Although alcohol and tobacco are far more dangerous than marijuana, they have become America's drugs of choice, said Don Jones, a retired municipal judge from Miami who came to speak during a NORML event Wednesday.
UCF students and guests gathered to listen to representatives from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a 15,000-member group of law enforcement and government officials who believe marijuana should be legalized.
"The fight against marijuana is an industry," Jones said. "It pays too many salaries. Half of the states would go bankrupt if marijuana was legalized."
Founded in early 2002, LEAP has become an internationally recognized group of current and former law enforcement officials, including police officers and FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents, who argue that the current "War on Drugs" has failed its intended goals.
The group holds the belief that a system of legalizing, controlling and regulating marijuana, among other drugs, would be a far more effective and safer alternative to the Unites States' current policy.
According to The Journal of the American Medical Association, 435,000 Americans lost their lives to tobacco and 85,000 to alcohol in 2000, and yet the marijuana death toll was zero.
"People don't realize that their taxpayer dollars are going to waste each time a nonviolent marijuana user is arrested," said NORML President Tyler Smith. "The [current] prohibition fuels violence and gang warfare. How often do you hear about Coors and Budweiser getting into turf wars?" Smith said.
Despite the fact that marijuana's main ingredient, THC, has been proven effective in reducing nausea induced by chemotherapy, stimulating appetite in AIDS patients and relieving pain in people with glaucoma, it has been legalized for medicinal purposes in only 13 states, according to www.drugpolicy.org.
"We hope to break the stereotypes plaguing this movement," Smith said. "[NORML] brings speakers to educate the UCF community and provide general outreach and participation in community service. We are motivated, caring, democratic individuals who only want freedom from the currently oppressing laws."
For more information on LEAP, visit www.leap.cc. NORML meets Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. in the Student Union, Room 218.
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Licensing, taxing, and regulating the distribution of marijuana is the surest way to put the criminal drug dealers out of business and protect our children from the money-hungry criminal element. It’s time to protect our children and take the marijuana business out of the hands of criminals. License, tax, and regulate the marijuana business.
And while we’re at it, let’s find a way to pull the revenue-hungry public policy in the right direction on personal cultivation (i.e., let’s get past the “you can’t tax it because people will just grow their own” argument). Let’s implement a personal cultivation permit. Limit the size of the growing area or the number of plants, and put a small user-fee on it to cover administrative costs, something like a fishing license. Maybe high enough that there will be a little something left over for education or fixing the roads.
One possibility:$100 per year for a permit to cultivate a dozen plants.
It’s a win-win.