Richard Cowan is a former NORML National Director and author of Everything You Want To Know About CBD Bath Salts.
As I have written about the logical fallacies of marijuana prohibition, the so-called “Gateway Effect” is a classic. “Post hoc ergo propter hoc” or “After this therefore because of this” is that marijuana use “leads to” hard drugs, etc.
See We Need to Educate Children And Adults About “Drug Education”
The political equivalent of that is the “Slippery Slope” that marijuana legalization will lead to the legalization of hard drugs and Lordy knows what else. Of course, the Drug Warriors accused even medical marijuana advocates of “really wanting” to legalize crack, etc.
Of course, that is really irrelevant, but in an age when no one trusts anyone, that sort of argument works.
In Idaho, the prohibitionists are now pushing a constitutional amendment to prevent the state from legalizing any “psychoactive” substance, thus equating marijuana with meth, etc. Great for drug education!
As MarijuanaMoment.net explains, “(T)he production, manufacture, transportation, sale, delivery, dispensing, distribution, possession, or use of a psychoactive drug shall not be permitted in the state of Idaho.”
In the real world beer, wine, etc are really “psychoactive” drugs, but…
My old friend, Russ Belville who is now the chief petitioner of the recently proposed Idaho Marijuana Legalization Act, explained the political dynamics…
“When this goes before the voters, you know they’re gonna sell it as, ‘Oh, this makes drugs illegal. We don’t want legal cocaine, we don’t legal meth, we don’t want legal heroin. We don’t want to do like Oregon does and have legal drugs’—which Oregon doesn’t, but they’re gonna say it that way,” Belville said. “A lot of people who don’t pay attention might be fooled into thinking, ‘Oh yeah, we want to ban illegal drugs, we don’t like cocaine and meth,’ and not realize that it bans medical marijuana forever.”
This effort clearly demonstrates the anti-democratic nature of the Drug War. The prohibitionist can see that they are losing. The American people are overwhelmingly in favor of legalizing medical marijuana, and in most states, there is also a majority for the legalization of recreational marijuana. So, what’s a prohibitionist to do??
I am optimistic that the people of Idaho will see through this shabby deception, but it makes clear the nature of the Drug Warriors. The real Slippery Slope is from marijuana prohibition to the prohibitionist police state. Freedom is easy to lose and hard to get back.
