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Marijuana Sell-Out
The Marijuana Referendums:
Bolstering the Therapeutic State
by Thomas Szasz
LIBERTY, Volume 10, No. 4, March 1997
Drug prohibitionists were alarmed last November, when
voters in Arizona and California endorsed the referendums
permitting the use of marijuana for "medical purposes."
Opponents of drug prohibition ought to be even more alarmed:
The advocates of medical marijuana have embraced a tactic that
retards the repeal of drug prohibition and reinforces the moral
legitimacy of prevailing drug policies. Instead of steadfastly
maintaining that the war on drugs is an intrinsically evil
enterprise, the reformers propose replacing legal sanctions with
medical tutelage, a principle destined to further expand the
medical control of everyday behavior.
Not surprisingly, the drug prohibition establishment
reacted to the passage of the marijuana referendums as the
Vatican might react to an outbreak of heretical schism. Senator
Orrin G. Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
declared: "We can't let this go without a response." Arizona
Senator Jon Kyl told the Judiciary Committee: "I am
extraordinarily embarrassed," adding that he believed most
Arizona voters who supported the referendum "were deceived."
Naturally. Only a person who had fallen into error could
approve of sin. Too many critics of the war on drugs continue
to refuse to recognize that their adversaries are priests waging
a holy war on Satanic chemicals, not statesmen who respect the
people and whose sole aim is to give them access to the best
possible information concerning the benefits and risks of
biologically active substances.
From Colonial times until 1914, Americans were the authors
of their own drug policy: They decided what substances to avoid
or use, controlled the drug-using behavior of their children,
and assumed responsibility for their personal conduct. Since
1914, the control of, and responsibility for, drug use -- by
adults as well as children -- has been gradually transferred
from citizens to agents of the state, principally physicians.
Supporters of the marijuana referendums portray their
policies as acts of compassion "to help the chronically or
terminally ill." James E. Copple, president of Community Anti-
Drug Coalitions of America, counters: "They are using the AIDS
victims and terminally ill as props to promote the use of
marijuana." He is right. Former Surgeon General Joycelyn
Elders declares: "I think that we can really legalize
marijuana." If by "legalizing" she means repealing marijuana
prohibition, then she does not know what she is talking about.
We have sunk so low in the war on drugs that, at present,
legalizing marijuana in the United States is about as practical
as is legalizing Scotch in Saudi Arabia. A 1995 Gallup Poll
found that 85 percent of the respondents opposed legalizing
illicit drugs.
Supporters of the marijuana referendums are posturing as
advocates of medical "responsibility" toward "sick patients."
Physicians complain of being deprived of their right to free
speech. It won't work. The government can out-responsible the
doctors any day. Physicians have "prescription privileges," a
euphemism for what is, in effect, the power to issue patients ad
hoc licenses to buy certain drugs. This makes doctors major
players in the state apparatus denying people their right to
drugs, thereby denying them the option of responsible drug use
and abdicating their own responsibilities to the government: "We
will not turn a blind eye toward our responsibility," declared
Attorney General Janet Reno at a news conference on December 30,
1996, where the Administration announced "that doctors in
California and Arizona who ordered for their patients any drugs
like marijuana . . . could lose their prescription privileges and
even face criminal charges." I don't blame the doctors for
wanting to forget the Satanic pact they have forged with the
state, but they should not expect the government not to remind
them of it.
The American people as well as their elected
representatives support the war on drugs. The mainstream media
addresses the subject in a language that precludes rational
debate: crimes related to drug prohibition are systematically
described as "drug-related." Perhaps most important, Americans
in ever-increasing numbers seem to be deeply, almost
religiously, committed to a medicalized view of life. Thus,
Dennis Peron, the originator of the California marijuana
proposition, believes that since relieving stress is beneficial
to health, "any adult who uses marijuana does so for medical
reasons." Similarly, Ethan Nadelmann, director of the
Lindesmith Center (the George Soros think tank for drug policy),
states: "The next step is toward arguing for a more rational
drug policy," such as distributing hypodermic needles and
increasing access to methadone for heroin addicts. These self-
declared opponents of the war on drugs are blind to the fatal
compromise entailed in their use of the phrase "rational
policy."
If we believe we have a right to a free press, we do not
seek a rational book policy or reading policy; on the contrary,
we would call such a policy "censorship" and a denial of our
First Amendment rights.
If we believe we have a right to freedom of religion, we
do not seek a rational belief policy or religion policy; on the
contrary, we would call such a policy "religious persecution"
and a denial of the Constitutionally mandated separation of
church and state.
So long as we do not believe in freedom of, and
responsibility for, drug use, we cannot mount an effective
opposition against medical-statist drug controls. In a free
society, the duty of the government is to protect individuals
from others who might harm them; it is not the government's
business to protect individuals from harming themselves. Mis-
ranking these governmental functions precludes the possibility
of repealing our drug laws. Presciently, C. S. Lewis had
warned against yielding to the temptations of medical tutelage:
"Of all the tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good
of its victims may be the most oppressive . . . . To be 'cured'
against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard
as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet
reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed
with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."
Although at present we cannot serve the cause of liberty
by repealing the drug laws, we can betray that cause by
supporting the fiction that self-medication is a disease,
prohibiting it is a public health measure, and punishing it is a
treatment.
Thomas Szasz, M.D.,
Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus,
SUNY Health Science Center
750 East Adams Street
Syracuse, New York, 13210
E-mail responses may be sent c/o jschale@american.edu
Dr. Schaler will forward all responses to Dr. Szasz.
This article is reproduced here with permission of the author.
The article appeared in the March 1997 issue of LIBERTY,
Volume 10, No. 4, pp. 47-48. http://www.LibertySoft.com/liberty/
Letters to LIBERTY, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368 USA)
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