Could drugs play a role in ‘fundamentally transforming’ the nation?

The politics of Obama’s pot promo

By Robert B. Charles

By encouraging straight Americans to begin using the drugs, the new industry would grow. The drug would increasingly show up on U.S. highways, boosting business for hospitals, addiction centers and funeral homes.

First, President Obama says marijuana is “not very different from cigarettes” and no more “dangerous” than alcohol, just “a waste of time” and “not very healthy.” One imagines that he thinks of pot as somewhere between too many potato chips and fast driving. The president’s not-so-subtle message is “go ahead, just use it.”

Never mind that pot is a Schedule One narcotic, meaning a drug assessed as possessing “high potential for abuse,” based on science. Never mind that this narcotic has landed hundreds of thousands in treatment during the past 10 years, accelerated emergency-room incidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and raised levels of drugged driving, domestic abuse and marijuana-associated crime, according to state and federal sources.

Days later, the Maryland mall shooter, who killed three, including himself, turns out to have been a marijuana user, according to police. Do you recall the deadly Columbine shooting and marijuana link? Or perhaps The New York Times article “Violent Crimes Undercut Marijuana’s Mellow Image” in 2001? Or studies that have linked pot use to violence? Never mind.


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