Bill Bennett: This notion that marijuana isn't that harmful is just plain wrong

I know you don't like it when I go here, because the "conservative movement" seems to have wholly embraced marijuana legalization as part of a larger move in direction of "liberty" as opposed to law and order. I'm pretty sure the very real principles of liberty that animated the Founding Fathers were not about the right to get stoned, but they had their priorities, you have yours.

At any rate, if you're to take the position that the right to party and get high is essential to the preservation of liberty, you should at least avoid making your case on the basis of nonsense. And that's what you're doing when you argue that marijuana is "not that harmful." We have more from former drug czar Bill Bennett and attorney Robert A. White, who write in today's Wall Street Journal that quite the opposite is true. Pot is becoming more harmful even as public opinion is becoming more acceptant of it. I'm pretty sure I know why, and it has nothing to do with it actually being "not that harmful," but first the excerpt:

Here's the truth. The marijuana of today is simply not the same drug it was in the 1960s, '70s, or '80s, much less the 1930s. It is often at least five times stronger, with the levels of the psychoactive ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, averaging about 15% in the marijuana at dispensaries found in the states that have legalized pot for "medicinal" or, in the case of Colorado, recreational use. Often the THC level is 20% or higher. With increased THC levels come increased health risks. Since Colorado legalized recreational use earlier this year, two deaths in the state have already been linked to marijuana. In both cases it was consumed in edible form, which can result in the user taking in even more THC than when smoking pot. "One man jumped to his death after consuming a large amount of marijuana contained in a cookie," the Associated Press reported in April, "and in the other case, a man allegedly shot and killed his wife after eating marijuana candy." Reports are coming out of Colorado in what amounts to a parade of horribles from more intoxicated driving to more emergency hospital admissions due to marijuana exposure and overdose.

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Over the past 10 years, study after study has shown the damaging effect of marijuana on the teenage brain. Northwestern School of Medicine researchers reported in the Schizophrenia Bulletin in December that teens who smoked marijuana daily for about three years showed abnormal brain-structure changes. Marijuana use has clearly been linked to teen psychosis as well as decreases in IQ and permanent brain damage.

None of this is going to matter, of course, to the devoted activist marijuana smoker. That's ironic when you think about it. If it's really just a harmless plant and no big deal, how do you explain the people who pretty much dedicate their lives to their right to smoke it, and to countering every bit of negative information about it? You always hear the argument that pot is "less harmful than alcohol," which may or may not be true, but is completely irrelevant at any rate. The only question that matters where marijuana is concerned is what the public health implications of legalizing it would be. They would not be good. You can demand if you want that I be "consistent" and also demand that alcohol be prohibited if I'm going to take this position about pot. If alcohol were re-banned it would be fine with me. I have no use for it and I don't drink it. But I don't waste my time demanding things that society is never going to do. Marijuana is already illegal and it's politically plausible, if increasingly difficult, to keep it that way. So I advocate that we do so. At any rate, the shift in public opinion is really not because people have studied the facts of the issue in depth. They haven't. I think they just become wary of the constant debate and the numbers they're always hearing about the money that's been spent on the drug war. They hear stories - mostly bogus - about people "rotting in jail over a joint" and that doesn't sound right so people who are getting tired of the battle question whether it's all worth it. The same thing happened with the War on Terror. When you see why it's necessary, like we did on 9/11, you get behind it. When life returns to normal and the problem isn't right in your face, you just want to relax and not worry about it, and it seems like maybe just legalizing it would be easier. So you become a little more willing to say that when the survey taker calls you. You would be no less horrified to catch your 13-year-old toking, but that's different because that's when you're forced to face reality. There is also this: I do think American culture has changed in the sense that when lawlessness is rampant, we used to blame the lawbreakers. Now we are increasingly willing to blame the laws, figuring that if that many people are violating the law, it must not have enough public support to remain in place. I would suggest that in this case the problem is not the law but the denigration of culture such that people simply no longer care if what they're doing is legal or not - often to the point of self-destructive irrationality. Inhaling the smoke of a mind-altering substance so you can get stoned is a stupid thing to do. It's a stupid life priority. It's a stupid cause to champion. It's sure as hell a stupid thing to risk your own arrest over. If this is what's important to you, you're a moron. The culture at large used to recognize how stupid this was. I'm not so sure it does anymore, because we're all just tired of having the battle all the time and we just want to relax and watch American Idol. You probably didn't know a lot of the information Bennett and White share here, because being concerned about drug use is so 1980s and you figure if someone wants to toke up here and there, why is that any business of yours? The answer is that everyone is put at risk when this sort of thing becomes accepted on a widespread basis. More drug use is the last thing this country needs. What we need is more people who think clearly, act responsibly and exercise good judgment. Participating in the drug trade not only wars against that in your own life, but it perpetuates the denigration of it in the lives of others. You're damn right that should be against the law. And if you think it's no one else's business that you want to do it, then I say you're a selfish bastard and no one should be influenced by you in considering the legal limits that might be placed on what you can do.

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