Dear Editor:
It is the mantra of the day to declare that government should not interfere with the right of a woman to control her body unless it does harm to others. What she decides to do with her body, in this context, is her own business.
I am not interested in pursuing the choice v non-choice issue of abortion; that seems to have been settled in Roe v Wade. It is absolutely clear that the pregnant woman has the choice and that the “person” in the woman has no choice (Senate candidate Corzine is in agreement). This is easy to justify by declaring that the complex organism in the womb is a “non-person.”
By extension of this judgmental philosophy, a man should have the right to control his body; government should not interfere unless he does unacceptable harm to others. He should not be prevented from doing harm to himself: using cigarettes, drinking alcohol, overdosing on food, etc. Again, this all hinges upon doing no harm to others (let’s not be petty in the use of the word “harm”).
He should be able to inhale the smoke from dried and chopped marijuana contained in a paper tube, much as one smokes dried and chopped tobacco in a paper tube. Note that there is no significant opposition to using cannabis in its pill form for medicinal purposes, only in its “joint” form. The arguments pro and con on this particular issue are contained in billions of words voiced, written, E-mailed etc. I think that great entertainer Willie Nelson and that over-my-head articulator Bill Buckley would agree that marijuana should be legalized. The 1945 LaGuardia Marijuana Study concluded likewise.
Marijuana only became illegal when newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst learned that hemp (then the source of much marijuana) could be grown cheaply, harvested more than once each year, and made into paper of newspaper quality. On the other hand, Hearst’s millions of acres of California trees could be harvested only once in 25 years.
He convinced then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that this substance should be outlawed. Of course, Hearst was a major contributor to the Democrat party. The Roosevelt-led Congress heeded Hearst’s bidding apparently unconcerned that he was thus promoting environmental disaster. And, of course, Hearst’s generous contributions to the Democrat party continued and grew.
Must one be pregnant to be legally granted choice not harmful to others?
Frank X. Landrigan