A couple months ago Pat Roberston, the infamous televangelist generally making headlines for blaming catastrophic events on gays and abortions, confused the general public by blurting out something entirely sensible: "I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded. It’s completely out of control. Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all."For a counterargument CNN had to scour the depths of yesteryear's debased pundit class, passing by the usual arbiters of cataclysmic premonition, most of whom, like Robertson, long ago realized the "War on Drugs" is an abject failure. CNN's dive into the abyss netted them the pious ramblings of one William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a man whose fingerprints appear all over the heap of legislation that diverted funds from the problematic practice of educating Americans and reinvested them into the lucrative business of locking them behind bars for petty crimes.What makes the occasional rant by the Bennetts of the world interesting is how uncommon the sentiment is. After all, the President and Attorney General refuse to use the term "War on Drugs" and speak openly about the genius of David Simon. Bill Clinton's assertion that he didn't inhale seems ridiculous when compared to the last two Presidents: no one batted an eyelash when Obama said he did inhale ("That was the point.") and we disregarded the drug problems of George W. Bush's youth shortly after learning about them.Despite these strides in presentation, with the exception of Obama's modification of the country's racist crack laws; there has been very little change in policy. Nowhere is this disconnect more evident than New York City, a place with a Mayor who, when asked if he ever smoked pot, responded, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it!" and a Police Commissioner who has instructed officers to only arrest people if they have weed "open to public view." Marijuana possession was decriminalized by New York's legislature in 1977, yet from 1997 through 2011, low-level pot busts averaged 39,000 a year, fourteen times the average for the previous fifteen years. There were 50,684 pot arrests in 2011, the second highest total ever.Recently the city's crusade against smalltime drug offenses has taken a perplexing turn: synthetic marijuana has now been banned throughout the state as a result of an order handed down by the state Health Department. "We are banning the sale of synthetic marijuana because, no matter what you call it, it's clear that this is an illegal drug which is putting the health of New Yorkers, especially young adults, at risk," Governor Cuomo told reporters.In the last few years, poison control calls regarding the substance (sold under names like Spice and Killer Buzzz) have skyrocketed and the substance has been linked to a number of medical problems, however, the penalties are stiff: a new bill set to hit Cuomo's desk would make fake pot more illegal than real pot; possession or sale of the faux-drug would be a misdemeanor.Regardless of the possible health concerns, the ban was partially fueled by Reefer Madness levels of hysteria that would have made Harry Anslinger proud. A Fort Edward man who recently went to jail for 10 years for assaulting a woman and her infant claims that he had smoked fake weed before he went insane, ""It would not have happened if I wasn’t under the influence."Additionally, a number of news stories on the dangers of fake-pot identify a Pittsburgh boy who died after a lung transplant made necessary by smoking it. These stories almost all neglect to mention that the fact he smoked out of a PEZ dispenser is, probably, what led to the tragedy. According to a Pittsburgh Tribune Review story that cites Dr. J. Douglas Bricker, dean of Duquesne University’s Mylan School of Pharmacy, "plastic — such as that found in the candy dispenser — heated at high temperatures will release highly toxic cyanide gas and carbon monoxide."It's been awhile since anyone has bothered making similar arguments about the influence of marijuana, and busts remain up. If further studies call the fake-weed narrative into question, don't expect the policy to change, connections are irrelevant. We have learned that much from authentic weed.
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