A recent blog in the Huffington Post claimed that US Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, confused the hemp plant with the marijuana plant in a bizarre defense of the move to disallow US farmers from producing industrial hemp.
While I sympathize with the farmers whose livelihoods are affected, and their advocates, I can't help but wonder why the debate on whether marijuana should be legalized has lost any sense of direction. This, like the soft vs hard drugs argument, and the gateway drug theory, is yet another confusing piece of minutae that distracts from the real issues at hand -- whether legalization of cannabis makes sense, and, if it does, as it does with the arguably more harmful drug, alcohol, how we can educate young people and other naive and vulnerable potential users about the very real and very harmful effects of this seemingly innocuous substance.
No comments:
Post a Comment