December 11, 2019
Page 9
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Marijuana Allows Me to Decrease Pain Medicine
I don’t buy
argument it’s a
gateway drug
J ill r iChardson
Like nearly all
Americans of a cer-
tain age, I was told in
school that tobacco,
alcohol, and marijua-
na are gateway drugs
— and that is why
marijuana should remain illegal.
First of all, even if you accept
that these three substances are
“gateways” to something worse,
why is it that adults can use alco-
hol and tobacco legally, but not
marijuana?
This is particularly outrageous
given that, unlike alcohol and
cigarettes, marijuana has a wide
range of medical applications.
Other than prescription opioids,
marijuana is the only drug that re-
lieves my chronic migraines. I like
that it doesn’t come with the ad-
diction or overdose risks that opi-
oids do, and I want to use it legally
and under a doctor’s supervision.
Unfortunately, I live in Wiscon-
sin, where even medical uses are
illegal.
For me, marijuana is a gate-
way to relief from headaches, not
a gateway to harder drugs. Legal
medical marijuana allows me to
decrease my use of opioids.
Sen. Kamala Harris recent-
by
ly reframed the gateway idea in
another way. The war on drugs
approach of criminalizing mari-
juana, she said, “is the gateway to
America’s problem with mass in-
carceration.” As a former prosecu-
tor and drug warrior who
now supports decriminal-
ization, she would know.
While I was sitting
through D.A.R.E. class-
es in school, others were
being criminalized and
locked up for nonviolent
ing for drugs in communities of
color than in white communities.
They could have found plenty
of drugs and underage drinking
among the rich kids in the dorms
and frat houses of the mostly
white, elite private school where I
went to college, but they weren’t
looking.
After the arrest, racial dispari-
ties continue, disadvantaging low
income people and people of col-
or at every stage of the judicial
process. The racial disparities
in some states, and handling ad-
diction with treatment instead of
prison.
Yet marijuana is still fully crim-
inalized at the federal level and in
many states (I’m looking at you,
Wisconsin).
Many jurisdictions that have
legalized marijuana have also
expunged the criminal records of
anyone convicted of nonviolent,
low-level marijuana offenses. But
there’s no way to give them back
the years of their lives they spent
These harsh drug laws and strict sentencing
guidelines were not enforced equally, either.
Although blacks and whites use and sell drugs
at similar rates (white people actually use drugs
a bit more), black people are 6.5 times more
likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses.
drug offenses.
These harsh drug laws and
strict sentencing guidelines were
not enforced equally, either. Al-
though blacks and whites use and
sell drugs at similar rates (white
people actually use drugs a bit
more), black people are 6.5 times
more likely to be incarcerated for
drug offenses.
In part this is because law en-
forcement spends more time look-
continue even after someone has
paid their debt to society. A black
person with a felony record faces
more employment discrimination
than an equally qualified white
person with a felony record.
It seems like the war on drugs is
on its way out, although not quick-
ly enough. The tide is turning to-
ward medical usage of marijua-
na and even some psychedelics,
legalized recreational marijuana
locked up for pot.
Why are we still paying tax-
payer dollars to incarcerate canna-
bis users, taking them away from
their jobs and their families? Our
current path is a gateway to mis-
ery. Let’s choose another.
OtherWords columnist Jill
Richardson is pursuing a PhD in
sociology at the University of Wis-
consin-Madison. Distributed by
OtherWords.org.
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