How to Use Cannabis Responsibly and Safely The Experience of Getting High
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Chester News & Reporter (SC), 2006-03-17 (Fri.) Should marijuana be a legalized drug? by Harvey Neiblum
Got A Minute?
It's interesting to note that legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco cause
more problems - family, health and economic - than all the illegal drugs
combined.
There is a prevailing theory that the use of soft drugs, such as marijuana,
inevitably leads to the use of harder drugs such as heroin.
That same thought pattern helped lead to Prohibition, which of course meant
that no one would have alcoholic problems ever again. All that produced was
that a non-existen organization, the Mafia, got a foothold in American
society, which has since become emblazoned in concrete.
And it seems to me that what we are now doing in maintaining the illegality
of grass and cocaine, etc., is exactly the same thing.
It is enabling the Columbian cartel and his offspring in this country to
flourish, endangering any who walk the streets at any given hour.
It also seems to me that if we were to legalize these drugs, the taxes
collected would go a long way toward retiring our national debt,
particularly since George W. decided to give our surplus to all his good
buddies. They would most certainly pay for universal healthcare.
Let's talk about grass for a bit. There has been for some time now a strong
movement to decriminalize this social drug. Many years ago in New York, I
attended a party for NORML, the National Organization to Reform Marijuana
Laws. It was hosted by that well-known purveyor of radical thought, New York
Republican Senator Jacob Javits.
It was their contention then, and still is, that the social use of grass is
harmful to no one, including the user.
It has been pretty well established that second hand smoke kills. Second
hand grass smoke, however, does nothing more than give one a case of the
giggles.
Alcohol in the home has been the source of many 911 calls to come help
because daddy is beating up mommy. With grass, the call might still go
through, but it would most likely sound like this: ³Help, daddy is eating
everything in the fridge and there won't be anything left for us kids for
dinner.²
I love to cook, but not when I have smoked grass. Everything tastes so good
I could throw a bunch of paper right out of the shredder into a pot of
boiling water and decide it is the best pasta dish I've ever made.
I've had the opportunity to try many other drugs, but I pass. I'm happy with
the relaxed feeling I get from grass. Although once a friend brought me some
Tortolla mushrooms, called that because they come from the British island of
Tortolla. They taste awful, but 20 minutes later the moon did some fantastic
things.
I tried again a few days later by sautéing the mushrooms in garlic butter,
salt and pepper and flambeaued in Grande Mariner. They tasted like rotten
oranges, so despite the show in the sky I gave up because getting there is
half the fun, and getting there with mushrooms was quite the opposite.
Of course the potential for abuse exists, much as it does for alcohol, but
there is no cry today for the inclusion of alcohol on the illegal list. We
seem to have learned a lesson. If we eat too much fat we get heart attacks
or strokes and risk death. Shall we criminalize the consumption of fatty
foods? Of course not. Instead, we intelligently try to educate. That is the
key here. Decriminalize drugs and educate and treat the addicted.
Illegal drugs are as available as legal drugs, so who are we kidding other
than ourselves?
We have long ago learned that the disease of alcoholism is genetic, and
other than knowing your family history, you won't know if you are going to
be an addict until it happens. Once again, it is the addicted person who
needs attention.
When I was 18 and in the Army, I was introduced to grass and smoked it
regularly for three years. Then I was discharged and went back to the
Juilliard School of Music where I studied violin and stopped smoking because
you can't smoke and work seriously any more than you can drink and work
seriously. So much for the addictive quality of grass.
It was, in fact some 25 years before I smoked again, and then it was every
evening instead of the usual martini after a hard day's work. It went
further toward relaxing me than booze ever did. You've noticed I hope that
alcohol is involved in at least 80 percent of all home cases of abusiveness,
grass is not.
The same statistics apply to DUI arrests. Booze, not grass, is the offending
intoxicant.
When I retired and moved from the islands to Felton, Calif., I found I could
no longer afford the luxury of a joint at night. So I am doing without it.
It has been almost seven years now, and that after some 11 years of daily
smoking.
My family has a history of glaucoma and doctors in New York and California
have advised me that marijuana is helpful in this situation. My wife suffers
from something calls RLS (restless leg syndrome), which is also calmed down
by grass. It allows her to get a good night's sleep. She, too, has been
advised by doctors, including neurologists, to indulge, and although our
doctors are willing to give us prescriptions for grass, we have turned them
down because the feds, in their infinite wisdom, claim they will arrest any
doctor who does.
So I say legalize marijuana and sell it much the way liquor is sold, only to
those of age. Maybe we could even get the tobacco companies to market it and
preserve jobs. It would certainly cause less pain and suffering than
tobacco.
Harvey Neiblum is an 80-year-old retired violinist, musician, businessman,
commodities broker, etc. He is a resident of Chester.
Pubdate: March 17, 2006 © 2006 Chester News & Reporter |
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