Medical marijuana is legal in 40 states and Puerto Rico. Recreational marijuana is legal in 24 states. Both are legal in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Many conservatives are very upset about this.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is one such conservative. She is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she focuses on child welfare and foster care issues. She is also a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum; a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post; and has appeared on NBC News, Fox News, and CNBC.
In an opinion piece for Deseret News that was also published at AEI, “2 Myths about Cannabis Are Unraveling in Real Time,” Riley contends that “advocates of cannabis legalization have used two major arguments to persuade the public in the past few decades,” but that “increasingly, both seem to be completely specious.”
Here are the two major arguments she seeks to refute:
The first is that cannabis has medicinal benefits.
The second important myth proffered by cannabis advocates is that legalizing the drug would improve the lives of African Americans.
Riley mocks the idea that marijuana has health benefits for anxiety, depression, and PTSD, citing a new study published by The Lancet “concluding that there is no evidence of cannabis’s effectiveness at treating any of these psychiatric conditions.” She also points out that “consumers in 12 states filed a class-action lawsuit against three cannabis companies for claims that their product could help with mental health, pain and other disorders while knowing that the evidence didn’t support that.”
I find her first argument to be very weak. She cites just one study that backs up her viewpoint and ignores other studies that reach a contrary conclusion, and the study she cites is limited to the effect of cannabis on mental health. As for the lawsuit, people and companies are sued for all kinds of things. The fact that three cannabis companies were sued does not prove anything.
Riley explains the mechanics of the second argument as follows: “The narrative was that Black people were disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs and that decriminalizing cannabis would mean fewer Black people would be incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses.” She claims, first, that “our prisons are not filled with people who were locked up for getting caught with a dime bag. They are filled with people who have committed violent offenses and unfortunately there are racial disparities in those crimes.” And second, she refers to a 2022 article titled “Racial and Ethnic Differences in Cannabis Use and Cannabis Use Disorder: Implications for Researchers,” by researchers at the Center for Addiction Research at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, to prove that legalization of marijuana has resulted in “an increased use of cannabis among African American/Black people relative to their White counterparts, especially among adolescents and young adults.”
Again, her arguments are rather weak. On the federal level, marijuana is still classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) with “a high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use,” and “a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision.” Possessing, growing, transporting, or distributing marijuana is still a federal felony, with violations resulting in fines and/or imprisonment. Tens of thousands of people are arrested every year for simple possession, and FBI crime data show that marijuana possession arrests make up over 20 percent of all drug-related arrests.
Given her own weak evidence, then, it is Riley who makes arguments that seem to be completely specious.
But let’s suppose for the sake of argument that she is not only entirely correct but has even understated her case. Let’s assume that (1) cannabis has absolutely no medicinal benefits whatsoever and is, in fact, extremely harmful to one’s health, and (2) legalizing marijuana has substantially harmed the lives of African Americans. Let’s also assume that everyone who claims that (1) cannabis has medicinal benefits, and (2) legalizing the drug would improve the lives of African Americans is not just wrong or misinformed but is knowingly and willingly lying to our faces.
It would not change a thing. It would only prove that some people are making bad arguments for the legalization of marijuana.
In short, conservatives, including Riley, miss the point on marijuana, because the only real argument for the legalization of marijuana is freedom. It doesn’t matter if marijuana has no medical benefits and that advocates of the legalization of medical marijuana just want to get high. Just like it doesn’t matter if using marijuana for recreational purposes is addictive, harmful, risky, unhealthy, immoral, sinful, or dangerous.
It is not the business of government at any level to concern itself in any way with the eating, drinking, and smoking habits of Americans. It is not the business of the American Enterprise Institute or any other conservative think tank. It is not the business of Naomi Schaefer Riley or any other nanny-state, conservative drug warrior.
As long as someone engages in peaceful, private activity that doesn’t violate the personal or property rights of others, the government should just leave them alone.
Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.
