Not Talking About the Urgent and Important Problems

The Framers of the United States Senate wanted to create the most deliberative body in the world. Since the 1970s, however, scholars of American politics have generally agreed that the contemporary Senate is institutionally arranged to completely avoid deliberation. This week the Senate appeared to prove the scholarship accurate, because the Senate failed to bring to the floor a vote on a resolution about the Iraq War, which is unmistakably a matter of urgent importance. If the Senate cannot even bring itself to discuss the most immediate problem facing the country, then it is unlikely senators will address our most important problem: medical marijuana prohibition.

The urgency of the Iraq War is evidenced by the mounting death and injury counts. Each day in Iraq holds an unnatural chance of violent death for both American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. The soldiers and the civilians both seek life more than death. The criminals, however, which is what they are (calling them terrorists or insurgents confuses the problem), seek death more than they seek life. Making the problem worse is a perceived commander of the Iraq War who refuses to act in good faith, which leaves primarily Congress as the only branch in a position to help the soldiers and the civilians. But if the Senate will not even talk about the war….

The importance of addressing the problem of medical marijuana prohibition is evidenced by the disrespect the youth here at home show towards their own society (see the recent press conference regarding the Cartoon Network's advertising snafu). The youth tend to have very low levels of trust in their government. This is probably in part due to the fact that unjust marijuana laws lead the youth to mistakenly assume that all law is unjust. Thus, the cost of not addressing the problem of prohibition is the problem of habituating the young to disobey the rule of law, i.e., the only thing that protects the blessings of liberty for today and for posterity.

A way to solve both the urgent and important problems of the day can be found by studying their beginnings. Maybe if the country held the Bush Administration accountable for hyping the threat of Saddam Hussein’s regime and pressuring Congress to vote on the force resolution during a midterm election, there would be a chance for peace. Maybe if the country remembered that the War on Drugs started as Jim Crow racism, then there would be a chance for peace. Just like alcohol prohibition created organized crime, so too does the War on Drugs. Before it was Al Capone, today it is Osama Bin Laden. The way we got rid of the likes of Capone was to remove his profit margin. We need to do the same thing today.


Kenneth Michael White is an attorney and the author of “The Beginning of Today: The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937” and “Buck” (both by PublishAmerica 2004).