Higher Thinking
The libertarian and conservative debate over the legalization of marijuana is more than a smoke screen. Drug policy is one of the major issues that separates the conservative and libertarian ideologies.
Fitz E. Barringer
November 2006
Drug policy has long been one of the legendary battlegrounds between conservative and libertarian ideologies. Libertarians, who emphasize individual liberties and personal rights, believe that ‘harmless drugs’ like marijuana should be legalized. The conservatives’ emphasis on limiting personal freedoms for the overall good of society, meanwhile, leads them to support the continued prohibition on marijuana. While both sides of the legalization of marijuana debate bring up valid points, the preponderance of evidence, as we shall see, rests with the conservatives. Indeed, despite libertarians’ cries that drug policy infringes upon civil liberties and personal rights, conservatives recognize that humanity, for better or for worse, is part of a society, that each person’s actions affect the lives of others, and that sometimes it is essential to limit freedoms to protect the welfare of all.
It is important to point out, of course, that conservatives, like libertarians, believe individual freedom is a tenant of any sound government. At the same time, conservatives acknowledge that a person’s freedom sometimes needs to be limited for the overall good of society. Bills like the USA PATRIOT Act that allow the government to investigate a person’s records are necessary to protect us from terrorism. Speed limit laws, meanwhile, are essential to keep us safe while driving on the road. In fact, conservatives believe that the government should protect people from many such practices that are dangerous, disruptive or immoral. And marijuana is just such a case.
Libertarians are quick to protest that point. Marijuana, they say, is ‘harmless.’ A recent editorial in the Daily Tar Heel in favor of the drug’s legalization, for example, pointed out that the only side effects to marijuana are an improved sense of humor and the munchies.
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Habitual marijuana consumption has numerous ill effects that can damage a person’s body and mind. As a result, conservatives recognize that a society of ‘potheads’ would be unproductive, unsafe, and, for the vast majority of people, undesirable.
For one thing, marijuana has a serious and negative impact on the respiratory development of adolescents who smoke the drug on a regular basis. Unfiltered marijuana joints release just as much, if not more, tar into a person’s lungs than tobacco cigarettes. When young people smoke marijuana, therefore, they are endangering their future wellbeing at a time when they may not be fully cognizant of the drug’s consequences.
More importantly, though, marijuana also affects a person’s cognitive abilities throughout life. Marijuana kills brain cells, impairs memory and inhibits decision-making. One need not look further than the 1960’s obsession with tie-dye clothing to see evidence of that. On a more serious note, however, studies have shown that habitual marijuana users have difficulty learning and retaining information. In addition, the drug may lead to increased aggression in those who use the drug regularly.
One recent British study, meanwhile, has suggested that marijuana use increases certain people’s risk of developing a serious mental disease by a factor of five. Indeed, the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College in London discovered that smoking marijuana triggers a gene found in about one in four people that increases the likelihood of developing schizophrenia by 500 percent. According to the study neither the drug nor the gene raises the risk of schizophrenia by itself.
In addition, marijuana, like most drugs, carries a risk of dependency. Certain smokers can become addicted to the high, while others require more and more of the potent leafs to achieve the drug’s desired affect. Under the Reagan Administration, marijuana was targeted as an “entry-level drug.” While studies have been unable to establish a link between marijuana consumption and the use of other drugs, it is quite possible that a person could try another drug or engage in reckless behavior due to poor decision-making skills while under the drug’s influence.
Some may argue that even if marijuana has negative side effects, most of the consequences are on the smokers themselves. Smokers will, of course, be the direct sufferers of poor lung development and reduced cognitive function. At the same time, however, society must bear the burden of people who fry their brains by smoking marijuana or develop a debilitating disease like schizophrenia. In addition, a marijuana smoker could put all of society at risk when he decides to get behind the wheel of a car or operate machinery.
Conservatives, therefore, see marijuana as a dangerous social vice that has negative consequences for both smokers and society as a whole. The drug must be prohibited to protect people from themselves and from others. But libertarians are not content to let the debate end there. They point to the drug’s ‘positive side effects’ and similarity alcohol as evidence that marijuana should be legalized. Marijuana, they say, can relieve the pain and create an appetite for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. In addition, libertarians argue that marijuana’s short-term effects are often no worse than those produced by alcohol or tobacco.
Still, while medical marijuana may be necessary for some patients (a point that is certainly debatable with the advent of synthetic drugs that can increase appetite), the fact that some people need it for medical purposes does not mean that everyone should be able to use the drug. Moreover, marijuana differs from alcohol in the important respect that beer, wine, and liquor can be consumed in moderation. Just because a person drinks alcohol, does not mean that the person will become drunk. Marijuana, however, can have potent effects after one use.
Yet the libertarian’s most serious critique of the current prohibition on marijuana comes from the fact that so many people use the drug. According to USA Today, as many as 95 million Americans over age 12 – about one third of the population – have tried marijuana, and about 15 million people use the drug on a regular basis. How, the libertarians ask, can you prohibit something that so many people want to do?
One answer, of course, is that just because people want to do something does not make it right. Plenty of people would like to steal clothes or cheat on tests, but that does not mean their actions would be acceptable.
At the same time, however, conservatives recognize that the government cannot truly legislate morality. People must decide whether or not they will follow the laws. And in this respect, marijuana use is, as the libertarians argue, a personal choice. While the government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, it cannot do so if the people are unwilling to follow its laws. We can – and should – build bigger prisons for those who break the laws, but it is impossible to make individuals do something that they do not want to do. Here, though, the fact that so many people are willing to consume marijuana is more an example of society’s moral failings than problems with our drug policy.
Americans, therefore, must decide if they want a drug that upholds the safety, wellbeing, and moral standing of society or if they are willing to forgo such values for the legalization of marijuana.
While the country decides, we conservatives will hold our breaths. After all, as Bill Clinton said, it’s better not to inhale.