John Hughes is described as a former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, who writes a biweekly column.
However, when reading GOP candidates need to debate legalizing marijuana, I thought for sure that it was something written by a 7th grader. A stupid 7th grader.
It’s written in an extremely simplistic style, full of fallacies and downright nonsense, completely lacking in logic.
In the current debates among GOP presidential contenders about “values,†I have not heard any discussion about the legalization of marijuana. I think there should be.
Apparently, John Hughes is incapable of googling “GOP debate marijuana” or he’d see this or this. Sure, we’d like to see a lot more discussion about legalization, but to say there hasn’t been any? That’s ridiculous.
Of course, Hughes is a prohibitionist. Not a very smart one. He’s got one argument:
The words of a narcotics agent came back to me when singer Tony Bennett recently supported the legalization of drugs at a pre-Grammy gala where various Hollywood personalities were depicted smoking pot on TV.
The agent’s words were: “I can’t say every pot smoker goes on to get hooked on the hard stuff. But I can say every addict I know on the hard stuff got started on pot.â€
If is a meaningless argument, and anyone with more than a 7th grade education should be able to instantly point out the fallacy of such an argument.
Come on, CSM — I know that your editorial policy is sadomoralistic, but can’t you do better than this crap?
My favorite part of this column was when he said celebs were smoking marijuana on TV at the pre-Grammy event. Maybe I just missed the big news reports about that, but this is the first I’ve seen someone claim that there were wafts of marijuana in the air as Tony Bennett called for legalization. Anyone have a link to video footage of celebrities smoking marijuana at the Clive Davis event?
I think the point is that they don’t seem to believe they NEED better than this crap. Says a lot about how the editors view their readers. They obviously think of them as though they were stupid seventh graders.
what I took away from this “piece” (meant literally, it’s not even a full turd’s worth of BS) is that this is the level their elevator is stuck at. And I hate to break it to John Hughes but the Lawrence Welk generation has faded and the generations following stopped buying Roofer Madness a long time ago.
It’s a lame piece because the whole of the prohibition stance is lame/empty/senseless/bigoted/degenerate/hateful/ignorant/etc…
Damn it, Allen, now I have that Lawrence Welk theme song earworm…
Their readers ARE stupider than 7th graders. That’s why they’re religious; it’s too hard to think for themselves, they need someone else to do it for them.
The Christian Science Monitor and its parent organization are infected by the ravings of Mary Baker Eddy. Those who believe CSM’s columnists on topics of medical science should find themselves another universe, because on drug topics John Hughes and CSM found theirs long ago.
Heal the Sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse the lepers. Cast out demons. And lately, persecute the pot smokers. Right. At least they’re successful at one of them.
i guess ill add my name/voice to the matter, at first i thought if i did, i would be joining the floodgates or becoming one of many but then i realized the quote this idiot provided that gave me the impetus to write this – that every “hard stuff” addict he/his DEA friend knew started on pot.
WELL that’s just not true. Regardless of the gateway theory of prohibitionists, i’m not gonna touch that. I personally dont buy it. BUT HEY PAL HERE YOU GO, NOW YOU KNOW ONE, ME, i am not a heroin – classically defined as the ‘hard stuff’ – addict, i would prefer the term heroin lover, heroin consumer, heroin enjoyer, heroin engulfer, heroin devourer, heroin purveyor, heroin purchaser, heroin person, heroin obsesser etc you get the point not only that but i am a pot hater, poter not liker, pot maker funner, etc. i didnt start on the ‘hard stuff’ from pot. i did try pot many many times afterwords because like a teenage girl i wanted to fit in and couldn’t get why all my stoner friends loved pot and like all heroin lovers with stoner friends have to hear, ‘oh why dont you just try/smoke pot man’ well the answer was it sucks. and you know what else sucks? people who are against prohibition adamantly against it but only for pot. you know, the ones who set up pot legalization blogs, sites, etc. and they act as though pot is the only prohibited drug. the ones who will probably be some of the biggest hypocrites when pot does get legalized but heroin lobbyists are out in the cold and now have to deal with sober or drunk prohibitionists and pot smokers. Pot is not the only drug in the world and although my opinion is a minority i think pot quite frankly sucks. i do get how it is the favorite of many people and i do believe those folks have the right to smoke as much pot as they want, whenever, for as cheap as humanly possible, but i want to be clear that i think us heroin people deserve the same right cause although your numbers are seemingly larger and certainly your voice is far louder (on the internet in the anti-prohibition world) it’s not the only voice. I mean, i would like to think im on your side, we’re on the same side, but i hate feeling like you guys are throwing people like me under the bus. We’re in this together. You know, when the Swiss approved their heroin maintenance program indefinitely they did so via a public vote (2008 i believe, not sure though – dont crucify me if the date is wrong) the thing about it is, on that same day the public was given the vote to legalize pot. Heroin won it’s vote, i believe it was in the high 60 percentile, pot, obviously didn’t win. it was like 30 or 40 %. If that were to happen here right i promise you i would not go get my legal shot and laugh at the pot people id be just as righteous and upset about this whole thing as i am today, well…i actually probably wouldnt be, id probably be extremely happy, feeling great and not dope sick and experiencing the greatest euphoria in the world, imho – BUT id still be as involved a voice and as extreme about it, just legally on my d.o.c because this thing is not over til everything is legal, pot, dope, coke crack the wet, angel you know it you name it.
I think you read a lot of marijuana users wrong because we are also coming to realize that as long as anything is prohibited the violence and corruption will continue.
And a lot of us want drugs that can kill you legalized because we want the human race to be able to evolve,,,if people are stupid enough to use drugs that will destroy their health and kill them,,we can always hope they don’t have any children to carry their genes forward in the human race when death overtakes them.
Yeah, I don’t think CJ is condemning this site.
But just yesterday “Toke of the Town” ran a piece just to make fun of “meth heads”–it wasn’t about cannabis at all.
That’s just lame. People who think that cannabis is God’s herb and the opium poppy is the Devil need to hang out on Pete’s couch more.
You hear people going, “medical marijuana?!? Well, you don’t have the right to grow your own coca plants or opium poppies, why should you be able to grow pot?”
I am worried about a future in which you are not allowed to treat yourself.
(By the way, Norman Zinberg has written compellingly about casual heroin use, it’s pretty eye-opening stuff for us opiate virgins.)
CJ, Take the time to read some of the links on the left hand side of the page. Then go away, think about it for a few, and then come on back when you figure out what we have been saying here for years.
Your assumptions do not hold. Hat is a model we’ve touted all over the web. The harms caused by prohibition would only be mitigated by pot legalization, not eliminated. A powerful black market would remain.
Better be ready to let us potheads take the lead on legalization issues, though, there aren’t enough heroin users to git the job done, I’m afraid.
.
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I think that most people think that the choice is binary. They have a specific scenario of what would happen under a regulatory scheme and appear to totally disregard the possibility that 2 for 1 sales of heroin at the 7-11 or other equivalent absurdities don’t have to be permitted.
I actually think that CJ is on to something – maybe not about this site in particular, but I personally know a lot of people that think pot should be legalized but nothing else. I am guessing that their inconsistent logic stems from their belief that drugs like heroin and cocaine are simply too dangerous to be legalized. These people don’t seem to realize that 1) alcohol is far more dangerous than either of these drugs using almost any measure and 2) these drugs are already legal for medical uses and BigPharma gets to monopolize the market and push their pills through willing and loyal doctors.
That being said, I think it makes the most sense politically to start the repeal of Prohibition with marijuana, the most popular and least harmful drug, so that naysayers can see that the sky won’t fall when it happens. Also, CJ should take comfort in the fact that LEAP opposes all prohibition, not just marijuana prohibition. Don’t worry, there are a lot of stupid people in society but eventually we will get there.
I have been a supporter for full legalization of all drugs since I got involved in this fight for the right to self-ownership back in the early 70s. I would never try heroin, due to having had people who used it describe the effects to me, but I think heroin users have as much right to own their bodies as I do to own mine.
Prohibition is the great evil which must be expunged. Presently, the only anti-prohibition movement which has even the remotest chance of passing is on cannabis, and there is a lot of work to do yet. Once the herb is legal and everyone sees that the sky hasn’t fallen, the rest of the prohibitions will look less scary, and the logic of further profreedom movements will become more mainstream. Only then will we be able to move forward on expunging other prohibitions. Unfortunately for them, the opiate crowd is not as visible or vocal as the profreedomists in potville, but their case is just as valid, and in time freedom will prevail.
CJ, the majority of people who post on this board, including the owner, Pete Guither, have been actively campaigning for the legalized regulation of ‘ALL’ drugs, for many years now.
Try googling my name, (‘malcolmkyle’ or ‘malcolm kyle’) with ‘Swiss Heroin Assisted Treatment’ – it should give you at least 25,000 hits. They’re not all be my posts, but a great many of them most definitely are, as I’ve been doing my level best at spreading information on the indisputable success of H.A.T. for at least 7 years solid.
We will get there. I promise!
ya know… in it’s usually funny but not way this is a perfect example of creating a problem where none existed and then creating a problematic “solution” to correct the wrong that was never, wrong.
South America’s indigenous folks used coca leaves for thousands of years, beneficially, respectfully. And then along comes Joe-knows-how-to-do-everything-better European and voila! Cocaine! And Joe goes to Asia and finds the lovely opium poppy which the indigenous folks have, once again, been using beneficially and respectfully (a lot of wisdom in that “respect” thing) and… viola! Heroeen!
cool huh? and of course they are embarked upon that journey to heroinize cannabis. So far they’ve managed to come up with Sativex® but that’s still child’s play. My guess tho’… they’ll never be able to heroinize cannabis. I may be wrong but there is just something about that plant…
And yes CJ, there are plenty here (I’d bet good money we are statistically a higher percentage of the population here than just about anywhere else on the wwweb) who want to end the whole of the drug war.
I was blessed with the opportunity to imbibe heroin whilst in SE Asia. The first smoke (yes, we smoked, too pure to inject and I skip needles religiously) was one of the best highs I’ve ever had. Laying in a hammock I just floated on up to the clouds… but after awhile the high became a down and I found pot was just so much better (especially that Thai ganja, yow!) to me and for my head.
But yep, if you like the H, you otta have a safe avenue. Malcolm and other mention the Swiss HAT and I’d add the Senlis Council Proposals for Afganhistan to your reading list.
Addicts don’t get their start on pot.
They get their start on oxygen.
We should ban oxygen. Yeah, that will assure “victory”.
well actually I believe there is a movement out there to replace oxygen w/ carbon and methane. Someone please correct me if I have that wrong.
An old expression: Follow the money. Why hasn’t Congress jumped at the opportunity to “control” illegal drugs by putting them under government “control” – like ATF. Could it be Congressmen already “control” illegal drugs the way they want to? Are we not like Russia, where gangs and cartels control 50% of the country and Putin (etc) controls the rest? Or, may I venture (stupidly, perhaps) that if you follow the money, some roots will lead back to that fine looking building in Washington, DC and the men who make and write laws?
Has anyone ever looked into whether or not the tobacco cigarette is a “gateway drug”? My hunch is that nicotine and alcohol take pride of place. Of course, the idea for quick fixes and a pill for every ill is ingrained in our culture, but that special teen feeling of breaking the rules with that first drag on a cig or a beer has a powerful mojo.
Not only is cannabis not “the gateway drug” due to the fact that most users have prior experience with alcohol and/or tobacco before taking their first toke on a joint- the government’s own ONDCP statistics indicate that for for some years now, more teenagers have experimented with opiate-based pharmaceuticals as their first “controlled substance” than those who have gotten their initiation into those “other drugs” by trying pot. That’s right- the ineluctable conclusion is that more kids have smoked pot only after dropping Vicodin or Oxycontin than those who have not:
“Prescription drug abuse by teens is exceeded only by marijuana use, and there are just as many new
abusers (initiates) 12 and older of pain relievers as there are for marijuana. (NSDUH, 2007)”
http://tinyurl.com/OxysVsPot
http://www.theantidrug.com/pdfs/prescription_report.pdf
From “Prescription for Danger”, January 2008
Note: actually, as the chart in the linked .pdf document shows, those “initiates” are estimated to exceed those who use marijuana for the first time every day- 2150 vs. 2063, or about 4% more likely these days to start their non-alcohol, non-tobacco, “other drug” use with opiates than with cannabis.
That’s after 36 years of officially declared Drug War. If I had heard a stat like that as a pot-smoking teenager in 1971, I would have fallen out of my chair.
By any conceivable standard, that puts paid to the “pot is the gateway drug” allegation, simply as a strict matter of fact.
@Dr ross: “Has anyone ever looked into whether or not the tobacco cigarette is a “gateway drugâ€? My hunch is that nicotine and alcohol take pride of place.”
Answer: yes. That’s long been established, in multiple studies. The fact is “downplayed”, you might say- just as the abuse of “legal” prescription opiates is quite often excluded or kept distant from discussions of “illegal drugs”. Notwithstanding the existence of official government studies like the one I just linked.
After all, if those facts were emphasized, the entire rationale for pinning “gateway drug” status on marijuana would unravel.
However, if pressed, even the “official authorities” will acknowledge that the number of teenagers whose first experience with a mind-altering substance consists of alcohol has always handily outstripped those who initiated such experimentations with using pot, by a factor of at least three or four. The studies are out there; I don’t have time to do a search.
All the more reason to press them about that, of course.