Marijuana legalization advocates have all kinds of plans to
move forward to other states with their legalization agenda. For some reason, voters in Colorado and
Washington State have bought into the idea that marijuana can somehow be
compared to alcohol, which is what made voters pass measures in both
states by a narrow margin.
In 2009, the Obama Administration issued the Ogden Memo,
which stopped many of the federal raids on marijuana dispensaries due to a lack
of federal resources. As we reflect,
the results of the "well-intentioned" Ogden Memo only made matters worse. Marijuana cultivation and abuse became even
more out of control and because marijuana was legal in some states for
so-called medicinal purposes, the federal government was forced to work with
state laws.
Abuses kept happening and marijuana related crimes went up,
use rates went up, illegal cultivation went up and communities began to
complain. New avenues were taken with landlord evictions, to
enforce marijuana laws by an amendment to the Ogden Memo. A tactic that has been able to curb some of the brute force illegality.
Marijuana legalization is a popular argument socially
speaking, where voters are far more inclined to reluctantly view a drug that
has serious consequences, as benign, because many voters have falsely been made
to believe that many quality of life crimes for which people get incarcerated are related to marijuana use alone. In Colorado and Washington State, marijuana
advocates have gotten away with comparing marijuana to alcohol, to pass state
measures for recreational use, all in the name of so-called social equality and reform.
According to the latest information on the White Houses’
position, the Obama Administration’s policy on marijuana legalization remains
unchanged.
There is no question that voters
are not being dealt a full deck of cards relating to caveats of marijuana legalization. Marijuana advocates have left a deliberate
void of information regarding science and abuse statistics. Enforcement issues on drugged driving are especially
troubling. The void of information also excludes workable solutions for consequences people face who are confronted with recovery from
marijuana addiction, as well as those who become further addicted to hard drugs
because of marijuana abuse.
The idea of comparing marijuana to alcohol has also not been
carefully examined by marijuana advocates.
The result of this is marijuana panders to alcohol, making marijuana into a
choice, not an alternative. If there is
anything we can be sure of, it is that our policy on alcohol is deeply
flawed. From a production perspective
marijuana is nowhere near comparable to alcohol, which is regulated by the
federal government and subject to more than 200 processes of oversight before
it is made available to consumers.
Alcohol production is also carefully guarded and the process in which to
produce alcohol is left to trained professionals.
In the case of marijuana however, anyone can take a few
seeds and start a backyard grow.
Maturation takes about three months and illegal distribution and sale
can become a lucrative business for anyone willing to break federal or state law. There is no way to unilaterally enforce what
people wildly grow without oversight. A situation drug cartels find favorable.
In closing, one could conclude that the Ogden Memo may have
been well intentioned to protect real medical marijuana patients. But let the results show that this policy has
been fully railroaded by marijuana legalization advocates, drug traffickers and drug abusers. The federal government would be best served
to enforce the Controlled Substances Act fully and annul the Ogden Memo once
and for all.
