Marijuana Reform

By Carl M. "Marty" Swinney

Combined Economic, Social & Medical Argument for Marijuana Legalization

"To protect men from their own folly is to people the world with fools"
---Herbert Spencer

The word "marijuana" is a Mexican slang word for the dried leaves and flowering tops of the hemp plant which is used as a smoking preparation. Throughout history, this same plant has been called a variety of names, depending upon the locality and the speaker, such as ganja, cannabis, pot, tea, weed, dope, smoke, grass, herb, reefer, kif, hemp and Mary Ha Ha. There are actually only two main varieties of the plant, Cannabis Indica, or Indian Hemp, and Cannabis Sativa, or English Hemp. The first recorded use of the hemp plant was in China circa 4000 BC, nearly six thousand years ago.

Some years ago, Field Research Corporation conducted a survey regarding marijuana use in California. Their results showed that there are over two million Californians who consider themselves regular users of the drug. This study excluded persons who smoked it on an irregular basis, or who had tried it only a few times. Two million out of a State population of roughly twenty-four million means that about one out of every twelve Californians smoke marijuana on a regular basis, or nearly ten percent of our population.

There is a vast, untapped market for marijuana, or hemp, in today's economy, but---as I will show---the recreational use of cannabis represents only a very small fraction of the total market possible.

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According to a recent television newscast, marijuana is now the fourth largest cash crop grown in America today, with an annual yield of some $25 BILLION. That figure, of course, represents only the recreational use of hemp. The figure would be much higher (no pun intended), if cannabis (or hemp or "pot") were legalized and assimilated into our sagging economy.

But what are some of the other, non-recreational, uses for marijuana?

The fibers of the marijuana plant are the longest, strongest natural fibers in the world. I'm sure everyone has heard of hemp rope. Hemp, of course, is marijuana. And the strength of hemp rope is legendary.

Two centuries ago, nearly 80% of all the clothing in the United States was made from hemp fiber. Cultivating marijuana was once so important to the economy that, in 1762, the Virginia colony imposed penalties on those who did not grow hemp. And between 1619 and 1769, the British Crown subsidized American farmers to grow marijuana because the fiber was desperately needed for the canvas of their sailing ships, and for paper on which to print maps, Bibles and currency.

Semi-commercial tests conducted by the USDA in 1916 produced paper made from the woody portion of the stalk which corresponded very closely to No. 1 machine finish paper, according to the specifications of the United States Government Printing Office. The same experiments determined that this paper had greater flexibility and is up to sixteen times stronger than paper made from wood pulp.

The government currently imports this paper.

Researchers also noted that every acre devoted to hemp cultivation, on an annualized basis, has the sustained pulp-producing capacity equivalent of four acres of commercial woodland.

I don't have any accurate figures on just how much paper is consumed annually in the United States, but I am sure you will agree that it is quite substantial, probably in the neighborhood of several hundreds of thousands--or even millions--of tons per year. Considering that our current paper is, for the most part, made exclusively from wood pulp, one can easily see that this represents hundreds of thousands of acres of trees, annually, going just for pulp production.

Since it takes over thirty years for a crop of trees to reach maturity, it should come as no surprise that, as the demand for more and more paper increases from year to year (thanks, of course, to the ever-increasing burden of government paperwork and regulations), tree farms are unable to keep pace with the increased demand and the cost of paper products continues to rise. Since a crop of marijuana reaches maturity in less than ten months and, as previously mentioned , the amount of pulp yield per acre is four times that of trees, it should be possible to meet our economy's growing demand for paper with less than one-thirtieth the amount of land under present cultivation.

Of course, what all this talk of using marijuana pulp to produce paper means, is that millions of trees would no longer be needed for paper production and could then be diverted to other uses, such as in manufacturing furniture, or in making lumber for use in new home and building construction. As we all know, when a product's demand rises relative to its supply (witness our current electricity "crisis), the price of that product also rises. But the other side of that economic coin is the fact that when a product's supply rises relative to its demand, the price of that product always falls. With a decreased demand on our nation's forests, we could expect a corresponding decrease in the cost of new housing and construction materials, a decrease in the price of quality, all-wood furniture, and an increase in the availability of forest areas for recreational and conservation purposes.

The use of marijuana pulp in paper production alone is, I believe, a very compelling economic reason to urge its immediate and complete legalization. And, I must admit, the economic ramifications of marijuana in the paper market are among my favorite economic reasons for making marijuana legal once again.

But there are other economic reasons as well.

As previously mentioned, 80% of all clothing was once made from hemp fibers. The extreme durability, strength and low cost of the hemp fiber, when woven into cloth, can be used for everything from the canvas on sailboats, to long-wearing pants and shirts, to the finest of linens. An article in the February 1938 issue of POPULAR MECHANICS called marijuana "a new cash crop with an annual volume of several hundred million dollars." The same article announced to American industry "a durable raw material with more than 5,000 textile products ranging from rope to fine laces and more than 25,000 cellulose products ranging from dynamite to cellophane."

In 1979, Alexander Sumach of Ontario, Canada, compiled "The Canada Report", the most comprehensive summary of the uses of this annual weed. He reported that the hemp fiber is half as strong as silk, three times as strong as cotton, and one-third stronger than flax. It is suitable for all types of clothing, upholstery and industrial uses and, unlike many synthetic textiles, it requires no coal or petroleum in its manufacture.

Another by-product of the hemp plant is an enormous mass of seed, which is one-third oil by weight. It is rich in protein and natural sugars, and is an excellent oil for salads and cooking. The oil needs no deodorizing and can be hydrogenated to form a solid shortening. It can be used in making paint, varnish, plastics, linoleum, lamp oil, soap and lubricants with a wide variety of uses (in World War II, it was used as a lubricant for high-altitude aircraft). As late as 1935, 116 million pounds of marijuana seeds were squeezed by the paint and varnish industry for use in their finest paints and varnishes.

When mixed with the feed of livestock, the hemp seed will safely and organically evacuate worms, relieve colic and chronic diarrhea, and induce milk-flow in dairy cattle.

It is estimated that the cultivation of several million acres of hemp seed could supply the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil per day.

Raising a crop of hemp requires no specialized equipment, no inter-row cultivation, no pesticides and no herbicides. It can also be used as a weeder in a crop rotation system and, although it is not a legume, the hemp plant's penetrating tap root brings nutrients to the surface after harvest.

Marijuana was the chief cash crop in Kentucky between 1792 and 1865, with a production in 1860 of over 40,000 tons. It was so important to the economy a century and a half ago that there were places with names such as Hempstead County, Arkansas; Hempstead, New York; and Hemphill, West Virginia---names that reflect important economic activities in those regions when the towns were founded, and names which are still with us today.

Economically, the foregoing represents an overwhelming abundance of reasons why marijuana should be immediately legalized. In the course of my research on this subject, I am sure that I have missed a great many other economic uses for the hemp plant, uses which we of the twenty-first century have never even considered, but which would rapidly come to light as businessmen and entrepreneurs experimented and sought them out.

But we must not overlook the importance of cannabis in medicine.

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Medically, the extract of cannabis was introduced into Western pharmacopoeia by O'Shaughnessy in 1839. It is a documented treatment for a wide variety of medical conditions including, but not limited to: the relief of migraine headaches; as an anti-convulsant and anti-epileptic; and an anti-depressant and tranquilizer. And, while we may scoff at a report of its effectiveness as a cure for gonorrhea published over a century ago, a report from Czechoslovakia in 1960 showed that cannabidolic acid, a product of the unripe hemp plant, has bacteriocidal properties.

Recently, in the course of a study of the effects of cannabis on driving, it was incidentally discovered that cannabis lowers intraocular pressure, thus being possibly useful in the treatment of glaucoma.

In the mid-fifties, Dr. Van M. Sims reported to MEDICAL WORLD NEWS: "Marijuana is probably the most potent anti-epileptic known to medicine today."

In 1971, Dr. Harold F. Hardman, then with the Defense contracting group at the University of Michigan's Department of Pharmacology, reported effects of profound hypothermia and felt that marijuana derivatives could be potentially quite useful in brain and traumatic surgery.

Cannabis has several important advantages over other substances used as analgesics, sedatives and hypnotics:

---The prolonged use of cannabis does not lead to the development of physical dependence;
---There is minimal development of tolerance to cannabis products;
---Cannabis products have an extremely low toxicity (the oral dose required to kill a mouse has been found to be forty thousand times the dose required to produce typical symptoms of intoxication in man); and
---Cannabis produces no disturbance of the vegetative functions, whereas the opiates inhibit the gastrointestinal tract, the flow of bile and the cough reflex.

Reynolds, in 1890, summed up thirty years of his clinical experience using cannabis, finding it useful as a nocturnal sedative in senile insomnia, and valuable in treating dysmenorrhea, neuralgia, migraine headache and epileptoid muscle spasms.

Cannabis has been used successfully in the treatment of withdrawal of alcohol and opiate addiction, and is an effective anti-depressant.

Its effectiveness as a childbirth analgesic, an antitussive, a topical anesthetic and an anti-asthmatic have all been documented.

In 1937, Sasman listed twenty-eight pharmaceuticals containing cannabis. Cannabis was still recognized as a medicinal agent in that year, when the committee on legislative activities of the American Medical Association concluded as follows:

"There is positively no evidence to indicate the abuse of cannabis as a medicinal agent or to show that its medicinal use is leading to the development of cannabis addiction. Cannabis at the present time is slightly used for medicinal purposes, but it would seem worthwhile to maintain its status as a medicinal agent for such purposes as it now has. There is a possibility that a re-study of the drug by modern methods may show other advantages to be derived from its medicinal use."

Of course, unless existing restrictive state and federal laws governing marijuana are changed, there will be no future for either modern scientific investigation or controlled clinical trail by present-day methods.

And until both State and Federal authorities begin respecting medical marijuana as the passage of Proposition 215 has demanded, tens of thousands of our fellow Californians---our mothers, brothers, children, friends---will be denied the medical relief they need, want, deserve and have a legal right to in order to alleviate symptoms associated with AIDS, cancer treatment, depression and a host of other diseases and conditions.

Medicine, being an empirical art, has not hesitated in the past to utilize a substance first used for recreational purposes in the pursuit of the more noble purposes of relieving pain, healing and teaching us more of the workings of the human mind and body. In fact, Morton "discovered" ether for anesthetic purposes after observing medical students at "ether frolics" in 1846.

The active constituents of cannabis appear to have remarkably low acute and chronic toxicity factors and might be quite useful in the management of many chronic disease conditions.

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So far, I have discussed the economic benefits of a free market in marijuana, and some of the possible medical uses of the drug. As an American consumer, I am concerned about rising prices and our sagging economy, an economy which could be revitalized by a simple stroke of the legislative pen. As a member of the health care team, I am concerned that millions of patients are denied access to a potentially helpful drug. As a candidate for public office, I am concerned about our growing bureaucracy and the burden of taxation which is increased by the enforcement of anti-marijuana laws to the tune of $75 million per year for only the law enforcement costs in California alone.

And as a Libertarian and a human being, I am concerned about the rights of the individual to life, liberty and property, which I hold as sacrosanct, and which these laws make void and negate.

The human suffering imposed upon those apprehended by police for marijuana use is impossible to measure in dollars and cents. To the apprehended user (who, in a majority of cases, has had no prior criminal record), the arrest, pretrial incarceration, bail-bond application and court proceedings are very expensive, terrifying and demeaning. The experience---whether or not it results in a jail sentence---seriously disrupts career, education, family, friendships and life in general. Even a short jail sentence will expose the marijuana user to a world of vastly more serious drug use and crime; and a criminal record seriously impedes his or her job opportunities after release.

These terrible punishments, and the constant fear of them, for personal conduct which harms no one, create a profound and growing alienation and disrespect for the law among users, their families and friends. The disrespect is compounded by the use of undercover agents who win the trust and affection of marijuana users---only to betray them in the misappropriated name of "Justice." Their resentment is further fired by the law's hypocritically lenient attitude toward drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.

Marijuana use statutes, like other victimless "crime" legislation, are enforced in a discriminatory manner, most heavily against racial, ethnic and cultural minorities, and against the poor in general. This means more arrests, more prosecutions, more convictions and longer sentences. Thus, the alienation and disrespect for the law, occasioned by the criminalization of marijuana use, is most pronounced among the very groups in which distrust and alienation are already dangerously high.

So long as these hypocrisies exist, and so long as it is the judgment of the government that marijuana is so dangerous that it should be criminally punished, state and local efforts at drug education will continue to suffer a crippling credibility crisis.

I've already mentioned that the law enforcement costs to taxpayers amounts to over $75 million per year. This figure does not include the costs incurred for bail, time lost from work, nor does it include attorney's fees. The cost of prosecuting anti-marijuana laws is a double-edged sword: While hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate and "rehabilitate" harmless marijuana users, the police, courts, prosecutors, jails and probation authorities cannot adequately handle the crimes of violence, coercion and deceit which are increasing daily.

It may well be true that the recreational use of cannabis is a vice, but we must always remember that a vice is not a criminal act. Smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol and overeating have also been described as vices--but this does not warrant the use of the criminal law against tobacconists, alcoholics or the overweight. In the words of John Stuart Mill, in his famous essay ON LIBERTY: "Human liberty requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating him, but not for compelling him or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise."

Or, as Herbert Spencer, the famous nineteenth-century educator and philosopher, once said: "To protect men from their own folly, is to people the world with fools."

The issue here is freedom, human liberty, and the dignity of each of us to live our lives as we see fit. If a person is harmed by a substance---and the "harm" which marijuana is capable of causing is very much in debate---if a person is harmed by a substance that he or she chooses freely to consume, then at least that harm is a direct result and consequence of that person's choices and actions. To substitute the harm of the State for self-harm, is irredeemably and absurdly grotesque. What's more, once any measure of control over one's own body is surrendered to the government, a dangerous precedent is established that can lead to total control---that is, to totalitarianism.

As professor Ludwig von Mises, the noted economist, wrote in his magnum opus HUMAN ACTION: "Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good cause could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government's benevolent providence to the protection of the individual's body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books, and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is more pernicious than that done by drugs.

"These fears are not imaginary spectres terrifying secluded doctrinaires. It is a fact that no paternal government, whether ancient or modern, ever shrank from regimenting its subjects' minds, beliefs and opinions. If one abolishes man's freedom to determine his own consumption, then one takes all freedoms away. The naive advocates of government interference with consumption delude themselves when they neglect what they disdainfully call the philosophical aspects of the problem. They unwittingly support the case of censorship, inquisition, religious intolerance, and the persecution of dissenters."

CARL M. "MARTY" SWINNEY
Libertarian Candidate
24th State Senate District