Chomsky talks about Marijuana

[~lostgurl~]

A new entry has been added to Drugs Archive

Description: 5 mins

A widely-distributed talk about why marijuana was made illegal in th states. It makes you wish that Chomsky would do more research into drug policy and the war on drugs because he very insightful. (BTW, Chomsky is not a smoker!)

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Reputation Comments on this post:

I like you, for some reason

[Panthers007]

Nice to see Noam add his 2¢ to what is happening and how it came to pass.

[toe]

The comments about degree of/criminalization being related to class usage were quite interesting. In the US everyone is familiar with the disproportionate sentencing for crack cocaine in comparison to the hcl form, as he mentioned. My venus fly trap snapped open when he mentioned the gradual criminalization of tobacco in line with its disproportionate use in certain classes, though. The entire nursery has been debating this very issue for some time:
the mentally ill and those living below the poverty threshold (often concordant conditions) have the highest rates of tobacco addiction in the (US) population. Hence the burden of ever-escalating taxation on this addictive substance is not only discriminatory, but also often wildly disproportionate.

Pardon the non-apropos histrionic tangent! There is obviously a motherlode of information to be mined here. But class associations don't appear to be the driving force behind substance control legislation. The rhododendren imagines that a 5:00 excerpt didn't do justice to the "fury of Chomsky's colorless green ideas." Popular wisdom might legislate against crack cocaine based on perceived correlation of economically-driven criminal violence with abuse of the drug. Theoretically legislation against tobacco is based on the toxicity of the drug.

Marijuana is far and away not a "ghetto drug"- its use spans every class line. Its acute toxicity is less than many regulated medicines and nearly all USA C-I substances. The US federal government isn't exceptionally well known for overturning stupid legislation with decades worth of dust upon it (but we're looking forward to Spring Break in Havana any year now, right?). But the DOJ actually does occasionally down-schedule a drug. There's the faintest possibility that one day, "inducing girls from good homes to sleep with jazz musicians" will be overturned as sufficient cause for the C-I status of cannabis in the USA.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Well said.