Vomit-Worthy Reefer Madness from Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs continuing coverage of “The War Within” managed to top yesterday’s level of reefer madness. Considering how bad the previous segment was, this is quite an accomplishment. Smacking down all the lies, glaring omissions and outright propaganda is going to take a while but I will give it a shot.

First of all, they mention the fact that ten states allow medical marijuana and that ten states are considering allowing legal medical marijuana. They make sure to mention that the American Cancer Society does not endorse medical marijuana because of the cancer causing properties of marijuana. This is a strange stance when you consider that marijuana can be eaten, vaporized or smoked in a bong to reduce or eliminate the impact of burning plant material. THC does not cause cancer. Then they have an obnoxious voice-over spewing the oft-repeated straw man that all marijuana activists want to legalize everything. I guess they take debating lessons from the same dudes that argue that all feminists are man-hating, ugly lesbians that can’t get a man and hate sex. There are many viewpoints within the drug legalization movement and painting all activists with the same brush is a great strategy because everybody falls for it.

They do make a quick mention of a recent study that showed that AIDS patients do get pain relief from medical marijuana. But they quickly follow up with concerns about impaired cognitive functioning, respiratory infections, anxiety, impaired memory and concerns about increased cancer risk.

Dobbs introduces his interview with Stephen Dewey by stating that marijuana is a dangerously addictive, mind-altering drug and its’ long-term effects are still being studied. Again Dobbs states that activists believe that marijuana is completely harmless and non-addictive. Dewey compares cigarette-smoking to use of marijuana. Dobbs continually asks stupid questions. He asks whether the cancer-causing properties of marijuana are caused by the THC or the smoke. Dewey has no idea about the alleged cancer-causing properties of marijuana and does a good job of covering his misinformed ass.

Dewey pushes the gateway theory although he is careful not to say the words gateway theory. He makes sure to state that marijuana-smoking adolescents are more likely to use hard drugs than non-marijuana-smokers. They mention that 30% of grade 12 students have used marijuana. Dewey talks about kids that are proud of their marijuana smoking, as if teenage rebellion were a new thing. I guess he hasn’t been around teenagers enough to know that they want to shock authority figures. Going on CNN and clutching your pearls is exactly the response that they want. I guess he didn’t read the latest report that teenage marijuana use has gone down while raiding the medicine cabinet has gone up. Does Dewey consider teenagers switching to much more dangerous and addictive prescription drugs to be a good thing? Here is a clue: the reduction in marijuana use has absolutely nothing to do with education. It’s a trend just like anything else.

Just when I thought the reefer madness had reached its’ peak, it manages to get even worse. When Dobbs asks why the research about marijuana is so inconclusive, despite the fact that marijuana has been around for thirty or forty years. I guess Dewey doesn’t know that marijuana use has been around for hundreds of years in the United States and was a widely used medicine before we started the war on drugs. Dewey answers with so many mind-bogglingly stupid assertions. He claims that it is difficult to find people that only use marijuana, that the majority of users are also using other drugs such as LSD, cocaine, methamphetamine and alcohol. Apparently all marijuana users are “poly-drug-users”. I suppose that is true. I personally am a poly-drug user. Just today I ingested caffeine and ibuprofen. There were probably some other chemicals in that pop that I drank. Do you think that the ingestion of those substances would invalidate any contributions that I could make to a marijuana study? Funny thing though, just like the majority of my pot-smoking friends I didn’t have any LSD, cocaine, meth or alcohol. Just in case you are not a fan of anecdotes, read some facts about marijuana users instead of relying on trumped up reefer madness.

As far as Dewey’s so-called scientific research goes, if we have a scientist leading these studies that knows literally nothing about drug reform activism or the cannabis culture, that research is going to have no credibility at all. It’s like trusting a flat-earth creationist to study geology.

The thing that pissed me off the most about this segment was how these two blowhards kept telling us that marijuana activists all want all drugs legalized and all of us believe that marijuana is completely harmless. It is true that the majority of us repeat the facts that marijuana has never caused an overdose death, is about as addictive as caffeine and is not linked to cancer. I would also like to say that even if all the trumped up reefer madness claims made about marijuana were true, it does not justify the continuing prohibition of marijuana. It does not justify the needless deaths caused by no-knock raids, the jails over-flowing with non-violent offenders or the subsidization of criminals and thugs.