Choosing Your Social Problems Is Easier Than Solving Them

The issue of marijuana legalization in New Jersey or any other state will be fought over questions that will excite and evoke the loud vocal groups that will be for or against it. Their positions will represent any number of perspectives, including but not limited to: it’s no worse than smoking or alcohol, it’s a gateway drug to more serious drugs, legalization will reduce crime, legalized use will raise revenues, it will reduce abusive disproportionate punishment under the law, law enforcement efforts can be applied more effectively to more serious crimes, and it will lead to the corruption of our youth.

These are stances from which politicians or anyone can base their arguments and defend their decisions, but these are not the reasons to be for or against legalization; at least not reasons worthy of an informed and one would hope intelligent society. Now I have to concede that starting with the proposition that ours is an intelligent society is pressing the limits if credibility but what else can one do but hope. The question on the table for our society and our form of government is how to efficiently and effectively manage the social issue of drug use be it marijuana, alcohol or tobacco. The situation with each of these drugs is currently that we are failing in our responsibilities to ourselves, our children and each other. As a consequence we are failing with respect to other more destructive drugs and behaviors in even more serious ways.

So what is the issue regarding marijuana and its legalization that the politicians, the media, the religious factions, our capitalistic business elite, social advocates, and the public at large should be determining? The issue is how to best manage and deal with the implications of marijuana (and we should apply equally to alcohol and tobacco) in our society given that it is nothing more or less than one of the realities of the world we live in; and the simplistic view that allowing its use or making it illegal is the smart, sane, rational and prudent solution is unworthy of us as a society. Simple solutions usually don’t work for a simple reason; if the problem is overly complex and many faceted the simple is quite literally out gunned and inadequate.

With this issue in the hands of politicians and special interests the best we can expect is that marijuana should be relegated to the comparable status of alcohol and tobacco. It should evolve to a regulated and managed substance. This will not be easy or with its dependence upon political influences accomplished well, but it may be the only solution that avoids the abysmal failures that treating it as if it can be decided by the powers that be once and therefore forever as a forbidden substance when the society has neither the will nor the means to abolish it from our culture.

Along with this approach will be a societal requirement to set responsibilities and accountabilities for those who choose to use, produce, oversee and regulate it. The fact that this will not be easy does not alter the inescapable obligation that we have to our society to do far better than we have done to this point. You can choose to bury your head in the visions of what you want to be real but the ‘laws of physics’ of the world we live in do not bow to your visions.