There’s a new book out: Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?
Don’t buy it today.
Wait until tomorrow, 8/20, when organizers are attempting a “book bomb on Amazon.com. The idea is, if enough people buy the book on the same day, it could increase the temporary ranking on Amazon (computed hourly) to vault it into 1st place, which would be a first for a drug policy reform book.
I’m willing to give it a shot and buy my copy tomorrow. Join me. I’ll have this post with the link to buying the book on Amazon at the top of the page all day tomorrow.
I have not read the book, but I’ve heard excellent things about it. And while the “marijuana is safer than alcohol” argument is not the one that guides my vision of drug policy reform, I think I agree with Norm Stamper who wrote today in the Huffington Post.
I’m a drug “legalizer,” not an “incrementalist.” I do not believe drug policy reform should end with the legalization of marijuana. Yet, when asked to contribute a foreword to the new book, Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink, I eagerly accepted. Steve Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project, Paul Armentano of NORML, and Mason Tvert of SAFER have written the definitive answer to the question: Why is booze legal and pot is not? They’ve also offered the most lucid, persuasive strategy for ending this hypocrisy I’ve yet seen. Any book that strikes a blow for drug policy sanity deserves our support, regardless of any ideological differences.
I know that the reasons for ending prohibition go way beyond the relative “safety” of different drugs (in fact the most compelling reasons have nothing whatsoever to do with inherent drug safety). Yet if showing people that marijuana is safer than alcohol will help them take a step out of the darkened room of prohibition, then that’s great. We can help them find the rest of their way into the light.
Join me tomorrow in purchasing this book.
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The War On Drugs is actually a War Against Americans.
William Randolph Hearst and the DuPont companies stood to lose millions if the decorticator allowed companies to replace wood pulp with hemp to create paper products; so they engaged in a smear campaign with the help of Harry Anslinger, who demonized marijuana as a scourge on American society.
I added a posting recently which proves the efficacy of marijuana, especially as a relief from certain maladies.
I hope the book bomb goes gangbusters tomorrow.
A lot of people understand that Marijuana shouldn’t be illegal and I think if we’re ever going to end the war on drugs as a whole we have to score a victory on marijuana, and then I think you’ll see people lightening up on the issue.
Pete,
I agree with you that all drugs need to be legalized and regulated, we should remain aware that coming out with this idea to Joe Sixpack is not necessarily the most effective way to accomplish that. People have different “triggers”, or ways they can have their consciousness raised to see the truth about drug prohibition. Thus, they will be much more open to an deeper discussion how prohibition has caused much more problems than the drugs themselves. Thanks for all you do.
“People have different “triggersâ€, or ways they can have their consciousness raised to see the truth about drug prohibition.”
The greatest trigger of all is upon us. The people seeing their incomes diminish in the face of greater government oppression and taxation. The government prohibition parasites, who rely on money from Joe and Jane Sixpack, are barely feeling the effects of the economic maelstrom.
Peoples’ patience will wear very thin when they see tax money keeping the prohibition parasites in nice homes and cars and all the trinkets and baubles a middle class income can afford while they struggle to keep a roof over their heads, pay the bills and put food on the table with their now meager income courtesy of globalism.
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