Legalize with Confidence
Don’t ignore the real effects of prohibition.

By Richard Cowan, MarijuanaNews.com
August 9, 2001 9:10 a.m.

respond to Ben Domenech's "Legalize With Caution" not because I think that he has too low an opinion of marijuana, but rather because — like many reluctant anti-prohibitionists — he underestimates the harm done by marijuana prohibition.

Frankly, I was surprised that he defends the "gateway theory." I still think that it was best described by Bill Buckley almost 30 years ago when he defended my call for conservatives to support the legalization of marijuana in the December 6, 1972 issue of NR when he called it "Post Pot Ergo Propter Pot."

"After That Therefore Because of That" is actually a textbook logical fallacy. It is perhaps the worst of the prohibitionist arguments, but it continues to confuse even people as bright as Mr. Domenech.

When Rich Lowry pointed out that most marijuana users do not use cocaine, Domenech argues, "The more appropriate (number) to offer would be the percentage of cocaine users who originally started out smoking pot."

First, I cannot imagine anyone ever using hard drugs without having first tried marijuana, but that is not always the case. Even if there were such an absolute correlation, that would still not prove causation. The Institute of Medicine Report points out that because "underage smoking and alcohol use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not the most common, and is rarely the first, "gateway" to illicit drug use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."

As for Domenech's comment, "(I)magine if one out of every 100 hundred coffee drinkers got cancer, and you'll see what I mean." Actually, because coffee is so widely consumed, and cancer is such a major cause of death, far more that one percent of coffee drinkers do get cancer, but that is not causation. Post Starbucks Ergo Propter Starbucks.

However, the more important point made by the IOM Report is that the real-world connection between marijuana and hard drugs is that they are sold in the same markets. "(I)t is the legal status of marijuana that makes it a gateway drug."

The foundation of all Dutch drugs policies is what they call the "separation of the markets," and that is one reason for their cannabis-only "coffee shop" system. One result is that there are very few young Dutch junkies. In other words, marijuana prohibition is actually counterproductive and creates the "gateway" between marijuana and hard drugs. Legalization would remove that connection. Freedom works.

As for marijuana being "addictive" — the IOM report does not support the dire description by Dr. Charles Schuster, former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a highly politicized prohibitionist propaganda organization. Schuster himself has said that "the likelihood of that occurring in people is much less than with drugs such as cocaine and heroin."

The IOM report says that A distinctive marijuana withdrawal syndrome has been identified, but it is mild and short-lived." Two prominent British scientists recently wrote in the London Times that "For some users, perhaps as many as 10 per cent, cannabis leads to psychological dependence, but there is scant evidence that it carries a risk of true addiction. Unlike cigarette smokers, most users do not take the drug on a daily basis, and usually abandon it in their twenties or thirties. Unlike for nicotine, alcohol, and hard drugs, there is no clearly defined "withdrawal syndrome" — the hallmark of true addiction — when use is stopped."

Dependence is not addiction. I know thousands of marijuana smokers, some are such heavy users that they might be described as "dependent," but I know of no non-medical users who have ever had serious problems when they had to stop suddenly. People may become "dependent" on anything that they really enjoy, but when they are dependent on something illegal their problems are made worse by prohibition, not helped. And that is the whole point.

Domenech should not worry that legalization will worsen the problems that rightly concern him. On the contrary, the Dutch experiences with tolerating marijuana use, and virtually all human experience with freedom, tell us that coercion is usually counterproductive. He should not fear that marijuana prohibition is somehow an exception.