# Why is the Federal government against the personal use of Marijuana? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 23, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846 "2008-09-23T15:54:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/21 "2008-09-23T23:46:29Z")
What the hell are you people smoking? This is _obviously_ a Great Debates thread. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/22 "2008-09-23T23:54:06Z")
Reefer is illegal because anybody can grow it at home. If it were legalized, then current legitimate stoner businesses like tobacco and alcohol would suffer financially because people wouldn’t buy booze or tobacco because they could grow more than enough for their own purposes. For reference, I have never used it and never will because it is disgusting. But by comparison to alcohol or tobacco the only harm it causes is to profits. ---
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/23 "2008-09-23T23:57:42Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > anecdote-earmuffs-on/ I’ve been an ER nurse for 10 years, I don’t think I’ve seen a single admission that was either primarily or secondarily\* related to marijuana. Alcohol or tobacco related? Fuck me!/earmuffs-off. OK, plural of anecdote and all that, but I’m neither a medical person nor a hard partier and I can think of at least one marijuana-related ER visit (not my own) off the top of my head. And this site lists 242,000 + such visits in 2005: [http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/0703135521.aspx](http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/0703135521.aspx) I’m not denying the much higher numbers of visits related to alcohol (over 7 million annually, see [http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/cost/a/bljama040309.htm](http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/cost/a/bljama040309.htm)) but alcohol is more widely used and there would be an understandable tendency not to mention or record illegal use of marijuana. How sure were you that all those drunks were just drunk? And why do so many of you have so little faith in capitalism’s ability to make money off of marijuana? I bet the pharma and tobacco companies have case studies in the vault on how to make money from legalization, should it occur. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/24 "2008-09-24T00:03:02Z")
The main reason why pot is illegal and other drugs are not is purely cultural. Almost every culture has its drugs which are verboten and those which are acceptable or normal, having in some cases only tangental relationship to harms. Though this changes over time - look at the worsening position of tobacco. “Pot” entered the North American lexicon as a drug of the underclass and, later, the hippie or social rebel. Thus, its use was always somewhat frowned upon, though not actually illegal until the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/25 "2008-09-24T00:09:00Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I think pot ought to be illegal. I trust you feel the same about alcohol? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/26 "2008-09-24T00:14:14Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Reefer is illegal because anybody can grow it at home. If it were legalized, then current legitimate stoner businesses like tobacco and alcohol would suffer financially because people wouldn’t buy booze or tobacco because they could grow more than enough for their own purposes. Pretty much anybody can grow tobacco at home, and home brewing is pretty popular. I think the reason is more just that once something is illegal, it’s hard to legalize. ---
**Author:** ![Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frustrated_Wonderer)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/27 "2008-09-24T00:22:48Z")
Prohibition? I know comparing other countries is often pointless BUT, look at The Netherlands. It’s semi-legal there, and the Dutch have the lowest amount of “regular pot users” in all of Europe. Why can’t the states adopt, say, a law in which buying/selling pot is illegal, but smoking at home is legal? Again, the Dutch law states that soft drug use is “illegal, but not punishable”, hence the development of coffee shops. Alaska has a state law that allows pot smoking in your own house. You are even allowed to grow some trees in your own home. No big complaints about pot has come out of Alaska… ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/28 "2008-09-24T00:27:34Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But I think it’s a matter for state law, not federal law. What portion of the Constitution gives the feds the authority to control marijuana grown in-state for use in-state? The Interstate Commerce Clause. See Gonzales v Raich. Prior, see Wickard v Fliburn (wheat grown for personal consumption can still be regulated by the Federal government under the Commerce Clause) See, also US v. Lopez: “Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities” But I’m sure you knew that. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/29 "2008-09-24T00:31:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, at least the first part anyway. The folk in the Midwest and other “heartland” regions don’t understand it and are scared of it. You got a cite that supports that statement, or are you just playing into the “only the coasts are civilized” garbage that gets thrown around so much? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/30 "2008-09-24T00:51:31Z")
The two theories I’ve seen about why it was made illegal were: [ol] [li] With the end of Prohibition, a federal bureaucracy needed a new illegal thing to keep working[/li][li]Williams Hearst had huge timber holdings, and needed to eliminate hemp, a competitive source of paper. [/li][/ol] I don’t drink or use any drugs - or drive. But I know I’d rather ride in a car driven by someone high on pot than a drunk. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/31 "2008-09-24T00:55:05Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Reefer is illegal because anybody can grow it at home. If it were legalized, then current legitimate stoner businesses like tobacco and alcohol would suffer financially because people wouldn’t buy booze or tobacco because they could grow more than enough for their own purposes. > > For reference, I have never used it and never will because it is disgusting. But by comparison to alcohol or tobacco the only harm it causes is to profits. Really? I didn’t notice that when I was in college. In fact consumption of them seemed to be linked. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/32 "2008-09-24T01:03:57Z")
> [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](#): > > And **Voyager’s** statement that the logistics are working fine in California is not everyone’s opinion. This LA Times article is a depiction of some concerns: [Where Mary Jane is the girl next door](http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/31/local/me-pot31) > > It includes this quote from the founder of a medical marijuana cooperative “THC founder Dennis Turner said that many residential growing operations amount to “full-on crime” and that he would welcome more regulation for dispensaries, particularly to protect marijuana quality. “There are holes in this [Proposition 215] like a piece of Swiss cheese,” he said.” > > Really, is there \*any \*government program that doesn’t have people criticizing the logistics? There are lots of policies that would be great to have if it were easy to enforce them fairly. They were growing up there long before the medical marijuana initiative passed. They’d be growing if it got repealed. In fact I mentioned fields full of it around here, connected to the Mexican Mafia. And every so often enforcement of the rules need to be tightened - I believe I recall a story about Jerry Brown (now our AG) talking about that. Given the incentives to cheat when something legal in a limited circumstance is illegal and desired more broadly, it seems to be going very well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/33 "2008-09-24T01:27:43Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Pretty much anybody can grow tobacco at home, and home brewing is pretty popular. I think the reason is more just that once something is illegal, it’s hard to legalize. I know a lot of people who do home brewing. For the most part, yuck. I’ve grown tobacco for science projects, and you couldn’t keep a serious smoker content with a 100 square foot plot, and I suspect, yuck. Nicotine addicts smoke quite a bit. As for marijuana, a 100 square foot plot would keep any doper stoned enough not to care whether it was any good. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/34 "2008-09-24T01:43:11Z")
> [@Frustrated\_Wonderer](#): > > I’ve never quite understood why the Federal government is so vehemently against the use of Marijuana. > > The DEA (:rolleyes:) states that it determines the harm of a specific substance before stating the legality of such substance. > > Most of us know the effects of Marijuana are relatively benign compared to the legal substances. > > What bothers me even more that even in states were the majority of the population is for the use of Medical Marijuana politicians are still against its use. > > Isn’t the purpose of the government, in part, to reflect the wishes of the majority of the population? > > When will the Federal government, if ever, legalize Marijuana and why is it so stubborn in allowing personal use? > > Any thoughts on this issue? Well, this here is a government of the People so the root question is, Why haven’t we, via our elected lawmakers, legalized marijuana? It is obvious to me and many others that the stupid stupid War on Drugs is Stupid. But a politician who comes out in favor of making currently illegal drugs legal will lose more votes than are gained by that position. Legalizing drugs–even marijuana–is not high on the list of Reasons the Public Will Vote for that Guy Above All Else, partly because most folks aren’t out there using them. Plus things like the guy who runs on a Legalize Marijuana platform is going to be suspected to be a pothead, and there is a difference between allowing potheads to buzz up at home and allowing them to pilot the ship of state. That means the issue has no traction. The best pot users have to look forward to is a slow diminution in the aggressiveness with which anti-marijuana laws are prosecuted. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/35 "2008-09-24T01:49:55Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Almost every culture has its drugs which are verboten and those which are acceptable or normal, having in some cases only tangental relationship to harms. Though this changes over time - look at the worsening position of tobacco. The reason that tobacco is falling on hard times is incontrovertible evidence that it is bad for the smoker’s health, plus it’s bad for the health of everyone around the smoker. Otherwise there is no cultural shift in terms of preference; AFAIK nobody in the last 40 years has made a mainstream argument against tobacco on the grounds that it’s immoral because it’s a drug, or that it’s bad because it’s addictive. It’s all about lung cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/36 "2008-09-24T02:38:30Z")
I think the biggest obstacle to marijuana legalization is the apathy of the stoner community. If every pot smoker donated even 1% of the money they spent on weed toward marijuana legalization advocacy groups, it could easily be legalized. Think about it. In California alone, the value of marijuana plants seized by the authorities is 6.7 Billion. [cite](http://ag.ca.gov/bne/camp.php). Imagine how many plants go undetected! Even going by an extremely conservative estimate of 10 billion a year for the national marijuana market, 1% of that is 100 million. You could run a nationwide ad campaign with the same exposure as the Presidential Candidates with that kind of money! ---
**Author:** ![Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frustrated_Wonderer)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/37 "2008-09-24T02:49:20Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Well, this here is a government of the People so the root question is, Why haven’t we, via our elected lawmakers, legalized marijuana? > > It is obvious to me and many others that the stupid stupid War on Drugs is Stupid. > > But a politician who comes out in favor of making currently illegal drugs legal will lose more votes than are gained by that position. > > Legalizing drugs–even marijuana–is not high on the list of Reasons the Public Will Vote for that Guy Above All Else, partly because most folks aren’t out there using them. Plus things like the guy who runs on a Legalize Marijuana platform is going to be suspected to be a pothead, and there is a difference between allowing potheads to buzz up at home and allowing them to pilot the ship of state. > > That means the issue has no traction. The best pot users have to look forward to is a slow diminution in the aggressiveness with which anti-marijuana laws are prosecuted. I understand your points and they are true in many ways. However, there are compelling reasons to re-think this issue: 20 million Americans smoke marijuna. Many more have tried at least once. Not to mention the amount of money that is wasted by putting people in jail for marijuna offenses. We can also talk about constitutional rights, but let’s not. Like you say, the main “problem” here is that it is not an issue of high priority. Most people don’t really care if others smoke marijuana even if they themselves don’t smoke it. Bu to voice your opinion on an issue that has so many legal penalties attached to it is simply not worth it, considering that many more issues are more important. However this is one of those cases in which laws are oh-so-unfair (and dumb, quite frankly), that a gradual transition towards legalisation \*\*might \*\*be a good thing. The government can make so much money by making it legal and taxing it. Not to mention all the paraphanelia associated with marijuana that can also be taxed. The government could also place restricitions on the amount people can posses legally. For example, no more than 2 plants on your own property or no more than 6 grams being carried around by one person. If people exceed these limits, which is quite likely, they can also be fined. A step like this might actually help an economy in troubled times… I must mention, however, that I used the word “might” on purpose. I highly doubt that the government would like people to cosume ZERO illicit substances, marijuna included, because they do make a decent amount of money out of penalties and fines. Drug laws are so harsh and absurd that government can confiscate any property suspected to be purchased/used in any involvement with any drugs. There have been cases in which people having as little as a quarter once, roughly 6 grams, have had there cars confiscated. So one would have to asses how much money is made by keeping marijuana illegal. I still suspect that making it legal would make much more money. But then we bump into the whole “slippery slope” fallacy in which many people think that once marijuana is legalzied, cocaine, heroin and meth will follow. Oh well… At least we have the Netherlands. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/38 "2008-09-24T02:53:29Z")
It’s not totally political suicide, just like being gay is not totally political suicide. In fact, you can be gay and pro-decriminalization and still get into congress, if you are in the right place. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough right places. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/39 "2008-09-24T04:38:47Z")
> [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](#): > > OK, plural of anecdote and all that, but I’m neither a medical person nor a hard partier and I can think of at least one marijuana-related ER visit (not my own) off the top of my head. And this site lists 242,000 + such visits in 2005: [http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/0703135521.aspx](http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/0703135521.aspx) I’m not denying the much higher numbers of visits related to alcohol (over 7 million annually, see [http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/cost/a/bljama040309.htm](http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/cost/a/bljama040309.htm)) but alcohol is more widely used and there would be an understandable tendency not to mention or record illegal use of marijuana. How sure were you that all those drunks were just drunk? > > And why do so many of you have so little faith in capitalism’s ability to make money off of marijuana? I bet the pharma and tobacco companies have case studies in the vault on how to make money from legalization, should it occur. Well it’s a goverment study that says "involved in,‘’ that doesn’t mean much to me. Do you have any data on hospital admission that are primarily or secondarily caused by marijuana? ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846/40 "2008-09-24T09:09:49Z")
[http://www.times-standard.com/ci\_10461558?source=most\_viewed](http://www.times-standard.com/ci_10461558?source=most_viewed) This is an interesting article. The government, it is ruled, violated the 10th Amendment by interfering in state activities related to medical marijuana Yeah. The one Bork said pretty much doesn’t mean anything. Apparently, feds pressuring a state violates it. Who knew? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-federal-government-against-the-personal-use-of-marijuana/464846.md?page=3)