California Considers Ending Marijuana Prohibition as the Prohibitionists Run Out of Arguments
Today the California state Assembly will hold a historic hearing looking at whether marijuana prohibition should be replaced with a system of regulation and taxation. The growing push for change in California – which also includes a handful of ballot initiatives in circulation — was covered by this morning’s New York Times in an article that perhaps unintentionally reveals the feebleness of opponents’ arguments.
The story quotes John Lovell, lobbyist for several California police groups and the major voice for maintaining prohibition: “We get revenue from alcohol,” he said. “But there’s way more in social costs than we retain in revenues.”
If that’s the best they can do, the debate is over. The main social cost of alcohol comes from its tendency to promote violent and aggressive behavior, something marijuana simply doesn’t do, as explained in this article from the journal Addictive Behaviors. Not long ago, an independent panel of experts rated alcohol as significantly more dangerous than marijuana, in an article published in the prestigious journal The Lancet (unfortunately, the summary of the article you can read online for free doesn’t include the chart ranking various drugs).
If we want to reduce the social costs associated with booze, evidence suggests giving adults a safer, legal alternative makes sense. Mr. Lovell, meet reality.
Tagged with: California and drug warriors and John Lovell and legislation and New York Times by the author
30 comments
http://www.calchannel.com/channel/live/4 watch the hearing live here…. pass the link on!
I cant wait to hear the results from the hearing. Thanks for keeping us posted.
About time! Glad to see our country debating the issue… WHATEVER WAY PEOPLE LEAN!!! This is the first step towards common sense.
Thanks for that live link!!
THANK YOU FOR THE LINK! I’ve been watching this from PA. Hope my state grows a pair and re-thinks our laws.
You should mention that the social cost of regulating Alcohol is much less than the social cost of prohibiting Alcohol sales, which history has shown leads to large scale organized crime.
Social Costs of Alcohol and Tabacco: Cancer and Death
Since Marijuana does not cause cancer (and has been shown to kill cancer cells) and cannot cause death…. what additional costs are they concerned about?
Listening to the law enforcement arguments to continue the prohibition revealed many areas where we should focus our efforts.
We need to ensure that comments like “every case that involved marijuana was a bad one” is instantly recognized by EVERY level of government as ridiculous and false.
A lot of news going around about his subject right now! Can’t wait for the results.
Exactly Kevin…thats what they seem to ignore. Why don’t they prohibit alcohol and see how much that costs everyone? And thanks for that link..watched about an hour of it today.
Legalize it! People WILL use it! Doesnt matter if its ILLEGAL! People will and are using it,and will continue to do so.Stop ruining peoples lives!
Abstract: The drug–violence relationship exists for several reasons, some direct (drugs pharmacologically inducing violence) and some indirect (violence occurring in order to attain drugs). Moreover, the nature of that relationship is often complex, with intoxication, neurotoxic, and withdrawal effects often being confused and/or confounded. This paper reviews the existing literature regarding the extent to which various drugs of abuse may be directly associated with heightened interpersonal violence.
Alcohol is clearly the drug with the most evidence to support a direct intoxication–violence relationship. The literatures concerning benzodiazepines, opiates, psychostimulants, and phencyclidine (PCP) are idiosyncratic but suggest that personality factors may be as (or more) important than pharmacological ones.
Cannabis reduces likelihood of violence during intoxication, but mounting evidence associates withdrawal with aggressivity. The literature on the relationship between steroids and aggression is largely confounded, and between 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and aggression insufficient to draw any reasonable conclusions.
Help me out here MPP, please. In the abstract one sentence said: “Cannabis reduces likelihood of violence during intoxication, but mounting evidence associates withdrawal with aggressivity.”
I understand the first part of the sentence it’s the “but mounting evidence associates withdrawal with aggressivity.”
Maybe I’m just tired today however would appreciate someone sharing their thoughts on my question. Withdrawal from alcohol or withdrawal from cannabis?
it also bothers me when they mention finding weapons on marijuana raids…I mean really, how many people own a firearm, I dont, but a LOT OF PEOPLE who dont smoke pot own one, or they smoke and have it for the reason of liking guns, and thats their right…but they try to tie them together, its BS.
Lea, the passage you quote refers to withdrawal from marijuana. But what the abstract doesn’t really make clear but the full article does is that the very existence of a withdrawal syndrome is still controversial. Significant withdrawal symptoms are rare even among heavy marijuana users and don’t last very long, but there are a couple studies suggesting that some people become temporarily irritable if they’re heavy marijuana users who stop suddenly.
I get grumpy as hell when I have to quit smoking long term for urine tests. Caffein withdrawal is far far worse though.
Did anyone record this to post on youtube?
Thank you Bruce.
My friends smoke alot, as do I. When forced to stop, “Jonesing” is NOT rare. Irritability after stopping smoking is also not rare. I don’t give a rats ass what the studies say, my friends and I have lived it. It is not long lasting(2-4 days) and the symptoms seems to mostly be irritability. I am starting to think both the prohibitionist AND the anti-prohibitionists are being less than truthful.
If all the withdrawl effects are, is being grumpy for a couple of days ,then whats the big deal? I am a heavy user of cannabis myself and if I have it I would smoke 24-7, 365. I ran out and now must wait till next year for more. I was not at all grumpy or irritable or mad at all. Maybe some people react to stopping suddenly in different ways. Hopefully soon the laws will change so we can all grow our own.
On the subject of irritability during withdrawal, from my reading, normal users do not experience ‘withdrawal symptoms,’ those who use heavily MAY (10%), and those symptoms may include insomnia, irritability, lack of focus. But those symptoms pass pretty quickly, and are considerably easier to overcome than the physical addiction of alcohol or nicotine. In fact, cannabis ‘withdrawal’ has been compared to caffeine withdrawal. If you LOOK for them, you can find symptoms, otherwise it’s like you just get up on the wrong side of the bed for a couple of days.
Not particularly fun, but better than the DT’s, and way better than the actual side effects of taking many modern medications.
(no loss of bladder control, no headaches, no heart palpitations…etc).
The worst of pot’s ‘withdrawal symptoms’ is like a day of sunshine when compared to most prescriptions meds side effects.
What? Humans get irritable when they don’t get what they want? What a revelation, that just blew me away. Anyone picking up the sarcasm here? There is a difference between being irritable and having physically debilitating affects from withdrawl of substances, like what legitimate alcoholics and hardcore drug adicts experience. Hell, you can die just from the withdrawl affects of heroin if not treated properly during the withdrawl.
I get irritable if I don’t listen to trance music for a day, I’m just saying.
(I also get insomnia if I don’t check my email and I lose focus throughout the day if I sleep less than 6 hours) OHHhhh what a big deal.
I get irritable and grumpy, (when I stop smoking) but caffeine withdrawal is even more irritating, and gives me quasi-flu like symptoms.
The responses following my question was what I expected. I haven’t smoked marijuana in over 10 years but when I did smoke, not once did I get aggravated from not smoking it.
What the statistics probably are, for those who experience aggravation, is less than 0.1% of study subjects.
And caffeine, it’s not something I can give up because it does make me ill for days upon days.
Oops, forgot we went to Amsterdam a few years past. Got to partake for five days.
Other than the irritability issue in the study what struck me was this: “Alcohol is clearly the drug with the most evidence to support a direct intoxication–violence relationship”.
We all know this, everyone who has half a brain knows this however, it’s great to see this in print.
It’s also important, at least to me, to stay on top of these studies and be able to verbalize them when the opportunity happens with someone who doesn’t understand cannabis.
I got my Chiropractor to admit last week he knows nothing about cannabis, from there I get to start educating him.
Irritability? What irritates me is when we get way off topic. Such classic stoners we are. Allow me to get this crazy train back on track.
So did anyone see Judge Grays testimony? His was the last to be given. What an amazing case for legalizing. Very strong points. All positive for the cause and really unbaised it seemed. Just a point blank, matter of fact testimony. It almost makes me believe that the California legislature will vote in favor for AB 390.
Irritability? My wife gets irritable when I don’t clean the house, but I don’t think she is suffering from withdrawl. We will all be much better off when cannabis is re-legalized. An annual personal use grow permit would be simple enough. Then maybe I could get my wife to start using cannabis so she might cut me some slack on the housework. Re-legalize it now!
I spent a year in Ca. prison after smoking for about 25 yrs straight.(w no drug or alcohol arrests, I may add). The only effect I felt was some irritability, but it was prison after all, and my drems became more vivid after bout 2 weeks.
I’m all for personal freedoms and legalization, but lets implement some policy for those abusing the law and putting others at risk. I don’t want adults selling or giving to minors and the big conglomerate dispensaries are making a lot of money, instead of making MJ affordableand educating their clients.
The whole firearms issue is bothersome, but we must be able to protect our property. I would like to depend on Law eenforcement to protect my rights, and am planning on meeting with local Narcotics task force to inform them of my greenhouse. Upfront and out in the open is the only way to be mainstream in todays enviroment.
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