Pot Politics: Marijuana and the Costs of Prohibition

Mitch Earleywine

Aug 2006 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

Marijuana use continues to attract interest and fuel controversy. Big, green pot leaves have adorned the covers of Time, National Review, and Forbes. Almost 100 million Americans have tried marijuana at least once. Groups such as The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana (NORML) and The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) have tens of thousands of members. Polls suggest that 70-80% of Americans support medicinal marijuana. At least 11 U.S. states have experimented with decriminalization and medical marijuana laws, with new initiatives appearing each year. Meanwhile, other groups such as Partnership for a Drug Free America and Mothers Against Drugs protest legalization. Clearly, debate about marijuana policy shows no sign of abating. In his earlier book, Understanding Marijuana, Mitch Earleywine forced researchers, policy makers, and citizens to avoid oversimplification, separate empirical findings from their interpretations, and understand that some things may be neither good nor evil. Pot Politics continues with these same themes, showing multiple perspectives from a variety of experts on an important problem with vast implications. The volume presents ethical, religious, economic, psychological, and political arguments for cannabis policies that range from prohibition to unrestricted legalization. By presenting a unique perspective on overlapping issues, each chapter demonstrates how even recognized experts draw markedly different conclusions from the same data. Some contributors evaluate policy by weighing the costs and benefits of control while others eschew policy by presenting moral arguments against our attempts at control. Pot Politics should be read by everyone interested in the politics of both marijuana use and governmental regulation of our actions.

Ratings and reviews

While researching my dissertation, I read Chapter 3 - Is Drug Testing in the Workplace Worthwhile, co-authored by Sara Smucker Barnwell and Mitch Earleywine. Stressing that I have only read this single chapter, I found a glaring error regarding federal regulations for workplace drug testing on page 42: "Companies with more than $25,00 in contracts with the United States government must test all employees for drug use (Allison & Stahlhut, 1995)." - which is completely inaccurate. In fact the text misrepresents the legal opinion in the cited Allison & Stahlhut article which concerns the procedural overlay between the DOT, ADA and FMLA regulations with regard to drug and alcohol abuse and dependency. Furthermore, the citation makes no mention of the Drug Free Workplace Act of 1988 -- which requires employers who receive a federal contract or grant over $25,000 to certify that they will maintain a drug-free workplace with several conditions -- but contains NO requirement regarding any form of employee drug testing. The language and statutory requirements of the DFW act are readily available via multitude of government and non-government websites, books and other publications, so I found an error of this level fairly troublesome. I also found the chapter mainly concerned with a discussion of its characterization of a dearth of rigorous research on drug impairment at work, and appeared to "cherry pick" those studies which confirmed its obvious bias against workplace drug testing, especially for cannabis.

Dont expect to get the WHOLE TRUTH with this book. The author is engaging in DISINFORMATION and attempting to push GOVERNMENT AGENDA. Remember, cannibas plant PERSECUTION is REALLY ABOUT RACIAL DISCRIMINATION. The author appears to be attempting to manipulate HOW THE READER FEELS about cannibas. Read it, if you need to. But dont let it be your LAST book on cannibas research! Government studies have PROVEN cannibas to be NOT physically addictive, and HARMLESS. The government has COVERED UP its OWN FINDINGS