Dear Friends, I am writing this letter primarily because this discussion has no identifiable beginning, but also because

we require absolute community in the gravest of matters. Firstly, I have been cautioned against speaking or writing as we, but the ideological underpinnings of sensory prohibition have as much to do with the intangible concept of us as they do science and law, so please forgive me if I succumb to that temptation. When challenging a tradition as war-torn and well-established as cannabis prohibition deciding where to begin is the most difficult part, and no fact or anecdote could sweep in the changes. I am tremendously grateful to have been born into a generation which has matured alongside the largest and most awe-inspiring repository of information in the history of the world; the Library at Alexandria pales dimly in comparison. This project would have had no chance of completion without the internet, plain and simple. Logical reasoning and unfettered access to information are the twin pillars upon which our future will proudly stand, and ensuring the integrity of these freedoms might be the defining struggle of this generation, and all others into posterity. In this way, the internet is selfsustaining, as individuals who inherit the right of free-flowing information usually and most admirably become very hesitant to sacrifice it. The existence of our Republic is a testament to the historical inquisitiveness of the American people, and this was apparent long before the average citizen had access to scientific literature. Some notable (and necessarily paraphrased) examples might include:

Why are we being taxed for tea without any legislative input or recourse? How can we possibly withhold suffrage from a full half of our population? Is separate but equal not an obvious and odious contradiction in terms?

Science is often considered a job or a discipline; a series of tasks hammered by rote into the brains of lab-dwelling hermits. This is an incomplete analysis. Science is not a thing. It is a way of thinking that provides a framework for the systematic challenge of even our most dearly-held assumptions especially and necessarily these. Science can accurately be described in embryo with a single symbol: the humble and eternal question mark. Science begins with questions and ends with even more, rendering the answer significantly less important than the trans-historical pursuit of knowledge which bolsters our most sacred rights; those of health, personal freedom, and a reasonable chance at enjoying both. Prohibition itself is not unlike a drug; a tonic we have been compelled to imbibe. Its wicked alchemy cannot, however, be attributed to any one individual or secretive cabal. Its base compound was a fundamental and widespread lack of scientific knowledge seared with heavy doses of bombast and fearmongering. It was fully potentiated by a lengthy steeping in the seething racism that pervaded the early twentieth century unsurprisingly the nadir of American race relations. 1

Let me be clear from the start: almost everything the layperson has heard about cannabis is patently and demonstrably false. This is not an indictment of the public intellect, but rather an explanation of the preciousness of prescience. There are several theories regarding the origin of the word abracadabra, but one of the more highly-regarded notions is that it comes from the Hebrew phrase avra k'davra which roughly translates to I will create as I speak. No single word captures the confabulatory nature of prohibitionist arguments more precisely than this ancient invocation. I humbly submit that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that can attest to any benefits of the continued prohibition of cannabis and, crucially, that there has never been any evidence demonstrating to the alleged destructive properties physiological, psychological, or societal of the aforementioned. When analyzing the collective evidence proffered by prohibitionists, beginning in the midnineteenth century and extending to the present day, it becomes clear that the evidence is inarguably in the corner of those seeking re-legalization; it always has been. Cannabis is only physiologically harmful in the way that any inhaled plant matter might be. Cannabis is empirically less addictive and biologically harmful than tobacco, which makes claims of institutionalized hypocrisy in the form of breathtakingly massive subsidies matters of both public record and scientific fact. America s favorite drug, alcohol, can be shown to induce violent urges in a laboratory setting; the very opposite is true with cannabis. Prohibitionists who dismiss the comparison of our two fumbling attempts at nationalized temperance are, at the very least, shown to lack some conscience in their gleeful pursuit of happy hubris. Cannabis does not cause cancer (in fact, promising research suggests that the opposite might be true) and it does not cause insanity. Taken together, one might deduce that the information that allegedly supported prohibition must have been overturned, falsified, or misunderstood. The truth lies in some sweaty grey amalgamation of the second two; overturned would imply that this evidence once existed. There is no far-reaching conspiracy; do you really, honestly, think there could be? Even the term cover-up grates on the ears and carries with it an implication that I cannot logically condone. A crime has been committed, but it has been mainly one of negligence, and one without an isolated perpetrator. This is the difference between a story (i.e. a conspiracy theory) and a rational policy assessment. Punishment is fleeting; pain is temporary; pride is forever. Love, however, my dearest friends, is absolutely and undeniably eternal. Throw it all out, and start again with the greatest of loves: empathy. While cannabis is not harmful in any useful sense of the word, the prohibition of cannabis does have measurable, manifestly destructive consequences. It represents the arbitrary subtraction of a personal liberty in a misguided attempt to patrol the health and consciousness of every American, smoker or not. Prohibition makes subjects out of citizens, and prisoners out of otherwise-upstanding Americans; on this ideological intrusion upon Madame Justice s necessarily impartial nature I might rightly consider resting our case. But a full rebuttal is required here. Prohibition places an unconscionable burden on both minority groups and America s young men and women: two of our most valuable and vulnerable populations. Even if cannabis were 2

equally deleterious in its effect on the human body as heroin, for example, we would still be compelled to reassess our approach to its legality, as the capricious and authoritarian nature of prohibition eats away at the structural integrity of the United States; its acid is our fear and its panacea rational empathy. I did not forget to mention our friends in other nations who suffer in the name of our policy. Their voices already tug on our heartstrings; sweet, now silent to maintain our silly sameness. This book does constitute a direct challenge to this ancient ban, but not to the authority of the Executive Branch; it should be considered an urgent appeal instead. I have been careful to marshal my facts as accurately and concisely as possible, and I intend on making my case using evidence alone, a claim which my opponents cannot truthfully stake. At the risk of incurring the (well-armed) wrath of any number of brave and underappreciated federal agencies, I could no longer stand idly by as a century of scientific perversion is used to uphold an unmistakably immoral law. It may come to light that I am a future physician, and I carry the mantle with blushing pride, always attempting to avoid the same hubris which has propagated prohibition. I consider this book equally as my duty to science, as well as my country. The war which gave us the very term authoritarian ushered in a new era of legal responsibility on the national level. No longer would murderers be exonerated under the pretense of following orders, and an international mandate for reasoned dissent even among the most traditional of institutions was born. It was science that originally tugged at my conscience, but the palpable notion that seems to pervade the public consciousnesses, just below the surface of mainstream discourse, is what has sustained my efforts. That gut feeling a way of thinking I usually take great pains to avoid was summarized shortly after the beginning of this nation s first failed experiment with prohibition by H.L. Mencken, when he lamented that The land rocks with the scandal. It would be very easy to dismiss this book as yet another in a long line of stoner manifestos looking to stick it to the man. I have already explained that I found no evidence of any man to which anything might be stuck. I therefore ask that you dismiss this notion ab initio. The problem is more diffuse than any conspiracy could possibly account for, but the repugnant odor of prohibition is by no means ethereal. The unprecedented length of cannabis prohibition has permitted a profound national apathy a crippling lack of emotion which Horace Greely referred to as a living oblivion to take root: Why should I care? I don t even smoke! Even those who fall into this category have been gravely wounded by prohibition. Our drug policy, with special regard to cannabis, is the laughingstock of the international scientific community, and it has done irreparable harm to the trust that should exist between the federal government and the citizens whom it exists to serve and protect. The trillions of tax dollars wasted are of secondary importance, though this is the yarn spun publicly; a devastating shame. Prohibition may well be the most egregious incursions on individual liberty in the history our nation, but its most insidious consequence has been to instill a customary attitude of subversion for the law in the minds of more than three full generations of Americans; this is its gravest sin and its foulest legacy. An incredulous civilian population has been unwillingly pitted against their fellow citizens, as often-begrudging keepers of the peace are forced to imprison those who disobey a self-evidently

victimless crime. The term War on Drugs is kicked about so casually that I wince internally every time I hear it. Within this struggle are very real belligerents and very real casualties. I hope that my intentions are not misunderstood. This is not a long-winded polemic seeking to indict the law or the system as though such generalities have any practical application. I respect the rights bestowed upon us by the Constitution far too greatly to allow such a gross miscarriage of justice to continue unchecked. We owe it to those who swore to protect us many of whom lost their lives in the effort to straighten our spines, clear our throats, and resoundingly confess We were wrong. And the generations before us were wrong. But we will persevere. We must. The best components of nationalism are pride in laws and institutions, and prohibition makes a dismal charade out of the very idea of American justice. There is a temptation to retreat into the illusive comfort of tradition and consensus, but this only encourages the licking of wounds and the concealing of shame; two selfish habits of little constructive value. It will be important to embrace the awkward and repulsive millstone that prohibition has yoked us with, so that we might fully understand it and consequently rid ourselves of this generational burden. Thomas Paine wrote that a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. This oft-used quip from Paine s scintillating introduction is so blindingly salient in its relation to our modern debates on drug policy, that without context one could be fooled into thinking Paine had actually been writing a pamphlet on the tyranny of temperance rather than the absurdity of leadership by birthright. In the final calculation, it becomes apparent that prohibition is not the inviolate monolith that it seems, but rather a loosely-networked litany of half-truths and complete fabrications, pasted together in slap-dash fashion by unscrupulous but more often simply apathetic individuals, who cared more for themselves than for the health of their homeland. The argument from tradition is one of the easiest logical fallacies to which one can fall victim, and the entire family tree of prohibitionist arguments take its root, in some form or another, in this familiar corruption of logic. The repeal of cannabis prohibition is a debt owed to those who came before us and, maybe more importantly, to every future generation of Americans. I freely admit that tackling prohibition is downright frightening. The debate will bear witness to cartoonish stereotypes, outright mockery, and probably open hostility. But the Constitution is what protects the individual from governmental overreach, so the responsibility of ensuring its continued integrity falls as equally upon those in power as it does the citizenry from which that power is exclusively derived. There will always be a reason to delay. Defeated parties often regress to the time is not ripe argument, a flustered attempt at succoring a guilty conscience. The prohibition of cannabis, so imprudently signed into law almost immediately after alcohol prohibition was repealed incidental insanity in distilled form is one of the blackest marks on our history, and addressing it as such would go a long way toward creating a sane set of drug laws. The use of cannabis, like the use of alcohol and tobacco, is not immoral in and of itself, but disallowing its use most certainly is. We have reached an inflection point in our discussion of mind-altering substances, and the removal of our timorous cannabis legislation requires nothing less than a full resection. Only in this way can anything resembling logical progression be expected.

This time we refuse to march to the drumbeat of war. This time, our standards stay clean, unsullied by partisan hackery and scientific ignorance. The primary existential injunctive of physicians is always, Primum non nocere: First do no harm. Do not mistake this for petty non-interventionalism. Those who study and live the practice of medicine must be the ones who regulate the industry; our police are better served elsewhere. It is time to resolutely reject arbitrary and capricious domestic tyranny. Demand Resolution, and never again Prohibition.

Best Wishes For Our Future, Jim