Marijuana, Conservatism, and the Culture Wars
Read Mary Grabar’s original Pajamas Media article here.
Read David Swindle’s NewsReal rebuttal here.
I will respond to your post, David, because it, like many of the posts in response to my column points to a very important divide in the conservative/libertarian movement. Thank you for the opportunity.
Your post also points to a war of ideas, a war that conservative strategists have ignored to their peril. We lost the last election because we lost the culture war. I make that claim based on my experience of teaching college for almost twenty years. I have been in the middle of the culture wars, have seen its impact on young people and seen it played out on the political field. Make no mistake about it: The Left strategized for the long term and outlined their plans in 1962 in the Port Huron Statement.
Conservatives have been playing defense ever since. My tenured Leftist colleagues declare victory publicly and loudly.
Many, including those on our side, have simply forgotten the traditions and values that inform the fight.
Many of the young have been brought up on the liberalism now reigning in our culture. It is a culture that says that all values are relative, that all matters of morality are a function of personal choice. This also seems to be the tack of a certain strain of libertarianism.
These libertarians rightly want to be left alone to live their lives. They want to be free to make their own decisions about health care and how they spend their money. They want to be free to protect themselves with firearms. I agree with all these goals.
But I often see something very reactionary in the responses that are made whenever laws affecting such social issues as drug use or prostitution come into play. An apt display is radio talk show host Burnie Thompson’s reference to Andrew Grande [who swallowed the bag of marijuana] as “a casualty of the war on drugs.” The statement, of course, ignores a central tenet of libertarianism, which is personal responsibility.
I think it also points to a certain absolutist world view, which goes something like “if we put any restrictions on marijuana all our freedoms are at peril.” But this absolutist worldview is based on an either/or fallacy. It promotes anarchy more than libertarianism. It assumes that we are a society of atomistic individuals; it can exist only in a cultural vacuum. The fact that I am accused of advocating “collectivism” because I favor keeping marijuana illegal I think is indicative.
It is displayed, I think, by your proclamation,
“The federal government does not exist to make the world better. It’s not here to eliminate poverty. . . . It’s not supposed to try and make sure people can buy homes. . . . The founders never intended a government which would require all citizens to buy health insurance. . . . When government is shifted toward bringing about some form of utopia it fails.”
I agree on all these points, but fail to see how they are connected to the legalization of marijuana. Certainly, our government regulates substances it deems dangerous, doesn’t it? It regulates certain drugs by prescription and outlaws others that are deadly. That government regulation of a substance considered harmful will necessarily lead to infringements on all our freedoms seems to be a slippery slope argument.
Like many of my detractors, you point to the harmlessness of the drug. But people are not thrown “in jail” for “growing and consuming a plant.” Surely, you would have to agree that marijuana is not just a “plant” that you would grow in your garden, like spinach. In fact, a better analogy might the one of growing poppies to produce opium.
Part of the absolutism is the refusal to acknowledge any of the dangers associated with marijuana or the concessions I made about the dangers of alcohol. In my column I compared smoking marijuana to drinking alcohol, which I think is apt, depending on the strain of marijuana. Both are used socially, both are relaxants, and both can be addictive. The debate centers on legality.
Although marijuana is illegal, the punishment for its possession (alone) usually is very light. What legalization proponents (including William F. Buckley) don’t say is that many of those perpetrators serving prison sentences supposedly for “drug possession” have pled their cases down or are repeat offenders with long histories of other crimes, including violent crime. So in effect they are not serving sentences for smoking a joint in their living rooms as many imply.
Those who do smoke in their homes (without any punishment I might add) say, “Look, I smoke every day and pull in six figures and pay my taxes, don’t beat my wife or kids, etc., etc.” That may be true. It is also true for functioning alcoholics.
Again, the similarities between the two substances, and I revert back to an argument based on tradition and specifically our Judeo-Christian heritage. I openly—and non-relativistically—assert that it is a heritage that is superior to all others. I base my arguments on this premise.
The fact that I am accused of being a theocrat for simply invoking our cultural heritage and advocating for its values again points to an absolutism on the part of these libertarians, and I think, implicitly a rejection of the Judeo-Christian foundations of our culture. Many of my detractors are absolutely hostile to the mere mention of the Bible or of why we should pay attention to it.
Such an attitude I think springs from an ignorance of history and a lack of appreciation for the roots of our culture, the very culture that supported the founding of this republic. Like T.S. Eliot in “The Idea of a Christian Society,” I make the argument on a broad philosophical basis. You can be an atheist and still appreciate the virtues of our Christian heritage. If you are philosophically honest, you will see that, as a worldview, Christianity was the first that admitted that “all men are created equal.” I came upon this fact, not in reading some religious tract, but an article by Francis Fukuyama in the liberal magazine the Atlantic.
In order to invoke the founding fathers, one needs to understand the cultural tradition they drew from. They read deeply and drew upon the rich traditions of Western thought. They agree with George Washington as he says in his Farewell Address, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. . . . Who that is a sincere friend [to our form of government] can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?” I believe I was pointing beyond the isolated use of marijuana to the foundations.
Barry Goldwater in The Conscience of a Majority bemoaned the decay of morality, of the acceptance of the once “unthinkable” that “eventually could bring about the destruction of our free society”: “The ‘unthinkable’ says automatically that because of ‘changing times’ we not only must alter our old methods of living, but we also must change all of our previously held attitudes. Thus, you find a vicious and growing attack directed at every tradition, every standard and belief—no matter how fundamental it might be to an ordered society of freedom and justice. . .” I think we see this now with libertarian arguments that argue along lines divorced from tradition, standard, and belief. The “unthinkable” also concerns those behaviors that on their face have no harmful effects. One of these might be public nudity. I can imagine an “unthinkable” scene, of nude citizens in the public square smoking joints. It’s funny, but logically consistent with the arguments of those who would legalize marijuana and all other non-harmful behaviors. Our culture since Goldwater’s writing has accepted many, many other once “unthinkable” acts, usually to the detriment of our society.
For arguments based on practical reasons, I encourage readers to look up the comments of my friend Tina Trent who blogs on crime. She gives many good reasons why legalization won’t lower crime rates. In my column, I also linked an article that indicated that the legalization of marijuana in certain states has given young people the idea that it is safe. It is not safe. It has serious health effects. It is addictive. I personally know people who smoke it every day. They started young. One started after being in a motorcycle accident and used it for pain. These are people who are supporting themselves, true. But they are people who are operating way below capacity, who have lost the ability to think logically or to care enough to argue logically. Their emotional relationships are shallow. They have lost initiative and that fighting spirit that defends the idea of liberty.
Why now put the imprimatur of legality on a substance that does this?
One of the things that sets our culture above others is that we are a nation of laws—reasonable laws. And laws for possession of small amounts of marijuana need to remain at the misdemeanor level. This does not take away our freedom to use drugs in a legitimate manner, nor detract from our other freedoms.
The culture warriors of the 1960s used a multi-pronged approach to effecting a change in “consciousness.” One of those was to present the “unthinkable” in libertarian terms. Nudity, sex out in the open, orgies, destruction of public places, desecration of art—why not? The acceptance of all kinds of behavior, including some extremely self-destructive behavior, by my students worries me. They cannot articulate reasons why some behaviors—even those that seemingly affect only individuals—should be condemned. They cannot articulate reasons why our culture is superior to others.
Conservatives need to focus on educating young people who have been kept in ignorance about how our culture and country have provided them the freedoms they now enjoy. As Goldwater said in 1964, there is no freedom without law and order. The debate about drug laws entails larger questions about cultural values. To argue in an arid, absolutist manner is to indicate a certain disregard for our heritage.
As I see it, this debate really is about more than whether or not you smoke a joint in your living room—which for all practical purposes neither I nor the cop on the street much cares about. What I do care about is this one more capitulation in the Culture Wars.
Editor’s Note: David Swindle’s response to this essay is now available here.
Trackbacks and Pingbacks
- Pro-Drug War Conservatives Need to Rethink, er, REMEMBER the Role of Government | NewsReal Blog
- Are we Fighting the Left or the Counterculture? Because They are Not the Same Thing | NewsReal Blog
- The Plant In The Middle Of The Culture Wars « Around The Sphere
- NRB vs. FrumForum: Gee, I Wonder Who’s Telling the Truth? « Calvin Freiburger Online
To be honest,I too,don’t believe that marijuana should be legalized either. It can be too easily abused and kids shouldn’t even have it much less be smoking it. I also agree that the alleged “harmlessness” of marijuana should be exposed for the myth that it is. There are scientific surveys that say that it can interfere with a person’s memory with prolonged exposure and can be harmful in so many other ways as well.
It can also be addicting itself and can act as a gateway drug to much more harder substances later. I know I’m going to be attacked for this but I have to say it. I’m not a supporter of drug legalization. The price we pay if we go down this road will be destroyed lives and more social problems than we can handle so why should we go down that path? I also have a young cousin who I wouldn’t want using drugs anyway. Why legalize them? It’s a bad idea,and will cause more problems than it solves.
Addiction, gateway drug, what other completely debunked theories will people continue to quote?
How would regulated legalization increase access for kids? Liquor stores card customers, dope dealers don’t.
Ask your own kid how hard it would be for them to get pot at school, then ask about alcohol.
By insisting upon continued prohibition, you guarantee the market for drug cartels and dope dealers (and ensure prohibitionist high prices and profitability).
The multi-billion dollar marijuana industry isn’t going to disappear. As long as dope dealers control the trade, your kids will be constantly exposed to it, and pot isn’t the only thing dope dealers “educate” your kids about.
I’ve always leaned against drug legalization, though I confess I’ve never cared about the issue enough to examine it in much detail (my position is more or less that Americans having their homes stolen from them via eminent domain abuse, preborn babies killed for convenience, and such are a little more deserving of my sympathy & immediate attention than poor potheads fighting for their right to light up).
I do have one observation I’d like to throw out there, though: “War on Drugs,” much like “War on Poverty,” is a misnomer that has led many to draw dubious conclusions. “War” implies something with a final goal, which will eventually come to an end. Since we’ve been fighting the “War on Drugs” for decades, yet people still do drugs, legalization advocates declare that the war has been a failure, insisting on an exit strategy from the quagmire.
But when do we use this standard in any other context? Mankind has been prohibiting theft, murder, littering, rape, speeding, slander, and scores of other wrongs for ages, yet still they continue. Do we declare these to be lost causes? Of course not; we understand that man’s nature has always included inclinations toward greed, cruelty & mischief, and that certain vices will always be with us, and will require never-ending efforts to counter them.
One glaring difference between drug prohibition and laws against theft, murder littering, rape, speeding, slander and scores of other wrongs is that those laws actually have some impact. With marijuana, anyone who wants it gets it – in point of fact one of the easier places to get it is jail.
We live the majority of our years as adults, so it is inappropriate to enact legislation that threatens abusive penalties for drug use in the name of protecting our children. Nobody is suggesting that currently illegal drugs become available to minors (they already are on the street, by the way). The “think of the children” and “it is harmful to health” arguments prey on our innate concern for the well being of our children and our fear of disease and death. They insult the intelligence of the free individual because they are founded on the axiom that the promoters of such arguments posses a superior power of judgment that entitles them to impose their will upon other individuals through state power, whether the other individuals consent or not. The anti-prohibitionist recognizes the competence (and natural right) of the individual to exercise self-ownership, and that liberty is the most ethical condition for human existence.
Certainly some individuals damage their health through the use of drugs. These people should be helped by family members, churches, neighbors, and voluntary treatment. It is morally reprehensible and inconsistent to punish them or force them into treatment using state power and the criminal justice system. After all, we don’t incarcerate, fine or forcibly treat people who become obese, or expose themselves to lead fumes in the pursuit of such hobbies as bullet casting and soldering, even though their damaged health negatively affects their performance and can negatively affect their families in the form of early death and increased medical care costs due to increased risk of many diseases. We don’t punish the parents of obese children either, even though the diet they feed their children will probably affect that child’s health at least as much as drug use will affect the health of a normal adult. But liberty is the issue, not health, and parents have a right to raise their children as they see fit. And adults in a free society have a right to drug themselves as they see fit, as long as they don’t endanger others at an intolerable level (a good benchmark may be the danger one exposes another to when giving them a ride in a car, or to push the threshold a bit higher, a ride on the back of a motorcycle, as these are generally considered legally and socially acceptable in the USA). These drugs aren’t any worse than alcohol when it comes to catalyzing bad behavior. Crime associated with drug use and the drug trade is a result of prohibition, not drug use.
Prohibition laws necessitate a police state for enforcement, and imply that citizens are government property by contradicting the principle of self-ownership. This is unacceptable in a nation that claims to take pride in being the freest on earth. Individual responsibility cannot be legislated into existence. Attempts to do so undermine the free individual because they are founded on the axiom that individuals in government posses a superior power of judgment that entitles them to impose their will upon other individuals through state power, whether the other individuals consent or not. Government should exist to protect life, liberty, and property. Government has no place in preventing individuals from knowingly, and willingly damaging their own health. Government also should not take on a parental role in the lives of American children. That is what parents and families are for, for better or for worse.
Unfortunately, the majority of people in America seem to be driven to action only by spoon-fed platitudes, chants, and other phrases designed to circumvent thought processes. “Drill, baby drill,” and “yes we can” come to mind. So, prohibitionists, you can rest assured that for decades to come cocaine and heroin will only be available outside the liquor store to any child who wants them instead of from behind the counter to adults only.
Sir,
If you are going to preach some type of ‘respect your heritage’ speech, perhaps you should think over this quote-
“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.” -Abraham Lincoln
The greatest president, who represents the common man and the will of the people, clearly disagrees with you.
I was impressed, myself, but didn’t comprehend the message.
Wow, ok Virginia sit down and let us take advantage of a true teaching moment.
Check out my point by point rebuttal of this silliness at my blog.
http://hereticscrusade.blogspot.com/2009/12/man-smokes-pot-dseserves-to-die-says.html
“These are people who are supporting themselves, true. But they are people who are operating way below capacity, who have lost the ability to think logically or to care enough to argue logically. Their emotional relationships are shallow. They have lost initiative and that fighting spirit that defends the idea of liberty.
Why now put the imprimatur of legality on a substance that does this?”
WHAT? Come again Mary?!
Let’s make an experiment: call the cops on your friends, if you believe that would solve their ‘problem’ of being too slow/ below capacity. And also let them know you did that on purpose, w/ good intentions. Visit them again in 1year, and tell us how they got better pls
So if I get this right, you are saying that the stupid belong in prison! It doesn’t really matter how they got stupid, but as long as they could be smart, but choose not to be, they should be arrested.
Your logic makes me sick, and not because it lacks the basic principles, but because it argues w/ such a joy and confidence… Let me try to wake you to reality for one moment:
1.Marijuana became illegal based on lies, propaganda and dark interests. The law did not come out of a civilized debate, and it was not based on good intentions, information and religious convictions. So, stop defending DEA’s abuses – this law had nothing to do w/ moral values and social responsibility. One is naive if thinks the Prohibition had morals and value…
2.Marijuana is still illegal based on ’studies’ that are not scientifically driven… We don’t know what it does, what are the implications, but still we let the gov tell us it has NO MEDICAL USE! It took years and lots of jail years to make the population stop the nonsense and the madness and let the sick treat themselves -instead of throwing them in prisons. Now we have doctors that are free to study this substance and they say it has some medical use and benefits, and that we need to study and understand it more. The DEA still preaches that it has no medical use.
In all honesty, how do you call this? Find word for both 1. and 2. -I can’t call it ‘good tradition’
” …you smoke a joint in your living room—which for all practical purposes neither I nor the cop on the street much cares about. What I do care about is this one more capitulation in the Culture Wars.”
Let me again tell you about a Culture War that you don’t know about –you left Europe too young. This Culture War was also based on good intentions, society values and the rest of the good stuff. The Culture that was winning this war had no problem putting in jail for 14yrs a young man w/ ONE joint in his hand. Just for that, no smoke, no nothing! ONE joint in one hand: 14years! In other Cultures, because you seem to appreciate this aspect of culture and tradition, marijuana can mean death. There, the war is much simpler: you get caught, you die. So how about we let the other Culture win for a while? How about that capitulation? Until at least we have studied the situation, we have some knowledge and we can make some decisions better informed- because to be very honest I’m not the only one getting very tired of the old system : its propaganda machine, the lies, the lack of science and humanity, its superstitions and all the rest… Pls try for one moment to imagine that it is possible to smoke marijuana and not lose the ability to think logically, to feel deeply for someone and have the spirit to fight for liberty! At least for these people –and I have good feeling that we are not just a few- put now the imprimatur of legality… After all, we can always come back if it gets worse…did that w/ prop 8 in California, didn’t we? ;]
David starts out by describing the governments role as seen by our founders as that of protecting individual LIBERTY! That is what they believed and accomplished in the founding documents.
LIBERTY, as I and as John Stuart Mills defines it, is the individuals right to do anything at all they want as long as they do not infringe on the LIBERTY of others. The definition thus offered also includes this additional qualification. For those incapable of knowing how to exercise responsibly the GOD given right of LIBERTY, either because of mental incapacity (disease) or of insufficient age to be considered by society as being able to assume those responsibilities (maturity/age of majority/children), we should put laws in place to protect these categories of the vulnerable among us.
So David gets close to making the above in his argument but does not finnish the job. Instead both he and Marg Graybar take a divergent path and begin discussing the medical ramifications of taking drugs as well as the legal violence issues surrounding the use of drugs. I do not condone taking drugs as mentioned in the articles or the abuse of alcohol either, just for the record. However none of these issues addresses LIBERTY as a right of individuals but attempts to justify why we must surrender our LIBERTY so that others can be saved from doing dangerous things as society/culture defines them. None of this was included in the concept of the protection of individual/personal LIBERTY in our founding documents.
A far better approach is to enact laws about all drug use, or any other actions of individuals which would hurt or impair anyone elses LIBERTY at the expense of that individual exercising their LIBERTY.
This approach gives us the maximum LIBERTY in our lives while providing a remedy for those who in exercising LIBERTY impede on others LIBERTY.
Anyone, who is mentally and legally competant to make a judgment to take an action, and wants to destroy themselves as a free individual they should be allowed to do so as long as it does not violate anothers LIBERTY!
We truly then really do have LIBERTY!
Ms. Grabar is factually wrong on several accounts. Marijuana is not addicting – anymore than chocolate or sex are for some people. It is illegal solely because it’s sister plant , hemp (once the single most important crop in America), was a serious financial threat to Messrs. Hearst and Dupont. Hearst, because of his vast paper holdings, and Dupont because of his new invention, nylon. Marijuana was demonized to make it easier to outlaw hemp. It’s the great lie that prohibitionist always seem to ignore while they wax philosophic about the evils of cannabis.
Comparing it to alcohol makes about as much sense as comparing it to pumpkin seeds. The short and long term use of alcohol is exponentially greater than short term or chronic use of marijuana. Alcohol can kill you acutely and over the long haul, for example. The same isn’t true about marijuana.
Ms. Grabar’s description of chronic marijuana users is folly. The long term cannabis users that I know and have met over the past four decades are self made millionaires, entrepreneurs, lawyers, judges, neuro-surgeons, nurses, writers, reporters, engineers, teachers and all types of other professionals.
Although smoked, marijuana has none of the afflictions associated with tobacco. In fact, research out of UCLA suggests that THC, the psycho-active ingredient in marijuana, may have a protective effect on the lung.
Finally, prohibition has been a complete and utter failure on multiple levels. So what we are left with at the end of the day is a ban on a substance that was legal for more than 150 years, made illegal based on lies (rent the movie, “reefer madness” sometime to get a hint of what I’m talking about here) for the financial gain of a couple of very wealthy businessmen. A ban that has significantly strengthened organized crime, cost billions of dollars a year to enforce while creating criminals of otherwise law-abiding citizens, while not allowing us to utilize one of the great plants (hemp) ever grown on God’s green earth. Not too smart an idea from where I sit.
I’ll leave the encroachment on our civil liberties, and the role of government intrusion in our lives for another day.
You quoted me accurately – thank you. I invite you to discuss this issue on my radio program. Please e-mail me to schedule a time: burnie@burniethompson.com. Thank you.
@Tim ~Her description on weed users is in regard to her experiences. I don’t have millionaire friends ;], but I do have friends who are MDs, singers, radio ppl, construction engineer, eco-political analyst, bla bla.. we all have at least a college diploma and it just happen that instead of some JD we smoke some Jane; but we can’t talk about that, because we’re all just some stupid men -and criminals too ;]] Yes that’s funny in a way too: I never got a parking or a speeding ticket, I’m very careful about the safety of others, but if I was to tell someone I smoke once in a while some weed, that would mean that I’m some sort of junk, some irresponsible person, some sort of criminal on standby
I simply can’t understand why we don’t talk openly about the lies and interests behind some very bad laws… They don’t help our society at all and yet we don’t try to make them better.
For example in 1929, they ran short films saying that if you smoke it, you will kill people.
They faked scientific studies, and told lies to the population… By no means can we call this education.
Mary should watch “The History Of Marijuana” for a deeper understanding of this “Culture War” she talks about… Because the legalization is not about being able to smoke pot, it’s about freedom and education. Let’s be free, and let’s try to educate ourselves while being free. Lies and propaganda never made a good education for the young!!
( you can find the documentary on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sknoKWsVlAA)
Yip,Yap…it’s hilarious to me. All the back and forth does is show me that no one involved has a clue. Keeping weed illegal is an easy way of criminalizing large segments.of the public and making sure that most folks choose to be swill sloppin’ slugs.
As long as the populous remains intoxicated, the shill can go forth unabated.
Why the obsession with intoxicants? In case you hadn’t notice the Muslims eschew ALL of them and look at how rational THEY are!
: – )
Maybe they’re against the booze, but I’m sure many are weened on something that damages their thought process.
Who cares about whether marijuana has dangers or not? Seriously, this isn’t about how worried we are for the brains of some random strangers, and it never was. This is about control, the ability to exercise it at will and the ability to profit from the resulting systems of control. It provides police officers and corrections workers with work and compensation. It allows for highly-trained paramilitary units to be stationed all over the country to fight the War on Drugs. Marijuana prohibition maintains a profitable status quo for Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Lawyers and Law Makers, Lumbering and Textiles, and Big Oil – to name a very few.
The War on Drugs gives the USA an excuse to build international drug task forces that constantly meddle in the affairs of other countries. Ever wonder why the USA has a military base near just about every drug hot-spot in the world? Ever wonder why the USA does such contradictory things as encouraging Afghans to replant their opium crops?
Simple truth: The most devastating and long-lasting side effect of marijuana use is a criminal record. The most dangerous, immediate consequence of marijuana use is the machine gun-toting, para-military, drug-nazi that will kick down you door, shoot your dog and steal your freedom for possessing marijuana.
The most dangerous and the most expensive aspect of marijuana use is the prohibition of marijuana use. So all the rest of you can argue back and forth about marijuana making you stupid, causing cancer, corrupting kids, turning you into a heroine addict, etc. Keep turning a blind-eye to the elephant in the room: 20,000,000 marijuana-related arrests and counting. All expenses covered by the fear and ignorance of the Great American flock.