Tag Archives: Politics

Senator “No Grass(ley)” has Plenty of Hypocrisy

For the co-chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, Chuck Grassley has some really antiquated beliefs about Marijuana. In a recent hearing to determine if the justice department is doing their job with enforcing federal marijuana laws in the states, Grassley proclaimed “bad people smoke marijuana”. He is correct, bad people do smoke it, so do good people, fat people, mediocre people, and just about the entire bouquet of humanity. If you’re one to believe research, Marijuana use crosses all demographic lines. The statement made by Grassley shows just how out of touch he is with current trends and research relying on “just say no” culture to inform his leadership in a really important arena. To be fair, the senator is from a different generation and he is a republican from Iowa, so it stands to reason the Marijuana use wouldn’t be his thing but he doesn’t have to use it, he does have a responsibility to govern based on fact, not his opinion or desire for a weed free Iowa. 

Chuck Grassley
Here’s where this gets really sticky for Grassley and company. As much as he hates Marijuana, he loves booze, maybe not on a personal level but certainly on a policy level. Emails and calls to the senators press office with the simple question “does the senator drink alcohol?” went unreturned, so I cannot confirm or deny the senators personal habits with intoxicants but we can find out certain things. Iowa, by state law, can not tax alcohol more than 1% (tax.iowa.gov). The last change in taxes on alcohol in the state was in 1986. To put that into context I was drinking at beer parties with Madonna blaring trying to talk to girls in neon mini skirts. Iowa taxes beer .19 cents a gallon. Effectively, all of this means a few things, alcohol gets to preserve its  low tax monopoly on legal intoxication and amass wealth while the tax payer gets to clean up the metaphorical broken glass and puke. One thing is for sure, Iowa wants  Iowans to be able to get drunk on the cheap. Additionally, it’s worth noting that Iowa grows corn. Lots and lots of corn and corn is critical to distilling many kinds of  spirits. Take a step further and Grassley takes contributions from beer, distilled spirits, and wine, not to mention presiding on the agriculture subcommittee (again, think corn). 

Alcohol is sloppy stuff. It contributes to violence between partners, families, and communities. Alcohol is cause for many uninsured ER visits, loss of life, and the erosion of family life. Marijuana, while not without risk, doesn’t come with the collateral damage of alcohol. For one, there is no known lethal dose of the stuff. That alone is a vast improvement considering the numbers of people who drink themselves to death, many of them 18-25 years olds. Marijuana is way less likely to produce the damage that alcohol does. The senator’s policy doesn’t allow for choice in the matter and it supports people drinking. What gives, senator? Often times, this type of policy is steeped in the disproven fantasy of a “drug free America”. Americans aren’t going to give up intoxication any more than they are going to give up guns so why not be honest about it and let them choose a safer form? The great hypocrisy of all of this is that often this moral posturing is pontificated at a cocktail party, scotch in hand. 

I’m with the senator. I wish people, especially young people with developing minds and bodies would avoid intoxication in any form altogether. Given, that seems as likely as regaining my wash board abs, the question becomes reducing harm and managing risk. Maybe he doesn’t even know it but the message from Grassley to Iowans and any other policy geeks who pay attention is “drink up, kids!”  And that, quite simply, is bad policy.

America Needs to Rethink Intoxication. America’s Royal Family Could Lead the Way.

Rethinking Intoxication in America

The Kennedy clan has had well-documented travails with demon alcohol. Some members of America’s royal family have even had their destinies redrawn by their use. It could be argued that a drunk driving accident at Chappaquiddick cost the family another Presidency. Perhaps fittingly, then, their long and storied relationship with booze goes back to the very beginning–it was the saloon business that got them started with their unique American experience. To this day, some members of the family are still addled by the stuff, and any conversation about them is riddled with hush-toned tales of the latest escapade, whether it be tragic or merely gossip-worthy.

But not all of them have allowed the family curse to seal their fate. Christopher Kennedy Lawford and his cousin Patrick have taken their family’s commitment to social justice and focused it on furthering the cause of Americans in “recovery” from addiction, a massive group of people still living in shrouded mystery and marginalization. Patrick Kennedy has been a strong supporter of the mental health parity bill, which, in short, would make it mandatory for insurance companies to cover mental health they same way they cover physical health. In other words, insurance companies would no longer be able to feed the myth that many of the conditions that plague man are character-related, and they would have to pay for the treatment of addiction just as they would for diabetes or cancer.

Patrick has taken on the issue of the stigma of addictive disease, and I thank him for that. But I can’t, for the life of me, understand his vehement opposition to legalizing a substance that is safer than the one that not only made his family so wealthy in the first place but which continues to hang around their collective neck like an albatross.

His arguments are weak. For starters, he boldly claims that more people would smoke marijuana if it were legal. I don’t think this is true. The “statistics” might increase, but I think that would be almost entirely attributable to the fact that more people would honestly report that they smoke marijuana. That’s a big difference. But what if a few more people grabbed a joint and took a haul off of it, so what? Intoxication is here to stay, my friends and it is quite simply a government overreach to tell people how they can do it. It’s simply a fact that it would be far better to have a population intoxicated on marijuana than on booze. The data is quite clear in terms of which is better for public safety, for example. When was the last time you saw a bloody bar fight between two people who were stoned on weed?

Kennedy also argues that marijuana isn’t harmless. He’s correct about that–what is harmless? — It is less harmful than other methods of intoxication and it goes on regardless of its legal status. He also worries about marketing toward kids. But that’s not a reason to make people who use it criminals. it’s a reason to have careful regulation of sales and marketing. If Kennedy wants to take on the risks of marketing to kids, why not take on alcohol–where we already see it happening–rather than worry himself silly about what might happen with marijuana. Alcohol is a frequent sponsor of college sporting events. Why does alcohol get a free pass, Patrick?

But the thing that concerns me most about Kennedy’s position is that he and his cousin Chris are among of the very few self-disclosing “sober” members of the American elite. We need them, their voices, their ability to open doors , and their leadership. What we don’t need is pandering to established useless policy that does nothing about the problem of intoxication or the challenges of entering a life of recovery. Of course, if there is one thing a Kennedy likes more than scotch and chasing skirts, it is running for office. Patrick sounds like a candidate–but not a recovery and mental health advocate. What is worse is he sounds like a candidate on the take from the powerful and unscrutinized alcohol lobby hell bent on keeping their monopoly on intoxication. His efforts to keep alcohol as the only legal form of intoxication hurt families, communities, and recovering people. I am a massive fan of the Kennedy clan, particularly of Bobby Kennedy and their tradition of using their prestige for social justice causes. Patrick would do well to read some of his uncle’s writings and give it some sincere thought.