Marijuana.com

Buzzby

Table Manners and Marijuana
Connie Veneracion | Manila Standard Today | 05/01/2006

Two interesting issues surfaced last week. The first is the announcement of the US Food and Drug Administration that, contrary to scientific research, marijuana has no medicinal value. Second is the case of seven-year-old Luc Cagadoc who has been regularly disciplined in the Canadian school he attends for eating with a spoon and fork.

Cagadoc’s plight hit the Philippine online community after The Chronicle (Montreal, Canada) published a story on April 19. In a country where the “normal” practice is to eat with one hand using the fork, the little boy, born of Filipino parents, uses his spoon and fork as most of us do—he pushes his food into his spoon with the fork, lifts the spoon to his mouth and eats his food. Every time he did this the lunch monitor would send him to another table where he ate alone. After getting punished more than 10 times, he refused to eat his lunch at home because “My teacher is telling me that eating with a spoon and fork is yucky and disgusting.” That was when his mother found out about the punishments in school. She has filed a complaint with the Commission Scolaire Marguerite Bourgeoys. The school principal described the boy’s table manners as “eating like a pig.”

Let’s leave Cagadoc’s story for a bit and shift to the marijuana report from The New York Times. For better context, let me reproduce a paragraph from my Web log entry.

“In 1996, the Compassionate Use Act became a law in the U.S. allowing seriously ill persons to obtain and use marijuana. (BuzzNote: The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 was a California law, not a federal law.) In 2003, there was a court decision allowing intrastate, non-commercial cultivation of marijuana for personal consumption based on a physician’s recommendations and other specified conditions...”

The medicinal use of marijuana has been declared legal in 11 states but the Drug Enforcement Agency has been resisting the policy. And there is a Supreme Court decision allowing the federal government to arrest marijuana users, even those using it for medical reasons, and even in states were its use is legal.

In the course of discussion in my Web log, I commented that “if the objections are based on the ‘diminished mental capacity’ while under the influence of marijuana, then alcoholic beverages should be banned too because they have the same effects.” Mother and blogger Noemi agreed and commented that “It’s just that drinking is a more socially acceptable behavior than smoking pot.”

“Socially acceptable behavior” refers to norms. And that, I think, is what is at the bottom of both Cagadoc’s situation and the furor over the use of marijuana. The debate has nothing to do with good or bad, right or wrong. It is simply about the unacceptability—the intolerance—for any deviation from the norm.

It is easy to decide Cagadoc’s situation based on the “Do as the Romans do” adage. Reader and fellow blogger Phisch (www.inthatnumber.com) commented, “Won’t many expect, say, someone Japanese to hold off on burping loudly after a good dinner? To them it’s a very, very positive thing but for the rest of us, well, you know, it’s gross. They can do it at home and carry on tradition but when they have to mingle with everyone else, have a little respect.” I agree, to a point. If the deviation from the norm is disproportionately disruptive, then, there may be good reason not to allow or tolerate it. But if the deviation is harmless, i.e., it does not really affect anyone except the actor as in the case of Cagadoc, punishing the behavior becomes arbitrary. It becomes synonymous with punishing a person for being different. And that is the height of bigotry.

(BuzzNote: A case could be made that one of the tasks of public schools is to teach children how to behave in a socially acceptable manner.)

The debate over the use of marijuana is likewise rooted in what is “socially acceptable.” It is similar to boys sporting long hair in school. Long hair among boys is (still very much) associated with the hippies of the ’60s and the ’70s. In fact, today, males who sport long hair are easily branded either as artists, rockers or geeks (Hi, Chin Wong), as though in the context of subcultures, long hair is normal and acceptable. Disallowing boys to sport long hair in schools has nothing to do with proof of diminished intellectual capacity or unacceptable social skills. Does wearing one’s hair long automatically make a boy disruptive, unruly, unmanageable and downright impossible? There is no relation. It is not allowed simply because of its association with a culture that “square” people brand as the height of deviance. And deviance is the opposite of what is socially acceptable.

What is it about marijuana that is socially unacceptable? Consider the act of smoking marijuana. Smoking regular cigarettes, despite “warning from the surgeon general,” is not illegal. Hence, the act of smoking itself cannot be what makes marijuana objectionable. What is the effect of smoking marijuana on a person’s behavior? Is it so different from the fuzzy feeling that alcohol gives us? Why is “social drinking” acceptable but pot sessions are not? They are both means for “unwinding,” letting one’s hair loose to stimulate talks that rigid social convention does not often allow. Except, perhaps, for recent findings on the beneficial effects of red wine on the heart, alcohol has no medicinal or health benefits. Yet, drinking alcohol is largely unregulated. In the Philippines, minors have access to alcohol. Sari-sari stores do not ask for IDs, do they? So what is it that makes marijuana so objectionable and alcohol, acceptable? That it kills brain cells? (BuzzNote: Marijuana does not kill brain cells!) Well, so does alcohol. And it kills the liver, too.

But let’s treat the Great Marijuana Debate from another angle. Marijuana can be grown for free in just about any small patch of soil. If home growing is allowed, and its consumption (smoking, brownies, etc.) is legalized, it can easily replace beer and alcohol. And that would kill businesses left and right.

But the more serious questions revolve around the medicinal benefits of marijuana in cancer and AIDS patients. Despite obvious progress in herbal medicine, it is still largely unexplored territory compared to traditional medicine. Manufacturers and organizations and agencies doing research on herbal medicine do not have the resources to market herbal products the way multinational drug companies do—wining and dining doctors, sending them on pleasure trips... the works. Is the resistance to the use of marijuana an illustration of fear that it may jump-start the shift to cheap medical alternatives that will shatter the control of multinational drug companies over the health industry in countries all over the world?

Is it, therefore, so far-fetched to consider that alcohol and beer makers, and drug companies, are simply using bigoted conservatives to retain the upper hand in the Great Marijuana Debate? Sometimes what appears to be moral and social debates are actually rooted in pure and simple greed.

__________________

 

Sec

Side note: Schools are also supposed to be teaching tolerance of differences between cultures and learned behaviors as well as socially acceptable behavior.

Gist of the article: I really don't think it is because of greed. The Government is the most greedy of all and if MJ were legalized, they could tax it and spend even more of our hard earned dollars.
No, I rather think it has to do more with stubbornness. It is like the parent who, when the child asks "Why?", says "Because I said so". The government made it illegal, and come hell or high water, they won't back down. Just as most people are afraid to speak out publicly in favor of legalization because of possible (probable) ramifications, most politicians are fearful of supporting legalization because it might be construed as being "soft on drugs" and fatal to any political career.

__________________
Guidelines.
Search
http://www.marijuana.com/drug-test/index

MrIMStoned

Compare the meager amount that would come from taxation to the mass amount of funding the DEA recieves.

Parents aren't stubborn, they just don't think the child will understand/don't have all the time in the world to explain.

A good politician would be able to say anything and make people agree with it. I agree that that is the main reason for politicians to take a stance against marijuana. Or they've been bribed in some way.

__________________
"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?"

Sec

And the taxes from cigarettes are so meager that they will probably outlaw them any day now.

.
I never said parents in general are stubborn. I got exasperated from time to time and said "Because I said so" to my kids when they became annoying and I just wanted them to accept my decision without any more questions. I'm betting every parent has said this on occasion.

Are you saying that all people are so gullible that they would buy anything that a good politician says? Where does the bribery fit in? You lost me there.

MrIMStoned

"And the taxes from cigarettes are so meager that they will probably outlaw them any day now. "

Cigarettes are legal because of rich tobacco executives influencing politicians. I don't see how taxes have anything to do with it. You were right about the government being the greediest of all. So why would the DEA give up all the funding it gets to combat the marijuana problem for a relatively small amount of tax dollars?

"No, I rather think it has to do more with stubbornness. It is like the parent who, when the child asks "Why?", says "Because I said so". The government made it illegal, and come hell or high water, they won't back down."

"I never said parents in general are stubborn. I got exasperated from time to time and said "Because I said so" to my kids when they became annoying and I just wanted them to accept my decision without any more questions."

So you were talking about exasperation? I thought you were saying that parents are like the government in that they are both stubborn. I really don't understand this analogy.

"Are you saying that all people are so gullible that they would buy anything that a good politician says? Where does the bribery fit in? You lost me there."

That is what I'm saying. I wouldn't say all people though, just enough to get elected. The better the politician, the easier it should be for them to sell their opinion. If it's the truth, even easier.

Bribery refers to the another reason, other than being a bad politician, that one would advocate marijuana prohibition. It was kind of a tact on thought. I suppose there are many reasons to advocate prohibition.

 

Sec

You have never been a parent of a 4 year old, have you? They question everything under the sun and can ask an endless array of "why's".

When one gets frustrated and exasperated with a child, they get stubborn. Just like the attitude the government gives the people.

Because I said so = Because it is the law

The government doesn't like the people questioning its decisions, and in my opinion, treats people like 4 year olds sometimes. I am sure most adults would understand the analogy.

MrIMStoned

I don't find the government to be stubborn. They are constantly justifying themselves to the people. If the people (children) are too stupid/ignorant/passive to question the government then it keeps on doing what it's doing. If the people keep asking why, why, WHY? Then the government would have to adjust its policy.

The people aren't acting like children in the sense that they aren't constantly pestering the government. If the general population stopped thinking that the law is the law and starting acting more like children constantly questioning why the rules are the way they are, the government would re-think it's policies. As it is now, the people as a whole are slugs not exuberant bright eyed children. Sitting at home, watching their FOX news and chewing their cud.

So I didn't get your analogy and maybe i'm just ignorant. I've never had children so how could I have any idea what it's like?

Sec

Maybe I could be persuaded to entertain your opinion on some, or even most issues, but on the issue of marujuana use and its medical benefits, the government has been pestered and asked why, why, why? (also been shown scientific evidence, testimony, etc.). I still stick with the opinion that the government has taken a stubborn (non-yielding, bullheaded, because we said so) stance.