This from the Associated Press, February 7, 2009 Saturday:
"Whiff of change in US medical marijuana policy"
(DEVLIN BARRETT) SECTION: WASHINGTON DATELINE
Just real briefly, from this short article on the new Whitehouse's potential to stop enforcement of anti-marijuana laws in states that allow for medical use of cannabis:
"At age 47, Obama is part of a generation that had plenty of exposure to pot."
I take exception to this statement. Homosapiens has had plenty of exposure to 'pot,' cannabis being an intricate part of human existence dating back as early as 8,000 B.C. (and possibly earlier). Drafts of the Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper, which by the D.E.A.'s standards would make it a controlled substance (there is a detectable amount of T.H.C. in any hemp product, just not enough to get anyone high).
By trying to analyze as a generational attribute, the Associated Press writer here commits a fallacy of distortion: during World War II, there was a "Hemp for Victory" project that encouraged U.S. farmers to grow hemp. Henry Anslinger had to use the misnomer "marijuana" to scare Congress into passing anti-cannabis legislation, because if he used the words 'hemp' or 'cannabis' his fear-mongering would have been laughed out of the legislature.
Simply put - it's not a generational thing. It's an honesty thing. President Obama is part of a new culture that's no longer interested in lying about reality - people have been ingesting cannabis since the Neolithic Era. Nothing done in the last 10,000 years has managed to stop it - why waste federal resources trying?
Posted by Malakkar Vohryzek