Marijuana is Safer

Alcohol fuels violence and pot does not. That's at the core of the argument in the self-explanatory Marijuana is Safer:So Why Are Driving People to Drink? (published by Chelsea Green). Authors Steve Fox, Paul Armentano and Mason Tvert are marijuana reform activists with a professed agenda. Their position is buttressed in the foreword, where Norm Stamper, former Seattle police chief, takes up their case. In his experience, cops are forced to respond to booze-induced fighting nightly. Pot violence? Never heard of it.

If the purpose of law is to prevent people from harming each other, then the preponderance of anecdote and evidence is on the side of the authors. Also, the old argument that pot "leads" to harder drugs is specious because nicotine or alcohol, not marijuana, are usually the first drugs Americans ingest, yet the expensive and failed War on Drugs continues to be waged. Pot smoking as an adolescent right of passage hasn't stunted the careers of more recent generations of professionals. Barack Obama was candid about pot in his youth. So was Newt Gingrich.

But the main thesis of Marijuana is Safer is not that criminalizing cannabis is wasteful but rather that in comparison, pot smoking is less harmful than drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco. Scientific studies have accumulated much supporting data, which the American media ignores in favor of lurid exposes of bong-smoking athletes.

So why do the majority of Americans, even onetime pot smokers, oppose legalizing marijuana? The authors advance an interesting idea: it's because of the well-known hazards of alcohol and tobacco. When pressed, many people are uncomfortable with adding to the roster of legal recreational drugs. To this the authors answer that pot is less addictive, less of a health risk, than almost anything out there. Whether their call to lobby politicians on the issue will succeed remains questionable at a time when the agenda of hot-button issues is already crowded.