Actually THC is not physically addictive. People CAN become psychologically dependent on it though. But same goes with alcohol, which can also be physically addictive. Alcohol also kills brain cells, cannabis does not-in fact, a study was done with synthetic THC that actually showed REGROWTH of brain cells. When vaporized, it doesn’t even have a single negative effect on your health. Unlike alcohol, you cannot overdose on it and it comes straight out of the ground in its pure form without the need of fermentation or chemical additives of any sort. In is not an intoxicant because it is not “toxic”, again, unlike alcohol.
It seems to me that cannabis is FAR healthier than alcohol and can easily be used in moderation. So what would be the moral problem with it?
It is legal in some states at the state level, which I think could morally trump Federal regulations, since the local level is where it is grown and dispensed and available. Not to mention that states’ rights advocates believe that the Federal government has no authority in these matters where the states have decided for themselves and it is not a matter of protecting the citizenry.
But what if a priest does say it is a mortal sin and another says it is not? Since the Church has no official position, isn’t it up to the individual?
Additionally, alcohol poisoning is a serious problem, and can kill you. Certain painkillers, anti-depressants, and sleep aids, if not taken properly or in the correct dosing, can kill you. No one, in the recorded history of the subject, has died from cannabis. Seriously, ever.
LaSainte speaks the truth. There is no legitimate medical or scientific reason for marijuana to remain illegal; and the fact that it is illegal, while alcohol is not (even given alcohol’s far more dangerous and detrimental effects), is blatant societal hypocrisy.
Marijuana originally became illegal throughout the 1920’s and 30’s because newspapers and paper companies didn’t want their businesses to have to compete with hemp paper, which was faster and easier to grow and cultivate and produce. Since one newspaper group in particular was owned by a man who felt this way, a lovely gentleman by the name of William Randolph Hearst, stories that would be generously be described as “not medically accurate” were published around the nation, blaming the hemp trade for the influx of Asian, and Hispanic immigrants to American cities. Furthermore, Hearst’s papers wrote that African Americans were going insane because of ‘marihuana’ (which was pointed out to be not your typical “harmless cigarette”), and that’s where all of this crazy talk of “civil rights” came from.
In the federal bill that finally made ‘marihuana’ illegal, one Senator advocating prohibition noted during the floor debate in the United States Senate that if they didn’t ban the posession, use, and sale of cannabis that smoking it “might make a black man look at a white woman the wrong way.”
So, if it’s not based on medicine or science, and partially illegal because of a wealthy newspaper mogul’s business interests in the 1920’s (who used a racist scare campaign to get his dream law passed, to boot!) why is marijuana still illegal, you ask?
Because while the names may have changed, but the game hasn’t, and that game is money. The private, for-profit prison industry makes its bank off of every person it incarcerates, and a huge bulk of that population gets sent to one of their facilities because of minor possession of marijuana. This industry spends billions lobbying state governments and Congress for stricter penalties and bigger fines for marijuana use every year. Marijuana’s illegality has nothing to do with health, safety, or medical science, but it is the result of lobbying from an industry that directly profits from it, making billions of dollars every year. While the pharmeceutical lobby and alcohol and tobacco companies have lobbied for the same (stricter penalties, bigger fines, longer senteces), and for the same reason, they do not match how much cash lawmakers have received from the private prison industry.
So, to conclude, if we’re going to keep marijuana illegal, then let’s at least be honest about why we’re doing it, and why it became illegal in the first place.
