This statement from President Reagan is obviously absurd, but what’s significant about it is that opinions very much like this one continue to proliferate and continue to have real life consequences. The mass incarceration for drug crimes ushered in by the Nixon administration and reinforced and even enhanced by the Clinton and Reagan administrations still exists in much of the United States.
Though we don’t know where Reagan got his “absolute proof” of cannabis’ alleged brain damage, what we do know is that cannabis is medicinally useful for a variety of ailments, has the potential to slow or reverse the aging process, and can be used in alleviating opiate cravings. And though few people today (probably not even Jeff Sessions) would claim to prefer getting hit by fall-out from an H-bomb to smoking one “marijuana cigarette,” plenty of people (like Jeff Sessions) still make absurd and completely unsubstantiated comments about cannabis.
Can we please start basing our cannabis decisions on such things as science, logic, evidence and truth? Cannabis has never killed anyone. Cannabis does good for many (obviously not all) people. Let’s use these things to formulate our cannabis policies and infuse our cannabis laws and regulations.
Is this asking for too much?
They Said It On Marijuana, Quotable Saturday, Part CLXI posted first on http://ift.tt/2q9Scx5
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