eoe-0705-030 scrawls on the wall

(LOS ANGELES, POSTED JULY 22, 2005)

“conscience is a high wall of scrawled graffiti where the world can write what it pleases, a random anthology of pet notions, unexamined sentiments, and popular slogans remarkable chiefly for their vagueness. conscience stands always in need of editing, a job that can't be done except through thoughtful reading of the scrawls.”

—richard mitchell, hunger in america

“we are a people who imagine that we are weighing important issues when we exchange generalizations and well-known opinions. . . . we are easy prey.”

—richard mitchell, the graves of academe

surf report

this is a surf report, i guess. i ran across a repeating feature called “truth of youth” in the douglas county, oregon news-review online, where local high school students respond to questions of the day in letter-to-the-editor or op-ed style formats. the july 18 (last monday's) sixty-four-billion-dollar-question (adjusted for inflation) was "should federal laws trump oregon's medical marijuana laws?" i responded to all three articles at once in the comments box, but i wanted to show you some of the specific arguments from the inheritors of america’s future and respond to them in a bit more detail.

the three letters/articles

the first came from lacey bitter, a senior at roseburg high school. “this is not an issue over medical marijuana,” bitter says. “this is instead an argument over who is sovereign.”

you could have fooled me. i was under the impression the issue is about the medical use of pot. and here i thought the good of the commonwealth was sovereign. are the people around to support the regime in power, or is government mandated to serve the needs of its citizenry?

“marijuana is illegal in all circumstances, even for medical use,” cautions bitter, “unless there is special reasoning.” special reasoning? special reasoning? it’s special reasoning not to consider this a medical issue.

shay miles , a sophomore at umpqua valley christian [high school], writes, “allowing one group [by which miles means the judicial branch of government, specifically the supreme court] to have too much authority is clearly against the constitution,” maintaining “the supreme court has been given too much power. nine people are instituting new laws and legislation without the participation of elected representatives and senators.”

miles is not talking about authority but about the misuse of power. the authority of the supreme court to overturn unjust laws is something the constitution is for, not “against." (for three nanoseconds, i thought miles might be attempting a deconstructionist reading of the constitution. no such luck.) the authority is legitimate. the checks and balances the founding fathers authored in the constitution created a dynamic process, so from time to time power shifts from one branch to the other, but the goal is to ensure a just government. the authority of each branch remains the same. this includes the constitutionally unmentioned branch of government, the “fourth estate,” or the free press, which has a part in this checking and balancing process. journalists are "watchdogs" who report corruption and injustice in the exercise of government authority by specific individuals.

actually, miles’ line of reasoning (if it can be called reasoning) is more effectively applied to the presidency (executive branch). surely one person with “too much authority” is worse than nine people with “too much authority,” where only one person exercises power to screw up the hard-worked, genuine, lawful endeavors of the other branches of government and its citizenry. at least the supreme court chooses to explain the careful, thoughtful reasoning behind each decision, and both minority and majority opinions are expressed. a president prefers not to explain anything, let alone acknowledge minority opinions as reasonable, or even significant.

i am glad you have heard the term “activist judges” bandied about. liberal or conservative, whether we agree with their decisions or not, all judges are activist judges. and all judges struggle to balance their personal convictions with judicial objectivity. not that they always succeed on every issue. that’s why a judge’s “track record” is important: it reveals the flaws in his or her ability to reason about judicial issues. that’s why the constitution requires senate approval of judicial candidates recommended by the president. another balance of power.

what do you have to say about an “activist” president, who chooses to enforce the law (or not) to “coincide with . . . personal political ideologies,” contrary to statements and promises made in the heat of an election? it’s easy for a president to lie. it’s harder for a judge to lie. when the citizenry elects a president for the promises made during an election campaign, and the president reneges on those promises, doesn’t that nullify his or her voter-bestowed authority?

the third essay is from holly thompson, a junior at douglas high school. “if every state were to allow the use of medical marijuana, then drug traffic in the u.s. would increase immensely because people with a marijuana card could grow and smoke the drug in their very own yard.”

by "drug traffic," i believe thompson is referring to "drug use." it would be trafficing if the card-holders sold the plants grown "in their very own yard."

let’s make this easy and just say it’s circular reasoning. pretend we’re talking about the possesion of petunias. if every state were to allow the use of medical petunias, then [illegal] flower traffic in the us would increase immensely because people with petunia cards could [illegally] grow and [illegally] smoke the [illegal] flowers in their own back yard. in other words, medical marijuana is bad because medical marijuana is bad.

“the irresponsible use of medical marijuana can result in the spread of disease, unemployment and crime.” let’s call this argument an example of slight-of-hand. thompson tries to make the case that “marijuana” (or even worse, "medical marijuana") causes these things. it is irresponsibility that causes these things—irresponsible persons—nor is it necessary to be stoned in order to act irresponsibly. infection, joblessness and antisocial conduct are ubiquitous.

if a person is using marijuana medically, chances are he or she is already diseased and unable to hold a job. criminality is the kettle calling the pot black, so to speak. if you define the use of grass as a crime, then of course marijuana use leads to crime. it is crime. another really outstanding example of circular reasoning.

“marijuana smoke isn't just affecting the user,” says thompson, “but those around are capable of having a high as well. i understand that some do use their marijuana cards responsibly [i.e. smoking without anyone else around], but it is those that [who] do not that [who] make the difference for everyone.” this is a variation of the second-hand smoke argument used for prohibiting tobacco use in restaurants and places of public congregation. if thompson had referred to the carcinogens in marijuana smoke, she might have briefly had a case (which technology will soon invalidate with the development and use of vaporizers). but she is more concerned that others who are "around are capable of having a high as well." i always thought of the buzz as one of the healing qualities of weed. thompson makes it sound like an unsuspecting nine-year-old might wander into a room with traces of marijuana smoke, instantly lose the power of rational judgment, and then rush out to rob a bank, crash a car into a tree, and/or mainline heroin. oh, please.

my take

frankly, my personal suspicion is that the deep-seated american political fear of grass comes from the fact that growers of marijuana force the plant to become trans-gendered to increase cannabinoid yields. there are male and female marijuana plants, according to the wikipedia article. "although genetics disposes a plant to become male, environmental factors ... can alter the sex." female plants have a significantly higher amount of cannabinoids, which are the chemicals that create the high, according to the wikipedia article. "though the main psychoactive chemical compound in cannabis is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (thc), the plant is known to contain about sixty cannabinoids, including two others of particularly high concentration, cannabinol (cbn) and cannabidiol (cbd). . . . synthetic thc, called dronabinol [marinol], does not contain cbd, cbn, or other cannabinoids, which is one reason why its pharmacological effects may differ significantly from those of cannabis preparations." marinol is an insufficient and sucky replacement for smoking grass. when i take marinol, it doesn't have any effect three out of four times, and when it does "work," it can be six or eight hours after ingestion before i feel it. supper gets cold before that happens. i can count on grass to take effect every time between fifteen minutes and half an hour after i smoke. marinol also gives me headaches and trouble sleeping, which effects i do not experience from smoking. my experiences with both are not very different from other reports.

so grass is gay. a member of the lgbt community. my sister. my brother. my other.

now you know.

my posted comments to all three writers

my name is richard kearns. my email address is richard-kearns@sbcglobal.net

your responses to the question, "should federal laws trump oregon's medical marijuana laws?" are all abstractly-based. i would like you to consider some practical aspects of the question.

do any of you have a chronic disease that's extremely painful or life-threatening? i do. i have aids, pancreatitis, diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, chronic fatigue, aids-related wasting and a whole bunch of other conditions.

smoking marijuana gets rid of my nausea, helps me eat enough to put on weight and get stronger, keeps the pain from the neuropathy tolerable, helps me sleep, helps cut down the constant pain associated with the fatigue so i can get around and take care of myself better (visiting the doctor, shopping, etc.) and keeps me from needing to take other meds that are stronger than grass with more serious side-effects.

if you had to do it to save your life, would you smoke marijuana? or would you let it pass, content to die because it's what either the "state" or "federal government" decided? shouldn't the governments—state & federal—be making decisions to help us, not kill us?

these are not arbitrary decisions, like traffic laws, which are conventions to make everything on the road go smoothly. we drive on the right side of the road—other people in other countries such as britain drive on the left. stop lights, stop signs, speed limits, etc. it's not "wrong" or "right" to stop at a red light.

it is wrong to kill someone.

is it right to withhold medicine that helps keep people alive? do you think you might be in any way responsible for killing people from whom you withhold life-sustaining medicine?

why not just kill all poor people, so the government doesn't have the financial burden of supporting people on welfare?

why not just kill all gay people because you don't like them?

if your parents were in so much pain that living was intolerable, would you buy marijuana for them if you knew (and saw for yourself) how it helped? would you help a parent commit suicide if the pain was too much and there were no hope in sight for a treatment, let alone a cure?

should there ever have been an american revolution? or should all the founding fathers, like washington and jefferson and franklin etc, just have been content with what the british government decided, even though it was harmful to them?

do any of you letter writers know anyone with aids or cancer or ms or chronically painful conditions? if not, please get to know me. you can email me at richard-kearns@sbcglobal.net, or visit my blogsite, "on the engines of enlightenment: journal of an aids shaman." i think you should know what it's like for a person with aids to live on a day-to-day basis.

i will also be traveling to washington dc in october in a two-week car caravan across the united states to march with the campaign to end aids (c2ea). there will be people in a car caravan traveling from oregon also, and i would be happy to introduce you to those people, who i am sure would be happy to talk with you. i don't know what their personal attitudes are about medical marijuana, but i can guess. c2ea maintains no specific policy for or against medical marjuana of which i am aware, other than the general principle that sick people should have access to medicine that helps them.

i am glad you responded with letters to the editor about the legalization of marijuana. but i think if you knew more about it, you might change your minds.

i am curious to hear your responses.

sincerely,

richard kearns

richard-kearns@sbcglobal.net

on the engines of enlightenment:

journal of an aids shaman

http://www.duckspot.com/rk/EOE-5.index.htm

aids.org

beingALIVE la

the life group la

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call for one hundred heroes

pcsl: emily

coming up: a series of poses on tattooed soiciety

responses to d-life's reader survey

response on jonathan's hiv blog: hiv/diabetes comparison thread

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text of eoe5-030 scrawls on the wall © 2005 by richard kearns. writers and speakers quoted own their own words. in particular,

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go to chapter titled: propositions three and seven

lacey bitter shay miles holly thompson

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