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| Image from Catholic Sentinel |
The Sentinel articles can be read at these links:
- http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=26529&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=35&S=1
- http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=26684&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=35&S=1
- http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=35&ArticleID=26872
- http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=26712&SectionID=4&SubSectionID=253&S=1
The Sentinel articles are so filled with non sequiturs, straw men, other common thinking errors as well as just plain falsehoods that it would almost be an act of cruelty (and self-affliction) to plod through them all -- they constitute a veritable catalog of fallacies -- so I took a different approach.
People are of differing opinions with respect to whether marijuana use is moral. Personally, I've never tried it, and have no desire to do so -- my vice of choice is rum. While we might approve or disapprove, agree or disagree on these things, what does not make sense is for us to impose such beliefs upon others under the threat of harm, especially in a matter like this. Indeed, the evidence suggests that criminalization of marijuana is much more harmful than the plant is, itself. Insofar as that is the case, continued criminalization is not only imprudent, but in conflict with Catholic moral principles and traditions.
As mentioned in my previous article on open- and close-mindedness, many people make mistakes in believing that they know or understand a matter when they actually do not. What they -- what we -- frequently end up doing in such circumstances is attempting to defend and impose our own beliefs on others. The issue of marijuana is one of many such topics where this unfortunate (and sometimes-deadly) human dynamic manifests itself.
Though I certainly respect Archbishop Sample as the leader of the Catholic Church in Oregon, as well as the other bishops as successors to the apostles, it does not follow that their reasoning in all situations is right or authoritative. They are bishops, but they are also human beings, and as such are subject to the same limitations and errors that we all bear. In this particular matter, I believed that their reasoning was mistaken, and sent a letter to them (politely) explaining such.
That letter follows, below:
October 16, 2014
Your Excellency,
I write to you regarding the article and column on marijuana in the October 3 issue of Catholic Sentinel.
[Some personal introductions....] Though I have no interest in marijuana itself, the underlying principles and related issues are of particular interest to me.
I would address each of your written points in detail, but that might seem uncharitable and turn this letter into a small book… or perhaps a large one. Indeed, comprehensive treatment of this topic requires much more time than I have to offer, as well as more pages than I'd expect anyone to read attentively. So please forebear my prudential brevity as I address only two of the more fundamental principles in play.
The arguments employed in the Sentinel revolve around limiting the availability of marijuana for children (or those deemed to be at risk or vulnerable), and otherwise acting as “my brother's keeper.” These are commendable motivations, and ones that I share wholeheartedly. However, the question before us is not whether our motivations are good and sincere – let us simply grant that they are – but whether the continued criminalization of marijuana actually fulfills these motivations in an authentically moral way. In other words, do the proposed means correspond to the stated ends, and are the means good in and of themselves? The demonstrable answer is no on both counts: (1) The criminalization of marijuana is ineffective and has not diminished availability, and (2) the criminalization of marijuana has foreseeable, pervasive and disproportionate damaging effects for individuals, families and society as a whole.
Criminalization does not diminish availability
Supporters of continued blanket criminalization generally believe that the law effectively prevents widespread availability of the drug and related behaviors. This belief is dangerously erroneous. Despite the fact that marijuana is completely illegal for anyone to possess in any quantity (and, with rare exception, has been for about 80 years), I can acquire marijuana and almost any other illicit substance from at least three different locations within a couple blocks of my home at virtually any time of day, any day of the week. It is easier to get marijuana than it is to buy (or sell) milk. This is not unique. According to the Yamhill County Sheriff's Office there are “over a thousand” such locations throughout Yamhill County alone. This being the case, decriminalization of marijuana for those 21 and over, as suggested by the proposed initiative, isn't going to make marijuana more available to kids (or anyone) for the simple reason that, short of having it hand-delivered to every house on a daily basis or the fabrication of a law positively requiring every house to grow it, it couldn't be more available than it already is. As a prudential judgment, criminalization is not an effective means to the desired end.
Criminalization is inappropriate
If criminalization has not been effective with respect to availability, what has it done? To understand this we need to start with what a law actually is, and in this we are stepping more into political philosophy and away from any particulars about marijuana. On a fundamental level, any specific law is ideally the articulation of some authentic moral principle, and that is a good thing. In practice the law is frequently used in less noble ways, but however it is used, it is always includes a penalty – a threat to do harm to a person, up to and including his death, should he violate or resist the law, refuse to comply, etc. For some activities – robbery, assault, rape, murder, kidnapping, etc. – such a threat and response may be justified, as these activities are intrinsically evil and gravely harmful to both the agent and his victims. But unlike murder or rape, it cannot be honestly, competently argued that marijuana and similar drugs are intrinsically evil. While marijuana is sometimes associated with immorality, poor judgment, laziness and other personal problems – especially if used excessively – the vast majority of marijuana users find it beneficial or at least relaxing and pleasurable. It also has medicinal uses, and some find it positively life-enhancing. The assertion that it is gravely evil, highly addictive and destructive, etc., is little more than one-sided propaganda and caricature. But either way, no moral, rational person would say to his neighbor, “if you use marijuana, I will punish you, take your money, violently assault you, injure and hospitalize you, destroy your family, take your home, end your career, and perhaps even kill you (and anyone else near you),” and yet, this is what we effectively say and do to one another… only via the sterilizing, distancing dynamics of politics and law.
Criminalization causes disproportionate harm
Which brings us to law enforcement, itself. According to various law enforcement resources, about 1.5 million people are arrested in America every year for non-violent, drug-related offenses; roughly half of these are marijuana related, and about 90% of those are for possession alone. About ¼ of those in prison or jail – federal, state and local combined – are there on drug-related charges, half of those for marijuana. Taken together, of the 100 million or so Americans who have tried marijuana, and the 25 million who use it at least once a year, this means that roughly one million are in jail or on probation/parole at any given time for marijuana possession or similar charges.
Law enforcement in particular and the legal establishment in general are, in fact, the immanent and primary beneficiaries of criminalization of various behaviors and things such a marijuana. Under both federal and state law, cars, homes, cash and other property may be seized if it can in any way be connected with the drug cultivation or distribution (the connection is often just presumed). The precise amount seized is not clear, but various sources suggest a total estimated value somewhere in the billions of dollars per year. Law enforcement also routinely confiscates (i.e., “steals”) cash from any contact under the premise that anyone carrying large amounts of cash is likely involved in drugs; the person must then prove in court that it wasn’t drug money if he wants it returned, which can be more difficult than it sounds, as well as expensive.
In addition to the asset seizures, the sentencing guidelines for possession, cultivation and distribution are as follows:
[Some personal introductions....] Though I have no interest in marijuana itself, the underlying principles and related issues are of particular interest to me.
I would address each of your written points in detail, but that might seem uncharitable and turn this letter into a small book… or perhaps a large one. Indeed, comprehensive treatment of this topic requires much more time than I have to offer, as well as more pages than I'd expect anyone to read attentively. So please forebear my prudential brevity as I address only two of the more fundamental principles in play.
The arguments employed in the Sentinel revolve around limiting the availability of marijuana for children (or those deemed to be at risk or vulnerable), and otherwise acting as “my brother's keeper.” These are commendable motivations, and ones that I share wholeheartedly. However, the question before us is not whether our motivations are good and sincere – let us simply grant that they are – but whether the continued criminalization of marijuana actually fulfills these motivations in an authentically moral way. In other words, do the proposed means correspond to the stated ends, and are the means good in and of themselves? The demonstrable answer is no on both counts: (1) The criminalization of marijuana is ineffective and has not diminished availability, and (2) the criminalization of marijuana has foreseeable, pervasive and disproportionate damaging effects for individuals, families and society as a whole.
Criminalization does not diminish availability
Supporters of continued blanket criminalization generally believe that the law effectively prevents widespread availability of the drug and related behaviors. This belief is dangerously erroneous. Despite the fact that marijuana is completely illegal for anyone to possess in any quantity (and, with rare exception, has been for about 80 years), I can acquire marijuana and almost any other illicit substance from at least three different locations within a couple blocks of my home at virtually any time of day, any day of the week. It is easier to get marijuana than it is to buy (or sell) milk. This is not unique. According to the Yamhill County Sheriff's Office there are “over a thousand” such locations throughout Yamhill County alone. This being the case, decriminalization of marijuana for those 21 and over, as suggested by the proposed initiative, isn't going to make marijuana more available to kids (or anyone) for the simple reason that, short of having it hand-delivered to every house on a daily basis or the fabrication of a law positively requiring every house to grow it, it couldn't be more available than it already is. As a prudential judgment, criminalization is not an effective means to the desired end.
Criminalization is inappropriate
If criminalization has not been effective with respect to availability, what has it done? To understand this we need to start with what a law actually is, and in this we are stepping more into political philosophy and away from any particulars about marijuana. On a fundamental level, any specific law is ideally the articulation of some authentic moral principle, and that is a good thing. In practice the law is frequently used in less noble ways, but however it is used, it is always includes a penalty – a threat to do harm to a person, up to and including his death, should he violate or resist the law, refuse to comply, etc. For some activities – robbery, assault, rape, murder, kidnapping, etc. – such a threat and response may be justified, as these activities are intrinsically evil and gravely harmful to both the agent and his victims. But unlike murder or rape, it cannot be honestly, competently argued that marijuana and similar drugs are intrinsically evil. While marijuana is sometimes associated with immorality, poor judgment, laziness and other personal problems – especially if used excessively – the vast majority of marijuana users find it beneficial or at least relaxing and pleasurable. It also has medicinal uses, and some find it positively life-enhancing. The assertion that it is gravely evil, highly addictive and destructive, etc., is little more than one-sided propaganda and caricature. But either way, no moral, rational person would say to his neighbor, “if you use marijuana, I will punish you, take your money, violently assault you, injure and hospitalize you, destroy your family, take your home, end your career, and perhaps even kill you (and anyone else near you),” and yet, this is what we effectively say and do to one another… only via the sterilizing, distancing dynamics of politics and law.
Criminalization causes disproportionate harm
Which brings us to law enforcement, itself. According to various law enforcement resources, about 1.5 million people are arrested in America every year for non-violent, drug-related offenses; roughly half of these are marijuana related, and about 90% of those are for possession alone. About ¼ of those in prison or jail – federal, state and local combined – are there on drug-related charges, half of those for marijuana. Taken together, of the 100 million or so Americans who have tried marijuana, and the 25 million who use it at least once a year, this means that roughly one million are in jail or on probation/parole at any given time for marijuana possession or similar charges.
Law enforcement in particular and the legal establishment in general are, in fact, the immanent and primary beneficiaries of criminalization of various behaviors and things such a marijuana. Under both federal and state law, cars, homes, cash and other property may be seized if it can in any way be connected with the drug cultivation or distribution (the connection is often just presumed). The precise amount seized is not clear, but various sources suggest a total estimated value somewhere in the billions of dollars per year. Law enforcement also routinely confiscates (i.e., “steals”) cash from any contact under the premise that anyone carrying large amounts of cash is likely involved in drugs; the person must then prove in court that it wasn’t drug money if he wants it returned, which can be more difficult than it sounds, as well as expensive.
In addition to the asset seizures, the sentencing guidelines for possession, cultivation and distribution are as follows:
Federal
|
Oregon
| |
Possession
|
Jailing for up to three years.
Up to $5000 in fines.
|
Jailing up to ten years.
Fines up to $375k.
|
Cultivation or Distribution
|
Prison up to five years to life.
Fines up to $250k to $1M.
|
Prison up to 20 years.
Fines up to $375k.
|
That is the big picture – assets seized plus up to life in prison, and up to one million in fines for possessing, growing or selling marijuana. Let us now consider how this can play out for a family if a parent has some pot and is reported by an angry coworker or neighbor, or perhaps is just caught during a traffic stop. Between the fines, jail time, arrest and conviction, he is very likely to lose his job, and his future career prospects will be severely harmed; if he is going to college or was planning to do so, he will likely lose any federal financial aid. This could easily result in bankruptcy, losing their home, and the likely breakdown of an otherwise-functional family. In many cases (presently around 80,000 times per year) the police might invade the home using the increasingly-popular “no knock raid.” This is a military-style home invasion in which a team of fully-armed and armored police violently invade a home, usually in the early morning and by first throwing in grenades to stun (and often injure) the occupants, including any children present. They assault and hospitalize or kill anyone who puts up any resistance to the home invasion. They also frequently invade the wrong home, again traumatizing, injuring and sometimes killing innocent people.
Assuming the marijuana user and his family actually survived this invasion without serious injury, they will likely never recover from the trauma of the event, of having a parent or other member beaten and tazed before them, perhaps shot, jailed, and then possibly having the children separated from the parents and put into foster care; what happens to them from there is rarely good. Finally, if the hapless pot smoker sold some to a friend or grew any plants, the family’s home, cars, savings and any other possessions will almost certainly be seized by the government, accelerating the demise of the entire family.
This scenario may sound unreal, extreme or hyperbolic, but this is what the legal establishment does – this is what criminalization does – to hundreds of thousands of people and families in America every year… for smoking a plant that has been studied extensively and found to be generally less harmful than either tobacco or alcohol. And this is without going into the inhumane but increasingly-common practices that law enforcement and prosecutors employ to acquire confessions or evidence, often from completely innocent persons (e.g., stacking fraudulent charges, beatings, forced medical procedures, strip/cavity searches, etc.).
We can speculate about what the possible consequences of partial decriminalization may be in general – actually, we don’t need to speculate, as it is effectively decriminalized for personal use in about half of the world – but with respect to law enforcement the one foreseeable consequence is that it will deprive them of massive streams of income they presently enjoy via fees, confiscation of property, and imprisonment of offenders who were, for the most part, harming no one (except perhaps themselves). It is also likely to save thousands of families from experiencing irreparable harm every year.
One might truthfully claim that he was ignorant of or does not intend these collateral harms, but Catholic moral tradition doesn’t really leave us that out. We can hide our eyes, but these are common and foreseeable outcomes; consequently, if we support such laws, Catholic moral tradition (e.g., Aquinas) suggests that we are culpable either insofar as we are aware of the laws' secondary effects, or at least insofar as our ignorance thereof is vincible. For this and related reasons, many of us cannot in good conscience support criminalization.
We have other, better options
At the beginning of this letter I posed a question about means and ends. Irrespective of what people say or want to believe, the means of criminalization results in deliberate, foreseeable violations of human dignity, causes excessive harm, and has proven to be incapable of even achieving the desired end. I am not suggesting that you or the Oregon Catholic Conference take a public stance in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana. Nor am I unaware that marijuana is a factor in many personal problems (whether and how it is a cause is another, very complicated matter). But this is not a one-or-the-other choice; we don’t have to be for either ineffective, destructive criminalization, or for everyone getting high daily. Catholics in particular have an opportunity to take a third way; by genuinely loving, by being excellent examples, by raising outstanding children, by helping people learn to think and be deeply, etc. Catholicism has the depth to be cautious with respect to drugs like marijuana without embracing even worse errors like criminalization. Instead of attempting to impose our beliefs upon others under the threat of violence – via the hammer of the state – let us simply live these beliefs out as brilliantly as possible and see where that leads. This is the most, if not the only, genuinely charitable option before us… and it always has been.
In any event, you have my prayerful support, and I humbly urge you to engage in further thought, prayer and research on this and related matters.
Respectfully submitted,
Seth H. Murray
P.S. You might be amused by the drinking habits of Pope Leo XIII and Pope Saint Pius X. It has some relevance to this topic. See vin mariani.
Assuming the marijuana user and his family actually survived this invasion without serious injury, they will likely never recover from the trauma of the event, of having a parent or other member beaten and tazed before them, perhaps shot, jailed, and then possibly having the children separated from the parents and put into foster care; what happens to them from there is rarely good. Finally, if the hapless pot smoker sold some to a friend or grew any plants, the family’s home, cars, savings and any other possessions will almost certainly be seized by the government, accelerating the demise of the entire family.
This scenario may sound unreal, extreme or hyperbolic, but this is what the legal establishment does – this is what criminalization does – to hundreds of thousands of people and families in America every year… for smoking a plant that has been studied extensively and found to be generally less harmful than either tobacco or alcohol. And this is without going into the inhumane but increasingly-common practices that law enforcement and prosecutors employ to acquire confessions or evidence, often from completely innocent persons (e.g., stacking fraudulent charges, beatings, forced medical procedures, strip/cavity searches, etc.).
We can speculate about what the possible consequences of partial decriminalization may be in general – actually, we don’t need to speculate, as it is effectively decriminalized for personal use in about half of the world – but with respect to law enforcement the one foreseeable consequence is that it will deprive them of massive streams of income they presently enjoy via fees, confiscation of property, and imprisonment of offenders who were, for the most part, harming no one (except perhaps themselves). It is also likely to save thousands of families from experiencing irreparable harm every year.
One might truthfully claim that he was ignorant of or does not intend these collateral harms, but Catholic moral tradition doesn’t really leave us that out. We can hide our eyes, but these are common and foreseeable outcomes; consequently, if we support such laws, Catholic moral tradition (e.g., Aquinas) suggests that we are culpable either insofar as we are aware of the laws' secondary effects, or at least insofar as our ignorance thereof is vincible. For this and related reasons, many of us cannot in good conscience support criminalization.
We have other, better options
At the beginning of this letter I posed a question about means and ends. Irrespective of what people say or want to believe, the means of criminalization results in deliberate, foreseeable violations of human dignity, causes excessive harm, and has proven to be incapable of even achieving the desired end. I am not suggesting that you or the Oregon Catholic Conference take a public stance in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana. Nor am I unaware that marijuana is a factor in many personal problems (whether and how it is a cause is another, very complicated matter). But this is not a one-or-the-other choice; we don’t have to be for either ineffective, destructive criminalization, or for everyone getting high daily. Catholics in particular have an opportunity to take a third way; by genuinely loving, by being excellent examples, by raising outstanding children, by helping people learn to think and be deeply, etc. Catholicism has the depth to be cautious with respect to drugs like marijuana without embracing even worse errors like criminalization. Instead of attempting to impose our beliefs upon others under the threat of violence – via the hammer of the state – let us simply live these beliefs out as brilliantly as possible and see where that leads. This is the most, if not the only, genuinely charitable option before us… and it always has been.
In any event, you have my prayerful support, and I humbly urge you to engage in further thought, prayer and research on this and related matters.
Respectfully submitted,
Seth H. Murray
P.S. You might be amused by the drinking habits of Pope Leo XIII and Pope Saint Pius X. It has some relevance to this topic. See vin mariani.
A few weeks later I received a kind and brief reply from Archbishop Sample. He wrote that he agreed about the importance of the family, but basically disregarded the remainder of my letter.
It was worth a shot. But sadly, I am now out of rum.
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