Spare Us

Not long ago, we at the Blasphemy Blog semi-seriously suggested that, given the epidemic of methamphetamine use in this country, we as a society ought to encourage those people who like to smoke illegal things to smoke marijuana instead. The semi-serious reasoning behind this modest proposal was that meth is really, really bad, whereas marijuana is only sort of bad.

Well, it turns out that the people in charge of our national drug policy disagree with our assessment and are maintaining Mary Jane's status as public drug enemy number one, despite a survey of 500 sheriffs indicating that meth is actually public drug enemy number one.

Why would White House Policy Analyst Dave Murray come to a different conclusion than 500 sheriffs? What does he know that they don't? Well, it comes down to numbers. There are 15 million marijuana smokers in the United States, whereas there are only about a million meth users, these statistics having been helpfully compiled by the Office of Asking People if they Use Drugs. (Just down the hall from the Office of Asking Teenagers if they Have Sex.) Because there are so many more marijuana users, marijuana is a much, much worse problem.

We try not to be cynical at the Blasphemy Blog, but we become very cynical indeed when policy analysts say such silly things. Does White House Policy Analyst Dave Murray also believe we need a national crackdown on littering, since so many more people litter than commit murders? Oh, it makes us so cynical.

We begin to suspect, for example, that a White House Policy Analyst would say such a thing because the meth epidemic affects the rural poor and gay people, neither of whom vote Republican, and the marijuana "epidemic" affects suburban people, about half of whom vote Republican.

But really, we'll try not to be that cynical. What we really want, in our heart of hearts, is for people to stop using meth. Come on, kids. It rots your brain and your teeth. The men who would be the next Willie Nelson and the next Tony Kushner are going to die before they're twenty-five if we're not careful. And we really, really need another Nelson and another Kushner.

So if you must smoke something, please smoke a bowl. This time we're not kidding.