K2, Spice, Breeze, names abound for one of the products of the new, tenuously legal drug industry. Many JWH-018 based herbal incenses have been appearing on the shelves of smoking stores and in the smoking supplies of students, employees, and others worried about the consequences of a positive random drug test or afraid of the sketchy business with marijuana dealers and cops.
As reported in last week’s paper, there is a bill waiting to be signed by Gov. Barbour banning the sale or possession of spice and placing it in the same category as marijuana.
While the arguments against spice are often the same ones used against the legalization of marijuana, most if not all of those arguments have ended up being castrated by the extensive research on THC, the active agent in marijuana. The issue, though, is that since this is a fairly new chemical, there is little empirical data with which to base a judgment on the inherent societal danger of this chemical’s recreational use.
Last week’s paper said that “outlawing anything that endangers the general welfare.” This, while a comforting sound byte, is ridiculous if used as an argument. I wonder where she stands on alcohol consumption, to which more than 75,000 deaths are linked every year, or if she ever has taken prescription painkillers, which, by the way, kill upward of 20,000 people annually. According to drugwarfacts.org, the number of deaths attributed to marijuana use remains at 0.
Perhaps we should ban cars if we are outlawing things that endanger the general welfare, as they killed 37,261 people in 2008. Or, it may be that we should expect people to follow the law, especially in the areas where it remains reasonable, and not drive while intoxicated.
If anything, the sale of spice should be seen as a way to build scaffolding for the impending legalization of marijuana. The system should be designed to set a certain age for the right to buy and possess, so when marijuana is legalized the system for its purchase will be in place.
Though marijuana is not such a crapshoot compared to other drugs when it comes to the underground drug-trade, the fact that this substance was within the law allowed the buyer the peace of mind knowing they were not funding other criminal activity and to know exactly what it is they were buying.
About 70 percent of the money you pay a pot dealer trickles down to a major supplier, who is a very different person than the affable stoner that we have all come to know and love. Major grow operations for marijuana are often controlled by gangs and other organizations comfortable with operating completely outside of the law.
As such, a large percentage of the money from weed (in its current illegal status) eventuates to these groups, which may have their thumb in other illicit and ostensibly worse pies.
If we have legal alternatives to paying these 21st century Al Capones then most people will choose those, and the real criminals will fade to obscurity as their revenue disappears. The government is responsible for the creation of the environment for these illegal organizations to thrive with its prohibitions.
The demand for drugs will continue and, where a demand is this consistent, so will the supply. It would be better for our government to just accept this pragmatic reality that drugs have been, are, and always will be involved in a very intimate way in society and end their failed war on drugs, and instead to pursue ideas of how to integrate this fact into society instead of ruining their civilians’ lives and changing them from taxpayers to $19,000 per year drains on our already bankrupt budget.
Laws should be reasonable, and the moral posturing on which our current drug policy is based should be challenged with empirical investigation and practical logic. Drugs are bad, because the government says so, but perhaps it is time to re-evaluate what the government is saying, and why they are saying it.
 
Alex Gates is a junior majoring in biomedical engineering and philosophy. He can be contacted at [email protected].