I’ve supported reform of Wisconsin’s laws so that chronically ill people can take regulated medical marijuana lawfully. I think reform in Wisconsin is long overdue, and that although reform did not pass in our recent legislative session, it one day will. When that happens, Wisconsin will join many other states that allow medically prescribed marijuana.
As for drug use more generally, I would not counsel anyone to take any drug (or even many herbs) without a doctor’s lawful prescription or recommendation. I’ve never found a so-called drug culture anything but wasteful and destructive.
Sadly, it’s not the only thing that’s destructive — our wasteful and futile enforcement efforts against minor drug offenses have been a huge mistake for society. Increasingly, Americans are coming to see that arresting people for marijuana offenses, for example, costs more than it gains. We should be focusing on treatment.
It was after all, as early as 1996 that the now late William F. Buckley and the editors of the National Review came out against the contemporary drug war. They were hardly radicals, or fanatics, or lunatics — they simply saw that the cost did not justify the results. See, National Review, February 1996.
Just recently, conservative and former Alaska Governor Palin, in a conversation with libertarian Ron Paul, rejected arrests for minor marijuana offenses. That’s not because Palin’s a liberal or radical — it’s because she sees the futility in the such prosecutions. In this regard, she’s following a proud line of conservatives who’d like to see real results rather than airy headlines.
After years of outrageously expensive and wasteful efforts to arrest and prosecute minor drug offenses, more and more Americans are turning away from committing people and money to these efforts.
In any newspaper that allows comments, one can see that some of the deepest scorn for bold headlines proclaiming success after a relatively minor drug arrest comes from obviously
conservative readers who know that the resources committed to these efforts are wasteful and ineffectual. It’s harder and harder for officials to trumpet supposed victories without receiving ridicule from ordinary readers.
Here’s what Palin had to say:
If we’re talking about pot, I’m not for the legalization of pot. I think that would just encourage our young people to think that it was OK to go ahead and use it…However I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts. If somebody’s gonna to smoke a joint into their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society…and not concentrate on such a, relatively speaking, minimal problem we have in the country.”
She’s right, and she also represents the direction of the country on these matters, across the political spectrum.
Here’s a clip from the interview in which she offered these remarks: