A letter was written to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin asking him to justify why marijuana should remain illegal after the American College of Physicians recently said it shouldn't be. Below is a condensed version of his response to that person. I have also added what seem to be obvious responses to what he said.

 

Dear XXXXXXX:

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I do not believe the answer in solving this country's problem of drug abuse and the violence associated with drug trafficking is to make drugs legal.

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Marijuana is often the drug singled out for legalization. However, marijuana is not the recreational drug that many believe it to be. In a study completed by the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), the number of marijuana related emergencies has nearly reached the level of cocaine related emergencies. As this statistic indicates, marijuana use often has fatal consequences.

 

Okay, time to put this bitch in his place. First, the statistic DAWN cites for marijuana visits to emergency departments (ED), 242,200, is listed as being "related" (not exclusive) to marijuana. For example, it later says that it is estimated that alcohol, in conjunction with pot, is responsible for 33,643 visits. Also cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol together are found in 22,377 visits. Interesting. That's like finding the probability of drinking a Pepsi leading to a hospital visit, we'll say .000007%, then finding the probability of drinking a Pepsi while also consuming a lot of alcohol (how bout 5%), and using 5.000007% as the statistic of Pepsi-related ED visits. So basically that is 56,020 cases of the 242,200 marijuana-related ED visits that are now essentially irrelevent. I say irrelevent because you now have factors with much higher probabiltiies of leading to ED visits than marijuana itself.

As for the claim that marijuana has nearly reached the level of cocaine-related visits... I guess if you consider 242,200 visits to be nearly the same as 448,481 (also some bullshit in that number I'm sure) then Harkin got me there (this is all according to Harkin's source, by the way).

Now he finishes that paragraph with an interesting assertion, "As this statistic indicates, marijuana use often has fatal consequences." I have two problems with that one sentence. First, I would ask how many of you reading this have ever had to go to the emergency room. I have. I'm sure many of you have as well. And yet, I'm still here writing this boring response to some douche politician's bullshit letter and you're still reading it, so maybe a statistic about emergency room visits doesn't mean shit about how "fatal" something is. He also threw in the word "often" for good measure.

Lets just see what constitutes marijauana "related" visits as being "often". Just for fun, we'll pretend that 242,200 visits is accurate (and still somehow more worthy of keeping pot illegal than the 7.6 million alcohol-related visits each year). In a very unscientific way, I took some estimates of monthly marijuana users (because the brilliant people who compile these statistics never thought that 'weekly use' might be helpful to some of us). Well I took 33.2% (anyone who doesn't smoke daily but does smoke at least 12 times a year) of the US population (yes I realize that children under 8 are part of the US population but not in my 33.2% but if Harkin is going to use bullshit numbers, then I assume they'll even out) - 91,160,061 regular marijuana users. So of those 91 million users, 242,200 of them have marijuana on them, or THC in their system (though not exclusively) when they go to the emergency room. That means that Tom Harkin thinks that .265% of regular marijuana users annually having an emergency room visit is considered "often".


I was deeply troubled when I learned of another recent study which found that nearly one-third of all eighth graders had tried marijuana. As the father of two daughters, it greatly disturbs me that children are exposed to drugs at such a young age. I am concerned that legalization of this drug will only increase the number of children who gain access to its harmful effects.

 

So I assume he keeps his children away from caffeine. Hell you might even consider sugar a drug. After all, after refinement, it's lost all food value. Halloween must blow at his house each year. And when you dream at night, your brain produces DMT, which is an illegal substance, so he must stand over his daughters' beds while they sleep at night and beat the shit out of them when he thinks they're starting to dream. Anyway, he also throws in the "protect the children" argument. But of course, marijuana legalization has nothing to do with kids. Besides, it'd be safer for a child to smoke pot than take 4 shots of vodka. And God knows that would fuckin' cure A.D.D.


The victims of the drug war are many - the small child whose parents are so addicted to illegal drugs that they sell everything including perhaps their own children to obtain a fix;

 

I'm not makin' this stuff up, people. First let me just point out that he said "illegal drugs" and not "marijuana." Now what about so many fathers and husbands who drink themselves out of their families, jobs, and houses? Essentially are they not doing the same thing? They stop providing for their families financially because they choose to spend all their money on that 'fix' of Jack. And ya know what? Fuck that, if someone wants to give their kid(s) away, there's no problem there, but they can't try to make a little cash at the same time? Why the fuck not? Some free market system we have...

 

the police officer's family which must now learn to cope with the loss of their loved one as a result of a violent drug bust gone awry. These are the people I think of when I say that drugs pose a significant threat to the security of this nation.

 

Again he said "drug" bust, which generalizes the argument. Though there have been many deaths due to marijuana busts, so I'll give him the benefit of being a dick who can't stick to a specific argument. But obviously he must enjoy having police officers killed during drug busts, because it is the advocation of the war on drugs that leads to those dead cops. If pot were legal, of course, it would no longer lead to pigs getting their bacon sizzled over something so unnecessary (Though they'd assuredly get baked).


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Legalizing drugs is equivalent to declaring surrender in the war on drugs.

Fallacy. And again, he says "drugs." This was a letter addressing only marijuana, you Boeotian fuck.

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Sincerely,

Tom Harkin

United States Senator (and full time douche)