Taken directly from their website, the non-sequitur approach to drug prohibition:

‘The legalization movement is not simply a harmless academic exercise. The mortal danger of thinking that marijuana is “medicine” was graphically illustrated by a story from California. In the spring of 2004, Irma Perez was “in the throes of her first experience with the drug ecstasy” when, after taking one ecstasy tablet, she became ill and told friends that she felt like she was “going to die.” Two teenage acquaintances did not seek medical care and instead tried to get Perez to smoke marijuana. When that failed due to her seizures, the friends tried to force-feed marijuana leaves to her, “apparently because [they] knew that drug is sometimes used to treat cancer patients.” Irma Perez lost consciousness and died a few days later when she was taken off life support. She was 14 years old.’

So, because some kids tried to use marijuana as medicine to treat someone for an ecstasy overdose, that’s a danger of thinking of marijuana as medicine? I’m pretty sure that no matter what medicine was used, outside of a charcoal tablet or something to that effect, Irma was not going to be “helped” by any medicine. Does that mean it’s dangerous to think of cough syrup as medicine? Because she would probably have died if her friends made her drink cough medicine as well. That’s the danger of guifeisen for sure! Ban! Ban! Ban! Guifeisen doesn’t cure ecstasy overdose, ergo it’s dangerous to think of Guifeisen as medicine!

Okay, enough of my mimicry. The D.E.A.’s next fallacy is one known as “ad hominem” or attacking the person, instead of the argument. It also has a bonus prize of hidden premise:

‘A few billionaires—not broad grassroots support—started and sustain the “medical” marijuana and drug legalization movements in the United States. Without their money and influence, the drug legalization movement would shrivel. According to National Families in Action, four individuals – George Soros, Peter Lewis, George Zimmer and John Sperling – contributed $1,510,000 to the effort to pass a “medical” marijuana law in California in 1996, a sum representing nearly 60 per cent of the total contributions.’

If a few billionaires fund the medical marijuana movements, so what? What exactly does that prove? As for the broad grassroots support, the hidden premise is that they don’t exist because there isn’t funding from them. A better read is that the grassroots support for medical marijuana are often patients, which the D.E.A. regularly calls, “criminals.” Does anyone really wonder why they’re not making their identities, much less their financial activities, known to the federal government? If someone who can lock you up is calling you a criminal, do you really want to give them your name?

Taking things a step further, without the coerced extraction of funds from the federal taxpayer, the D.E.A. and ONDCP, and hell, almost every last drug warrior (even D.A.R.E. programs and the Partnership for a Drug Free America take federal [pork] disbursements) and their prohibition policy would “shrivel.” At least the ‘legalization movement’ as they call it rely on voluntary contributions.

Finally, 1.5 million in 1996 as a significant figure? How about the billions spent yearly on drug prohibition, with only millions of prisoners to show for it? Or the 130 million spent by ONDCP to promote drug prohibition (though, to be fair, it was probably only 90 million in 1996, outspending these “billionaires” by a factor of 60)? A majority of this money is spent against marijuana, the same substance that has no known overdose, ever. Water can’t even claim that kind of safety.

There’s more, but really, need I say it (I probably will in a later blog regardless)?

Posted by Malakkar Vohryzek