Courtesy Jaypeg21.

Besides alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, unregulated dietary supplements, over-the-counter medications, food additives and the tens of billions of dollars worth of prescription pills Americans stuff into their collective gullets each year, can you think of a drug the media is less interested in these days than marijuana?

We can’t.

Marijuana, previously known as the gateway foot soldier who mercilessly fought for the hearts and minds of our children in the War On Drugs, has fallen as unforgivingly and irrevocably off the media radar screen as the Beanie Baby craze of the 1990’s. Who knew that former Gov. Bill Richardson signed a medical marijuana bill into law while he was governor of New Mexico and Presidential candidate? Has anyone been following the `Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act’ (H.R. 5842) introduced into Congress on April 17, 2008 by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) which seeks to reclassify marijuana as just another prescription drug?

We’re certain there are many who follow this issue closely, but most have no idea because the media doesn’t care about marijuana anymore.  We can’t say the same for the Federal Government, but that’s another story.

Marijuana is already treated like a prescription drug in a dozen states.  Joel Stein hilariously writes in The Los Angeles Times today how easy it was to get a prescription:

When I got called in, I entered a doctor’s office different from any I’d ever been in. It contained only a tiny desk, two chairs, a small TV and two cans of Glade. Also, the doctor wore a Hawaiian shirt.

He took my blood pressure and asked what I was suffering from. “Anxiety,” I said. And then “occasional insomnia.” And even though he seemed to be moving on, I blurted something about headaches. The only malady that would have made me more similar to every human being throughout history would have been “these painful little pieces of skin that peel up next to my fingernails.”

The doctor followed up on my insomnia, however, and asked if I was having work problems or relationship issues as he handed me a photocopy of a handwritten list of psychiatrists. He’d give me a recommendation for medical marijuana for six months, he said, and would extend it to one year if I saw a therapist. The whole thing took about four minutes.

Great stuff, huh?

Well, not so much for the people in New York City.  More specifically, not so great for people of color in New York City.  While most of the country and the media has come to accept marijuana as the relatively benign drug that it is while simultaneously acknowledging its medical benefits, New York City cops have been using it as a blunt tool to arrest minorities. Professor Harry Levine of Queens College and Deborah Peterson Small, executive director of Break the Chains, prepared a report entitled “Marijuana Arrest Crusade: Racial Bias and Police Policy in New York City 1997-2007” that details how New York City cops use small amounts of marijuana as the justification for arresting tens of thousands of mostly black and latino youths every year.  The Village Voice’s Nat Hentoff has quite a bit to say about this issue, but that’s about it.

Bottom Line:  Police shootings get all the headlines.  Just because the media has lost interest in marijuana doesn’t mean its pointless illegality isn’t still ruining lives.

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