The Wild Grass Chase

Addicts to the legalization of marijuana show a proselytizing fervor as intense and as deeply muddled as if they had been writing under the influence of the hallucinogen itself. Mr. Gollan is more fair-minded than most but unfortunately just as muddled. Let us attempt to clear up one or two of the confusions he displays. First, it is misleading to phrase the problem in terms of the regulation of “moral conduct.” No doubt anarchists would claim that they have no duty to obey laws with which they disagree, whatever the character of those laws. More specifically, they might argue that governments have no right to legislate to protect the citizens from activities’ harmful to health. Such a doctrine is certainly defensible, but few people are concerned to defend it. The vast majority —socialist, liberal, conservative— readily accept health laws, once persuaded of their practical necessity. Such laws may regulate the purity of food and medicaments, the pollution of the atmosphere, the disposal of sewage, the ventilation of apartments, or the use of drugs. Some zealots have, it is true, injected a moral element into their condemnation of certain drugs, former Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger for example, but that element alone would not suffice to explain why the traffic in, and use of, marijuana is prohibited in every civilized nation of the world. Indeed, India has completely prohibited cannabis resin in the face of strong religious pressure for the continuance of its use.

The marijuana controversy is not primarily an argument about civil liberties, nor about the morality of the use of drugs for the enhancement of pleasure or perception. It is a practical argument involving two questions: does marijuana pose such a health risk that authority is justified in using its widely accepted powers of prohibition in the interests of public health? And can such prohibition be enforced and, if so, how severe a sanction should back that prohibition?

FM

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Ferdinand Mount

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Addicts to the legalization of marijuana show a proselytizing fervor as intense and as deeply muddled as if they had been writing under the influence of the hallucinogen itself. Mr. Gollan is more fair-minded than most but unfortunately just as muddled. Let us attempt to clear up one or two of the confusions he displays. First, it is misleading to phrase the problem in terms of the regulation of “moral conduct.” No doubt anarchists would claim that they have no duty to obey laws with which they disagree, whatever the character of those laws. More specifically, they might argue that governments have no right to legislate to protect the citizens from activities’ harmful to health. Such a doctrine is certainly defensible, but few people are concerned to defend it. The vast majority —socialist, liberal, conservative— readily accept health laws, once persuaded of their practical necessity. Such laws may regulate the purity of food and medicaments, the pollution of the atmosphere, the disposal of sewage, the ventilation of apartments, or the use of drugs. Some zealots have, it is true, injected a moral element into their condemnation of certain drugs, former Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger for example, but that element alone would not suffice to explain why the traffic in, and use of, marijuana is prohibited in every civilized nation of the world. Indeed, India has completely prohibited cannabis resin in the face of strong religious pressure for the continuance of its use.

The marijuana controversy is not primarily an argument about civil liberties, nor about the morality of the use of drugs for the enhancement of pleasure or perception. It is a practical argument involving two questions: does marijuana pose such a health risk that authority is justified in using its widely accepted powers of prohibition in the interests of public health? And can such prohibition be enforced and, if so, how severe a sanction should back that prohibition?