Army Bob: Let’s legalize, tax and regulate marijuana

Let’s talk about the use of medical marijuana.

The American Cancer Society reports, “Smoked marijuana delivers THC and other cannabinoids to the body, but it also delivers harmful substances to users and those close by, including many of the same substances found in tobacco smoke.

“The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), the Society’s advocacy affiliate, has not taken a position on legalization of marijuana for medical purposes because of the need for more scientific research on marijuana’s potential benefits and harms. However, ACS CAN opposes the smoking or vaping of marijuana and other cannabinoids in public places because the carcinogens in marijuana smoke pose numerous health hazards to the patient and others in the patient’s presence.”

Dronabinol (Marinol®) and Nabilone (Cesamet®) are extracts of the cannabis plant containing delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that’s approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat nausea. A Food and Drug Administration approved medication, it can do a better job medically than the drugs grown in someone’s basement.

We have a choice to use a medication that is produced in a controlled medical environment, inspected and licensed, or purchase it from Bubba, who grew it in his living room. We can choose between a measured controlled drug prescribed by your doctor after a review of your medical history and an examination, or a dime bag sold to you by Lefty down the street.

Arguments for the use of home-grown medical marijuana are for the most part not controlled studies; users state they feel better after use, thus it has medical value. If it was only that easy to confirm the overall medical value of a drug. Approval by the FDA of a medication produced in a less than controlled environment will be unlikely.

OK, let’s put the smoke screen (pun intended) behind us and look at the subject of marijuana use. Folks want to get high and use drugs to do it and yes, the most popular drug is alcohol. The industries that produce beer estimate legalization of marijuana will cost them $2 billion annually and, no surprise, they are against legalization.

Our friends on the side of legalization will point to the fact corporations that brew beer are against legalization, thus marijuana must be as safe as beer. Corporations are evil and “sticking it to the man every night and day” is a goal. Fine, be anti-capitalist all you wish, but please understand the reason distilled spirits are controlled and licensed was because folks were dying and going blind in large numbers. Placing legal controls and licensing on the industry, making the backwoods still illegal, made it safer.

The laws of supply and demand are absolute. Americans have an enormous demand for illicit drugs of all types, opioids and heroin being the current drugs of the most concern, the drugs with the highest body count. The laws of supply and demand will not allow us to make alcohol or tobacco illegal, and perhaps we will need to make marijuana legal to control the safety of a potentially new industry.

Let’s get real and stop hiding behind the red herring of medical marijuana; if folks want to get high using drugs (alcohol included) they will do it.  Legalize marijuana if the country wills it, but let’s stop the facade of legalization for medical use. Medical marijuana is no more effective a cancer treatment than Laetrile, a “natural cure” for cancer popular in the 1970s that resulted in the preventable deaths tens of thousands with treatable cancer.

Mr. David Young, the owner and editor of this newspaper, advocates legalizing and taxing marijuana to pay for national health care, and I agree with him, as distressing as that is. Marijuana use and lots of it is inevitable and medically dangerous, but as it is unquestionably as unstoppable as alcohol. Let’s legalize, tax and regulate it.