of the hemp we use.

The Controlled Substances Act, which President Richard Nixon signed into law in 1970,

assigned “schedules” to drugs based on their perceived danger and medical uses, and tightened

laws on drugs based on their schedule. Cannabis was relegated to the Schedule I category, the

highest of the five categories. Marijuana shares the Schedule I designation with LSD and heroin,

and is treated more harshly than crack/cocaine, opium, morphine and oxycodone (Schedule II).

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Curiously, Marinol, a prescription drug made from synthetic THC and used to treat nausea and

appetite loss among chemotherapy and AIDS patients, is designated in Schedule III. This

recognized medical use of the active constituent of cannabis seems to contradict cannabis’s

designation in Schedule I, which is reserved for substances without medical uses. Marijuana’s

Schedule I designation further cemented its fate as an untouchable substance.

Campbell and Barcott dedicate several pages each to marijuana’s questionably high

schedule in the CSA (Barcott, p. 36-38; Campbell, p. 64-72). Califano, by contrast, only mentions

marijuana’s Schedule I designation in a footnote to supposedly lend weight to his argument

about the drug’s dangers. This is typical of his overall lack of critical thinking and begging-the-

question logical fallacies. Califano’s argument goes something like marijuana is dangerous

because it is in a category for dangerous drugs (p. 22-23).

Pros & Cons

Every book and article I read agreed marijuana is a dangerous drug. The extent of the dangers,

however, differed based on the writer. Campbell and Barcott believed marijuana’s dangers were

more comparable to legal substances like alcohol or tobacco, rather than other substances

designated in the Schedule I category. Califano, however, believes marijuana is a gateway drug,

and cited statistics on the number of marijuana users who moved on to more dangerous drugs

(p. 124). All the writers agreed the War on Drugs has been a dismal failure that has

disproportionately affected minority communities.

Campbell and Barcott directly echoed my assumption medical marijuana was a

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smokescreen for legalizing marijuana for recreational use. The reason I dismissed the notion of

medical marijuana was because the people pushing for it seemed to be shirtless hippies without

legitimate medical ailments, so I had a hard time believing they had an altruistic motive for

advocating medical marijuana. Campbell would agree with that assessment, but would say it

missed the point. For interest groups pressing for legalization, like NORML, they are

advocating for legalizing medical marijuana and hemp with the end goal of full legalization in

mind. If medical marijuana was legal, it would undermine cannabis’s Schedule I designation

and also serve to destigmatize the drug in the minds of nonusers. Therefore, their advocacy on

these issues is consistent with their end goal of full legalization.

Both Campbell and Barcott discuss at length the benefits of marijuana for cancer and

AIDS patients. Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and AIDS patients often suffer from

nausea and appetite loss. Doctors and patients have found tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the

psychoactive constituent of cannabis, helps stimulate appetite and keep food down, which

helps combat wasting syndrome among patients. This is the “munchies” phenomenon stoners

have long mentioned. While patients may take Marinol in states where medical marijuana is

approved, the drug is only available in pill form. As ingested pills typically take an hour to

reach the lower intestine, where it is broken down and enters the bloodstream, Marinol is not

very effective for patients who suffer from nausea. Smoking marijuana enables the THC to enter

the bloodstream almost instantly (Barcott, p. 272). Califano makes the following observation

about Marinol: “Marinol is not yet formulated either as a spray or a suppository.” (p. 120) In

essence, he’s telling legalization advocates where they can shove their medical marijuana.

A study from Israel showed cannabis may actually suppress the spread of cancer cells.

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While marijuana smoke contains some of the same carcinogens found in tobacco smoke, THC

may counteract this effect, allaying the fear some may have of marijuana causing cancer.

(Barcott, p. 143-144) THC has also been demonstrated to relieve pressure on the optic nerve in

glaucoma patients, slowing down the process of the condition (Campbell, p. 172).

Legalizing and regulating marijuana would also make the product safer to buy and use

for consumers. Marijuana is a highly profitable cash crop, with a price far higher than cost of

production compared to other plants due to its illegality. Legalizing marijuana would cut out

profits to drug cartels and undermine their incentive to continue production. Califano points

out legalizing marijuana wouldn’t eliminate the black market for the drug, as there is still a

black market for cigarettes and tobacco. Barcott acknowledges this point, but mentions the

average user would prefer to buy from a regulated dispensary for quality and safety reasons.

Granted, people buy loose cigarettes off the street and moonshine made in some guy’s bathtub,

but that is not the experience of most users, and the loose cigarette and moonshine markets

aren’t big enough for cartels to be interested (p. 139).

Campbell tells a disturbing story of how an elderly woman went about buying

marijuana for her daughter who was dying of cancer. The woman had to make clandestine

arrangements and get into a car with a stranger to make the illegal purchase. While she did not

come to any harm, forcing people with legitimate reasons to use marijuana into a potentially

dangerous situation is far from ideal and raises a public safety issue. Keeping marijuana illegal

may be making people less safe, which is the opposite of the law’s intention.

Campbell and Barcott both dispute the widespread belief marijuana is a gateway drug,

one held up by Califano. They point to the majority of marijuana users who never move on to

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harder drugs, and many who have gone on to be respectable and successful, such as President

Barack Obama. They propose another theory, that hard drug users would use those drugs

regardless of whether they tried marijuana first. They used marijuana first because it was more

accessible than harder drugs. There is no evidence they start with marijuana then move on to

harder drugs to get a stronger high. Barcott repeatedly mentions the old adage, “Correlation

does not imply causation.” The idea that marijuana is a gateway drug also undermines its

Schedule I designation: Marijuana (Schedule I) would lead users to seek harder drugs like

crack/cocaine (Schedule II).

While legalizing marijuana has some advantages, there are some drawbacks that can’t

be ignored. The articles by Cerda, et al., and Palamar, et al., both treat the medical benefits of

marijuana as anecdotal. Indeed, studies showing the medical benefits of marijuana are

supportive, but inconclusive. More research certainly needs to be done. Therein lies the

problem. As cannabis is designated as a Schedule I narcotic, the U.S. government doesn’t

approve of or fund studies purported to demonstrate the medical uses of marijuana. The only

studies the government has approved of are those purporting to show the dangers of the drug.

The articles by Cerda and Palamar and their teams demonstrate legalizing marijuana

would increase the likelihood underage users would try the drug, as it would be more easily

accessible and much of the stigma against it would be removed (Cerda, p. 23; Palamar p. 427-

431). Underage use is especially of concern as the brain’s prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed

until the age of 25. The younger a person begins using marijuana, the more damage it could

have on the developing brain (Barcott, p. 192).

Califano (barely) touches on the effects of cannabis on people with schizophrenia:

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“Recent studies indicate that marijuana use increases the likelihood of depression,

schizophrenia, and other serious mental health problems.” (p. 124) I was curious about this

effect, but as per usual, he doesn’t elaborate. This is just included to purportedly lend support

to his argument that legalizing marijuana would bring the United States to ruin. Barcott,

however, dedicated an entire chapter to the effects of marijuana on schizophrenics. Studies have

found marijuana affects schizophrenics differently from other users. Marijuana tends to worsen

the condition, and may even bring about symptoms in people with a latent condition (p. 173-

185).

None of the writers would disagree that marijuana is a dangerous drug. They disagree

on the magnitude of the danger. Tobacco and alcohol are both more addictive and more

dangerous than marijuana. Tens of thousands of people die each year in the U.S. due to alcohol

overdoses. However, researchers believe it is impossible to overdose on marijuana. Researchers

were unable to kill an animal with any amount of THC (Campbell, p. 116-117). However, this

does not mean consuming a massive dosage of marijuana won’t cause the user to have a “bad

trip,” that could cause them to do something dangerous, and one shouldn’t discount the

dangers of driving while under the influence.

Gov. Hickenlooper warns states against viewing marijuana legalization as a means to

budgetary shortfalls. He brings up the associated costs of legalization, including regulation and

health care. (p. 247) I think rational observers, however, would agree legalization in Colorado

and Washington didn’t lead to full-blown chaos as opponents such as Califano believed.

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Concession of Points

I was interested in whether writers supporting one side of the legalization argument conceded

points to the other. I think concession of points demonstrates rationality and ability to think

critically and dispassionately about an issue. Barcott and Campbell realistically discussed the

dangers of marijuana, especially on children. If there was a common thread throughout all the

readings, it was that marijuana should especially be kept away from minors.

The authors of the articles, while citing statistics showing minors would be more likely

to try marijuana if it were legalized, state the advantages legalization would have on the black

community, whose men have been disproportionately victimized in the War on Drugs.

Califano fails to concede any points. He appears to concede an argument for medical

marijuana at one point, “The efficacy and safety, benefits and risks, of medical marijuana are

matters for doctors, scientists, pharmaceutical manufactures, the National Institutes of Health

and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and scientists like those at the Scripps Research

Institute who are examining the potential of the drug’s active ingredient to stave off

Alzheimer’s disease.” (p. 119) Califano has apparently forgotten that cannabis’s Schedule I

designation prevents any such research. Given his previous positions, he either knows this or

should have known this. The fact he fails to mention this further makes his argument come off

as disingenuous, especially considering the same chapter ends with this quote, “Legalizing

drugs not only is playing Russian roulette with children; it is also slipping a couple of extra

bullets into the chamber.” (p. 133) Holy won’t-somebody-please-think-of-the-children, Batman!

This logical fallacy is known as an “appeal to emotion.”

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The inside flap of Califano’s High Society compares it to Silent Spring, Unsafe at Any Speed

and An Inconvenient Truth. Yeah. In the epilogue of Barcott’s book, he says while he was

skeptical of the arguments for marijuana legalization at the outset, he became a supporter over

the course of his research and came to find the most staunch opponents to be disingenuous and

driven by an agenda rather than the facts. After reading Califano’s book, I can’t disagree. Here

is an illustrative quote from High Society: “Dr. Stanley Gitlow*, one of the nation’s premier

alcoholism clinicians, told me, ‘When Dad comes home after work and rushes to pop a couple

of martinis, by the time baby is three years old, that tot sees drinking as the way to relax. Years

later, when the child starts bingeing on the weekends in high school, he won’t even know what

he picked up watching Dad hit the martinis more than a decade before.’” (p. 45-46)

When someone sees sobriety as a virtue and claims they’re protecting the children,

they’re prone to practice confirmation bias and logical fallacies. Califano commits a number of

logical fallacies in his book, such as appeals to emotion (in the above two quotes), appeals to

authority (above quote), slippery slope causative arguments (throughout), ad hominem attacks

(he refers to George Soros as the “Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization” (p. 120), whatever that

means), straw men (as he can’t find evidence to support his claims about marijuana’s dangers,

he typically lumps it in with other Schedule I substances and then talks about the dangers of

drugs in that group). Califano gives an appearance of having done extensive research by using

numerous pointless endnotes.1 In fact, nearly a third of his book is taken up with an appendix

* Stanley Gitlow was president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine from 1961 to

1963 and author of Alcoholism: A Practical Treatment Guide (1988).—DD

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including a multi-page chart provided without explanation and never referred to in the text, 83

pages of endnotes and an index. I can’t help but feel all this was added to give the appearance

of a lengthy discussion of the topic and pad the hardcover price.

The first page says the author will donate all proceeds to the National Center on

Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) Columbia. I thought, At least the money is going to a

good cause, and Califano’s not doing this for his own personal enrichment. But I couldn’t accept

this idea at face value. I became interested in CASA Columbia and Califano’s relationship to it,

so I did some digging (read, Google search). CASA Columbia was founded by Califano, who is

still on the board of directors and draws an estimated $1 million salary. In other words, Califano

donated all proceeds from this book, which are tax-deductible, to an untaxed non-profit that

pays him a million dollars per year. What did Barcott say about opponents to marijuana

legalization coming off as disingenuous? I’m sure Barcott and Campbell wrote their books

hoping to receive royalties, but they don’t come off as pushing an agenda, and I’m guessing

they’re paying some taxes on their earnings. At least they’re not throwing all their money into a

tax shelter and pretending it’s for a good cause.

Future

I predict marijuana will be legalized in more states, and eventually at the national level. While

marijuana is a harmful substance, it is not as dangerous as the PSAs I grew up with purported.

The fact many people of my generation, much like my parents’ generation, experimented with

weed and didn’t suffer long-term consequences, undermines the drug’s Schedule I designation

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and continued illegality.

Medical marijuana is no longer a partisan issue, with patients on both sides of the

spectrum having turned to the drug to alleviate medical conditions. In Colorado and

Washington, legalized marijuana won bipartisan support. While some believe marijuana should

only be available for medical reasons, Barcott points out the cannabis industry wouldn’t be

sufficiently profitable to incentivize entry unless it was available to recreational users.

Recreational users would prop up the industry for medical users.

While marijuana is openly sold in Colorado and Washington thanks to President

Obama’s recommendation not to strictly enforce the federal ban in states that have legalized

marijuana, Barcott speculates a change of administration in the executive branch could revert

back to strict enforcement. However, I don’t foresee this. Legalized marijuana has created some

odd bedfellows. For example, Louisiana, whose drug laws enforcement resembles those of such

paragons of human rights like China, Malaysia or Iran, (Barcott p. 207-226) has openly

supported the legal marijuana laws of Colorado. This is seen as a state’s right, and Louisiana

views federal intervention as going against the tenth amendment—a greater evil.

Legalized marijuana is an example of the masses and various interest groups influencing

the government’s elites. The failure of the War on Drugs combined with more mainstream

support of legalized marijuana will lead to legalization across the land.

1 Like this one.

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Bibliography

Barcott, B. (2015). Weed the people: The future of legal marijuana in America. New York, NY: Time.

Califano, J. (2007). High society: How substance abuse ravages America and what to do about it. New

York, NY: PublicAffairs.

Campbell, G. (2012). Pot, inc.: Inside medical marijuana, America’s most outlaw industry. New York,

NY: Starling Publishing.

Cerda, M., Wall, M., Keyes, K. M., Galea, S., Hasin, D. (2012). Medical marijuana laws in 50

states: Investigating the relationship between state legalization of medical marijuana and

marijuana use, abuse and dependence. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, volume 120 (1-3), 22-

27.

Hickenlooper, J. W. (2014). Experimenting with pot: The state of Colorado’s legalization of

marijuana. The Milbank Quarterly, Volume 92 (2), 243-249.

Palamar, J. J., Ompad, D. C., Petkova, E. (2014). Correlates of intentions to use cannabis among

US high school seniors in the case of cannabis legalization. International Journal of Drug

Policy, volume 25 (3), 424-435.