Fretting about pot while alcohol kills

Published 1:58 pm Tuesday, November 1, 2011

An article in Sunday’s Herald about the American Society for Addiction Medicine’s stand on marijuana legalization contains a statement by Donald Lyman, who chaired the committee that produced the policy: “We have become the gatekeepers to a substance that is largely nonmedical and there is no gate.”

While the impact of cannabis is debatable and detailed questions such as, “How many people die from smoking pot?” or “How well do pot smokers do on driving simulators?” are always answered with fudging and dismissal by those who take such a stand, the impact of another drug, alcohol, is undeniable and objectively measured, and experts are in total agreement on its addictiveness and destructive potential.

Both of the above questions produce immediate statistical answers by experts. And we are arguing about how much the state should be involved in its trafficking rather than whether it should be legal at all. Interesting. What message are we sending to kids about consistency?

I’m starting to wonder if we are a schizophrenic society, and I can see why so much of the world thinks we’ve gone off the deep end. Just to make things interesting, I’ll throw in the fact that the Bible condemns usury (credit card fees probably do apply, and the whole money system is arguably based on unsustainable debt) and requires debt forgiveness for people, as opposed to “corporate persons” like banks or governments. “In God We Trust” is, clearly, not referring to the Biblical God. I suspect our true god is not the one intended by that phrase, but rather the paper it’s printed on. Something Judeo-Christian believers might want to tell their friends in the banking industry, lest they unwittingly be a party to sacrilege.

Michael Lockhart

Marysville