One of the most often-heard arguments against marijuana reform can basically be summed up as follows:
“But what about the children?”
Prohibitionists are quick to trot this one out whenever their other arguments have failed because it’s an easy way to elicit a strong emotional response. They claim that marijuana reform will lead to increased rates of use, developmental damage, and easier access to marijuana. Even talking about the issue will lead to higher rates of use, according to their arguments. Never mind that teen use rates tend to decrease in states that pass medical marijuana laws, or that licensed distributors would have ample reason to ID customers.
No, facts don’t really apply to this argument. It is very useful, however, when it comes to terrifying parents. According to the standard drug warrior mentality, the only way to keep kids away from marijuana is to arrest adults for using it. To do otherwise would “send the wrong message to our youth.”
Apparently, all this concern does not extend to children living on the U.S.-Mexico border:
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – Texas law enforcement officials say several Mexican drug cartels are luring youngsters as young as 11 to work in their smuggling operations.
Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told Reuters the drug gangs have a chilling name for the young Texans lured into their operations.
“They call them ‘the expendables,’” he said.
McCraw said his investigators have evidence six Mexican drug gangs — including the violent Zetas — have “command and control centers” in Texas actively recruiting children for their operations, attracting them with what appears to be “easy money” for doing simple tasks.
The policy of marijuana prohibition is the primary reason cartels are able to bring in so much profit from distribution within the U.S., the reason they are in such brutal competition with each other, and the catalyst for using cheap and available child conscripts within our borders. Instituting more rational marijuana policies and bringing marijuana into a regulated, legal market would greatly diminish the power of the cartels, as well as their need to corrupt our youth. Licensed businesses, unlike cartels, must obey child labor laws and other regulations in order to stay in business.
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske and other prohibitionists don’t want to hear that, though. It seems as if they have no problem using imaginary children to scare people away from reform. Real children, however, are “expendable.”
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon not understanding it.
_ Upton Sinclair
@denbee-Your quoet is most fitting. Kudos~
Mr. Fox, your article is spot-on. It is rational, correct and and not opinionated. You bring up many factual,cogent and lucid points as well as accurately describing a major political time bomb, and waste of time, lives and money, which is why no one with any potential to effect this change will listen. Believe me, the prohibitionist mentality is as puritanical as it ever was-and certainly rivals the U.S. Alcohol prohibition disaster.
Over the years, I have lost many friends and acquaintances to premature death, war or incarceration. Nowhere that I know is more JAIL-HAPPY, than right here in the U.S. If one were a child molester-they would get less time than a “Marijuana-Felon”
In my direct observation as a veteran, Paramedic and disabled but voting citizen, I have been using Cannabis for, a variety of reasons, for about Thirty years. Way before any of this present dialogue was happening. Marijuana has always been classified as Heroin, and to be honest, the “misinformation campaign” of the 60′s is WHAT PROMPTED ME to try drugs. Cigarettes first-Of course. It seemed exciting!~No adults liked it, teachers hated it…..OH boy!-Those movies we were forced to watch, depicted an LSD experience as an “Alice in Wonderland” kinda’ day..I was interested. Hey!…where do I sign up?
I unequivocally agree with this article, Sir. You are truly an advocate for change of this most unconstitutional of all our laws (short of Financial regulation). Cannabis legalization in the U.S. has a Global bent to it. If I have learned one thing from my travels, is that-”what the U.S. does, so does the rest of the world” I mean, who wants to piss-off the U.S.?
Think about it-Every country that deals with us, with only few exceptions, seem to be spouting the same prohibitionist rhetoric that we created. No small coincidence-I assure you. We actually export HATRED. (another story)
In my lifetime, I WILL see legalized Cannabis, whether or NOT the Federal Government gets their act together…and I am certain I am not alone.
Signed.
A soon to be, future ex-con for the cause.
The prohibitionist really know how to fool very young children into trusting them. The Child Protection Service and the Cannabis Prohibitionist does a heck of a job getting children to spy on their parents. Children will lose their parents and ended up in foster home because they were encourage to tattle even if it involves snooping on mom and dad.
When they get older, some of them will change to make it easier to score pot from a sixteen year old than a grown adult.
The Drug War is not helping the children. It destroys families and it make children grow up in a more flaky society. Even if a child is free from drugs and grows up to become a high achiever, they would still have to take a random drug test as a continuous lifetime probation from cannabis.
Such a threat drives a person to drink and smoke tobacco.
do you really believe that the US government cannot “stop” these cartels, if they were actually trying to?! think about it, when we went after the columbian cartels in the late 70s early 80s, at the exact same time as we were taking down one of the largest cartels in bogata. The C.I.A. was smuggling in cocaine from other parts of Columbia, Bolivia, Peru and so forth. all of this is happening for a reason, to feed the massive consumer based economy of ours. the American government has got their fingers in this on some level, and i will call anyone a fool who cannot see this.
Mr. Fox – I am incredibly in love with your brain. That is all
Far worse is the removal of children from their family home in the all-too-common arrest scenarios that happen daily throughout the country. An end to prohibition would keep families together, reducing the harm to children.
How long will we have to continue making the same valid points as Mr. Fox before the country’s “lawmakers” finally get the message?
At my age of 52, I know people that smoke marijuana and have kids in teen age years and older. Some of the kids smoke marijuana and some don’t. And it’s true that there are more of the kids smoking marijuana than not. Not everyone who starts out smoking marijuana smokes it all their life, some do quit. I’ve known some of instances as well. I don’t believe a parent smoking pot means they are unfit for raising their children or going to work straight or being productive in society. If you haven’t done so, ask yourself this question ” How many of our so-called politicians smoke pot behind closed doors and how many receive kickbacks from it in some way or another?”
Dad Gives Cannabis Oil to Toddler Battling Brain Cancer – Medical Marijuana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4lsvHMkWFg&feature=related
In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume…Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.” – DEA administrative law judge, Francis Young, NORML vs. DEA (1988
not to mention children taken into DCF (temp foster care) bc parents arrested for growing a plant and smoking it…