Editor’s note: This commentary is by Steve May, who is an LICSW practicing in Burlington at Otter Creek Associates, where he specializes in treating people with substance abuse and mental health concerns. He is a Progressive/Democratic candidate for the Vermont House of Representatives for the Chittenden-1 district (Richmond) and is a member of the Vermont Coalition to Regulate Marijuana.
[I]t’s the public policy equivalent of a Rorschach test. To have watched the cannabis and opiate legislative fights this term, one can’t help but feel like these conversations are happening on Pluto. Let’s forget about drug of choice for a minute, because it allows us to understand the human element and the things that drive our human need for happiness.
At our lowest common denominators, people being who we are — we seek pleasure. Our drugs of choice support escapism and indicate a basic need for self-soothing. Some of us will select behaviors which one’s drug of choice need not be illegal to support a compulsive series of behavior. People pick up that thing which soothes the savage soul because we prefer the state of being where we suffer least. Our drug of choice which supports the greatest amount of overall functioning can be something which is legal and available in abundance for law-abiding adults. Retail therapy (aka: shopping) alcohol, tobacco, gambling, sex, food, all are at the tip of the proverbial iceberg — all are legal to adults, all in moderation are fine, and when misused these activities very much are subject to misuse. All of society’s ills will not suddenly go away if cannabis is made legal tomorrow. People will abuse cannabis just as they had yesterday. Prohibition is no panacea.
Tax and regulate (T&R) may be overly simplistic in describing the regime I support. There isn’t a truly good name so T&R long ago because the least bad term of art. I know without question that prohibition was an abject failure with regard to both alcohol and cannabis. I believe that a regulated system will prevent the worst of the abuses that exist under our current system. A well-regulated Vermont system would account for the quality control issues around marijuana. The nightmare scenario as a licensed independent clinical social worker who has worked with people around addiction issues for a decade is not that somebody went to the neighbor’s herb garden and has tried to extend and dilute product by adding or cutting oregano, or rosemary into the cannabis they are selling on the street … effectively adding fillers to product. Rather, the concern is that another drug like the highly addictive painkiller, fentanyl, is being added to marijuana in a way that cannabis users are completely unaware of. The effect is to create a kind of super addictive pot.
Rather, we are charged as a society to create the system which allows people to survive our poorer choices provided they don’t impact anyone beyond ourselves.
The real public policy questions here come down to the need to having “a sheriff on the street.” People will continue to self-soothe. That is basic to who we are as people; it is almost baked into humanity. I have to assume that the vast majority of people who imbibe in cannabis are consenting adults, who understand the need to make informed health choices in their own best interest. It is not the proper role of government to cause every harm to cease. Rather, it is the proper role of government to prevent as much “permanent or life-altering” harm(s) as possible. I want everyone to be able to make whatever choices best fit their lifestyle, having been presented with enough information to make a reasonably well-considered choice. It is not the proper role of government to stop everyone from making a choice because one might simply find that choice distasteful.
The bottle of hand sanitizer on my coffee table in my therapy office comes with a list of active ingredients so that users are aware of any allergies or adverse reactions which may result, don’t we as a society at least owe that to our neighbors who are using recreational cannabis. No one presumes that providing oversight to the alcohol industry at the Food and Drug Administration is an endorsement. The fact that this bottle of hand sanitizer comes with a list of ingredients doesn’t make it any less a poison to ingest. Disclosure and the duty to warn that a regulatory regime would create places the emphasis on end users, and that is where the emphasis belongs. Regulation of cannabis is about safety for users of cannabis and cannabis products, period.
The current outlaw scenario we have today refuses to consider that people have continued to use marijuana in spite of its legal status as a prohibited substance under federal law. Legal or illegal questions surrounding its status under both Vermont and federal law have not significantly impacted its use or misuse. The current legal arrangement does not provide a meaningful deterrent to thousands upon thousands of Vermonters who use cannabis regularly. By the numbers, there are likely as many folks who might suddenly use cannabis because the barriers to it are gone as there are people who abstain because the “forbidden fruits” mystique is suddenly gone.
Rather, we are charged as a society to create the system which allows people to survive our poorer choices provided they don’t impact anyone beyond ourselves. Part of living in a free society is to enable people we care about to make the kinds of choices that we wouldn’t make for ourselves, that called free will. And free will, not one’s drug of choice, should be at the center of the Legislature’s decision-making around cannabis and finally ending cannabis prohibition once and for all.
