Law // Current

We’ve Cut Cigarette Smoking By Half and We Didnt Have To Arrest 20 Million Americans To Do It

November 17th, 2008

According to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control, fewer Americans are smoking cigarettes than at any time in modern history.

The number of U.S. adults who smoke has dropped below 20 percent for the first time on record, Reuters reported. This is less than half the percentage (42 percent) of Americans who smoked cigarettes during the 1960s.

Imagine that; in the past 40 years tens of millions of Americans have voluntarily quit smoking a legal, yet highly addictive intoxicant. Millions of others have refused to initiate the habit. And they’ve all made this decision without ever once being threatened with criminal prosecution and arrest, imprisonment, probation, and drug testing.

By contrast, during this same period of time, state and local police have arrested some 20 million Americans for pot law violations ‹ primarily for violations no greater than simple possession. And yet marijuana use among the public has skyrocketed from an annual rate of 0.6 million new users in 1965 to some 2.5 annual new users today.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, of course. Tobacco, though harmful to health, is a legally regulated commodity. Sellers are licensed and held accountable by federal and state laws. Users are restricted by age. Advertising and access is limited by state and federal governments. And health warnings regarding the drug’s use are based upon credible science.

By contrast, marijuana remains an unregulated black market commodity. Sellers are typically criminal entrepreneurs who, for the most part, operate undetected from law enforcement and are free to sell their product to any person of any person. Unlike tobacco, marijuana’s packaging carries no warning label, and government ‘education’ campaign’s regarding pot’s use are based almost explicitly upon hyperbole, propaganda, and laughable stereotypes.

Is it any wonder why use of one drug is going down at the same time that use of the other is rising?

If federal lawmakers truly wished to address marijuana use, they would take a page from their successful campaign to reduce the use of cigarettes. This would include taxing and regulating cannabis with the drug’s sale and use restricted to specific markets and consumers.

While such an alternative may not entirely eliminate the black market demand for pot, it would certainly be preferable to today’s blanket, though thoroughly ineffective, expensive and impotent criminal prohibition.

Paul Armentano is the Deputy Director of NORML and the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC. He may be contact by e-mail at: paul@norml.org.November 17th, 2008 According to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control, fewer Americans are smoking... more

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Economy forces people to give up pets |

As the recession forces more and more Americans to downsize, leaving their homes and struggling to pay their bills, animal welfare groups report a dramatic rise in pets given up for adoption or abandoned on the street.

"We got a call from a young couple last Sunday," said Bill Smith, founder of Main Line Rescue. "They were on a payphone in a parking lot at a Burger King in West Chester (Pa.) They said they were on their way to a (homeless) shelter themselves and needed us to take their dog and cat."

A passing social worker saw the couple and, realizing they were in trouble, stopped to ask if she could help, Smith said. "She drove them here." The dog, 10-year-old Chance, is a cross between a cocker and a springer spaniel. The cat, Charlie Brown, is 6 and has a deformed leg.

Two regional shelters recently received dogs after neighbors reported that the animals were kept in cars all day. In both cases, the owners were homeless and living in the cars with their pets.

When people come to a shelter to give up an animal, they are not required to explain their financial circumstances. So there is no firm data on how many animals have been left because of the recession, according to the Humane Society of the United States. Anecdotally, however, shelters across the country are reporting an increase not only in the numbers of pets coming in, but also in the emotional straits of their owners.

"It's a different kind of surrender," says Smith. "Usually, when people drop off animals, they're just not willing to take care of them anymore. But more and more, they would like nothing more than to keep them."

Some pet owners who are managing to stay in their homes give up their animals because they can't afford to feed them or treat their illnesses.

United Animal Nations, one of several groups that provide emergency funding for veterinary care, reports a 52% increase in applications this year.

Pet owners are under economic pressure, which increases demand at shelters, which are running out of room and money. Meanwhile, local governments are cutting back support for the shelters they run. And finally, private donations are dwindling.

"The last number I heard was that 6 million Americans are potentially looking at foreclosure. We expect 60% of these homeowners have a pet. That means 3 (million) to 4 million pets are at risk."

At the shelter on Hunting Park Avenue, staff members regularly go home in tears, says John Pastor, shelter manager. "This place has plenty of 'Oh my God's,' " he says, passing a cage with a mother cat and her 2-week-old kittens.

Animal shelters are busting at the seams nationwide. Most people know what happens to pets that don't find homes. In recent years, the number of adoptable animals being euthanized at shelters in the US already reached millions/per year, it is devastating to imagine what the 'numbers' in the near future will be...As the recession forces more and more Americans to downsize, leaving their homes and struggling to pay their bills, animal welfare... more