Students, experts explore the legalization of marijuana
By Shauna Racioppi and Matthew McGowan
Some call it "grass," while others call it "pot," and yet some are reluctant to call it a "drug."
In an era of medicinal marijuana usage and shifting social perception of the, an emerging movement to “legalize it” has surfaced. Activist now are calling for changes in federal and state laws that limit or restrict the consumption of the cannabis sativa plant. Their claim is that lawmakers neglect the substance’s potential, asserting it is harmless. 
Under the U.S. government’s Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is listed as a Schedule I narcotic. Narcotics in the Schedule I class, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Web site, have “a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States … ”
Opponents of the intoxicant, however, insist the legalization of marijuana would yield social devastation, moral degeneracy and a precipitous decline in American productivity.
Meanwhile, most Americans remain on the fence, watching as battle lines are drawn.
During a toe-to-toe debate in the Texas Tech Student Union Building Allen Theatre on Jan. 30, two experts laid it all out on the line.
Representing the law-enforcement side of the debate, Bob Stutman, a former senior member of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and a prominent expert on drug issues in the United States, explained his opposition to the legalization of the narcotic.
Steve Hager, editor of the pro-marijuana magazine "High Times" and a published advocate of the plant's decriminalization, took a stance opposite of Stutman’s.
Marijuana, admittedly, is not the worst narcotic known to man, Stutman said, noting growing trends of adolescents abusing pharmaceutical drugs. Other intoxicants that are legal, such as alcohol, already cause enough problems. Marijuana legalization would equate to more usage.
"It's an intoxicant that we don't need added to the already-legal intoxicants," Stutman said. "We don't need to make a terrible problem worse by adding to it."
Hager called for a radical change in the way current U.S. legislation treats both marijuana and those who use it.
Current public policy regarding marijuana is "onerous," he said, and in his opening remarks, he outlined several reasons why cannabis should be decriminalized. People who smoke marijuana "eat better, sleep better and have better sex."
Replying to those who argue that marijuana is a gateway drug, Hager said it is more of a "keyhole" drug, citing statistics that indicate there are 30 million marijuana users in the United States, while there are only 1 million users of harder drugs like cocaine and heroin. The gateway theory about marijuana is much like the domino theory that led the United States into the war with Vietnam.
"It's kind of like the domino theory, isn't it?" he asked. "Doesn't it kind of sound the same? It's like, 'you can't let this door open because it'll be over.' It's the same argument. Now, did we have to go to Vietnam? Was the whole world going to go communist? No way. No way. Think about all those lives, destroyed."
Legalizing marijuana would open the door for other drugs by blurring line between acceptable intoxication and irresponsible, haphazard behavior, said Joseph Green, spokesman for the Center for Infectious Diseases.
“Where would be draw the line,” he said. “Next, people would want to legalize cocaine.”
The Rx Factor
Marijuana, Hager said, has medicinal benefits that could benefit millions of people if they were given the opportunity to produce it for themselves as an alternative to prescription medications.
Pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, dread such decriminalization because independent cultivation would hinder their control over any benefits the plant may have, he said.
"It's all about money," Hager said. "Most people don't realize that pharmaceuticals are the most profit-intensive industry in America. People think oil companies make money; pharmaceuticals make twice the money as oil companies."
In rebuttal, Stutman said the medical benefits of marijuana still partially elude modern medicine. Regardless, pharmaceutical companies currently extract medicinal compounds directly from the plants that produce them, which he believes nullifies Hager's argument that such companies would lose control.
"Any doctor who tells you to smoke something because it will improve your health is a fool," Stutman said.
Similarly, Green said that, though hundreds of chemical elements comprise the cannabis plant, few of its compounds have been proven to relieve pain. Furthermore, the Food and Drug Administration has, in fact, only deemed three of the plants elements fit for medicinal use.
Doctors eager to ease the pain of cancer patients, he added as an example, may prescribe a drug called Marinol , which is the most commonly used medicinal derivative of the narcotic.
Though it is used to treat pain, other available medicines offer perfectly legitimate alternatives to Marinol. Morphine, Green said, is one such alternative.
Morphine, however, as a textbook definition of medicinal potency, has been found to be profoundly more addictive, according to the Narconon Web site, www.narconon.ca/morphine.htm. Morphine users quickly develop a tolerance to the drug, meaning they require higher doses to achieve comparable highs. Symptoms of morphine withdrawal include “nausea, tearing, yawning, chills, and sweating lasting up to three days.”
Because marijuana boosts hunger, Green said, doctors recognize it as a remedy to the appetite loss often suffered by those undergoing chemotherapy.
Marijuana’s potential, he said, has not eluded researchers.
“Big drug companies like Phizer spend billions of dollars researching new drugs,” Green said. “If there were any compounds in marijuana that were beneficial to one’s health they would be investing in it. It has no appropriate medical use.”
Gerrid Warner, a medical research technician at Tech’s Health Sciences Center, disagreeing with Green, said marijuana offers relief to those suffering from eye cancer.
Glaucoma, one particularly painful type of eye cancer, for example, causes an excruciating swelling in the eyes, he said, but marijuana greatly can reduce the pain and treat some of the symptoms in that it “causes your eyes to shrink and reduces the swelling and pressure.”
With this in mind, Warner said, the hallucinogen could be prescribed to cancer patients. If it is prescribed, however, it should be closely monitored.
“Smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes should be allowed, but only as a temporary method of relieving pain.”
He offered other acceptable circumstances in which marijuana prescriptions might be justified.
“Physchogist prescribe it to patients in California who have high stress lives,” Warner said. “It is a way of helping them calm down.”
When it comes to the negative effects of marijuana use, he said many theories claim marijuana causes short-term memory loss and other health problems – though evidence to support such claims is scant.
“People claim that it causes males to become sterile, have a low sperm count and causes short term memory loss,” Warner said, “but there is not enough research to back that up.”
Alan Jones, an accounting student at Tech, when asked for his opinion about the downside of marijuana, said he advocates the legalization of marijuana because, in his opinion, it is no more harmful than alcohol.
With his medical expertise, Green, on the other hand, said that it is not like alcohol because of the different elements in the marijuana plant.
“Alcohol is one compound, whether it’s made from corn, grapes or wheat,” he said. “Marijuana has hundreds of compounds.”
Due to the unpredictability of many of the compounds in cannabis, Green continued, it could affect a person in numerous ways. In fact, the plant contains numerous chemicals which clearly are psychoactive.
Conversely, provided it is closely monitored, Warner agreed marijuana should be legalized for medicinal and recreational use.
“Yes, I believe that is should be legalized, but it should be very highly regulated,” he said. “People should be a certain age to smoke it, and (it) should be done in the confines of your house.”
The Greener side of Marijuana
As his second argument for policy change, Hager said cannabis produces products that offer environmentally friendly alternatives to many commodities widely used today, such as paper, rope and clothing, which can be produced from hemp more efficiently and with less pollution than many petrochemical products currently being mass produced.
Such hemp products, alone, already have been legalized in Canada, Stutman said, and companies that began producing hemp for such products went bankrupt, proving through economic principles that hemp is not really a more viable option.
"Either Steve exaggerated the good of (hemp)," he said, "or it's not price-worthy."
According to the Hemp Industries Association’s Web site, www.thehia.org, “eco-friendly hemp can replace most toxic petrochemical products.”
Cops, Robbers and Hippies
Hager's third argument - marijuana laws are overcrowding U.S. prisons and vilifying many otherwise innocent people - Stutman said he understood.
While marijuana should remain illegal because that is the standard set by the American people, marijuana offenders do not deserve jail time and they are, in fact, causing bloated prisons, said the former DEA agent.
Incarcerating marijuana users simply for “hitting the bong” defies logic, Hager said, Throwing marijuana smokers in jail specifically because they abuse marijuana solves nothing, dodges the real issue and indicates the narrow-mindedness of modern law enforcement. Those who regularly abuse any intoxicants "need help, not a jail cell and handcuffs."
The views of one local attorney, Davis Smith, resemble Hager’s sentiments about the misunderstood reality and benign nature of the so-called drug.
“It should be legalized across the board,” he said. “Pot to me is not even a drug.”
Marijuana, in Smith’s opinion, is no different than alcohol and “should be sold like alcohol, taxed like alcohol and controlled like alcohol.”
Every year, billions of illegitimate dollars exchange hands on the black market in the United States According to some economists, illegal goods and services account for as much as 10 percent of the U.S. economy.
The government, if it were savvier, would stop wasting money trying to keep it from being distributed in this country, Smith said. Rather than fight the inevitable exchange and use of marijuana, legislators could legalize, regulate and cash in on it.
Following the lead of some European countries, such as Amsterdam, the United States should give its citizens the right to walk into a store and purchase marijuana like they might purchase liquor.
Also, Smith pointed out that there is no evidence to prove that users of marijuana are a danger to themselves or to others.
“There is no proof that it makes you aggressive,” he said. “No one has ever used it and hurt themselves.”
The Stereotype: Hippies vs. Alcoholics
Alan Jones, a Tech student studying accounting, said marijuana has been stereotyped as something it is not.
“There is such a huge phobia surrounding marijuana that makes it so taboo,” he said.
In his experiences as an attorney, Jones said society often brands marijuana users as lazy, non-intelligent individuals when, in reality, that is not the case.
“There is no proof out there that shows that people who smoke pot are less intelligent than non users. They are just as successful academically and professionally.”
During the debate, Hager said marijuana users should be entitled to their way of life, which, to him, was a more personal argument.
Discard the stereotype, he said, and consider the counterculture - a culture often embodied by marijuana users – which brought the environmental movement to the United States in the 1960s, for example. A cultural backwash is a vital part of a healthy society.
"There's a side of marijuana I'll bet Bob is not familiar with," Hager said about his opponent’s personal experiences. "It's what I call 'enhancement.'"
Stutman said it doesn't take personal experience to grasp the notion of most things, citing an example that 78 percent of the obstetricians in Texas are males. While not one has ever birthed a child, that doesn't mean they are bad at examining and treating pregnant women.
Responding to an audience member who asked about the right of an individual to do whatever they want to their own body, he said the notion of victimless crimes often are misguided.
"If you think regular users of intoxicants only affect themselves, then you don't have one in your family," Stutman said. "Using an intoxicant on a regular basis does not only affect you."
When the Smoke Clears
Hager, in conclusion, said he did not want the audience to leave the debate and get high. The point of his argument was to encourage change through appropriate avenues of action, such as the formation of an on-campus advocacy group. His intent was not to motivate the audience to smoke more marijuana or to glamorize its consumption.
"If you don't agree with my position - if you don't like what I say - and you're 21 years old and you don't vote," Stutman later said about the importance of participation, "then sit down and shut up."
Kara Stringer, a junior public relations major from San Antonio and the member of Tech Activities Board who coordinated the debate, said it accomplished what she hoped it would, with both speakers arguing their perspective well enough to spark genuine thought about the issue in the minds of audience members.
As a non-marijuana user, Omkar Mujumdar, a junior accounting major from Baroda, India, said the debate piqued his interest and added perspective.
"It was pretty amazing to hear a side of the Stutman," he said. "Not all things that God made are useful. Not everyone knows how to use some stuff."
Being a marijuana user, said Erin Dickinson, a freshman nursing major from Houston, the debate instilled a desire to work for changes in the laws, though only to a certain extent.
"Personally, if there is an organization, I will definitely, definitely join and promote (legalization) as much as possible," she said, "but I don't think I have the ability to start that. If people want to help me out, I'm definitely down for that."