Inconsistency
Published in La Jornada
(Mexico) on 9 April 2012
by Arturo Balderas Rodriguez (link to original)
(Mexico) on 9 April 2012
by Arturo Balderas Rodriguez (link to original)
Translated from
by Robin Salomon .
Edited by Casey J. Skeens.
Two events that rocked the city of Oakland, California last Monday were the subject of headlines in major U.S. papers. At the same time as a person murdered seven students in a university of that city, a group of federal agents raided a center of studies on the cultivation of marijuana. With no apparent connection, the timing of both events triggered a series of questions in various media sources about the inconsistency of laws whose application produces the opposite effect of what society would expect of a formal legal body of its protection.
In the first case, a 43-year-old individual riddled bullets into seven students in a class at the Oikos Christian University. The murderer could have committed the slaughter, among other things, due to the facilities in many U.S. states that make it easy to purchase all types of weapons.
In the second case, a group of federal agents arrested the director of Oaksterdam University, dedicated to the study of the cultivation and sale of medicinal marijuana, in which no one had committed any crime. Under California law, it is legal to sell marijuana for medicinal purposes, as opposed to federal legislation that considers it a crime.
Notwithstanding the continuing demands to ban the indiscriminate sale of weapons, powerful organizations like the National Rifle Association have found enough allies in the U.S. Congress to stop legislation that sanction the unrestricted sale and use of weapons in the country. Instead, it is noteworthy that in Congress there are those who refuse to allow the regulated sale of marijuana, like alcohol, with the argument that it would cause a substantial increase in consumption and addiction to it.
More than one of the organizations that promote the release of its sale has stated that, once the ban on the sale of alcohol was lifted, not all Americans became alcoholics, and instead it ended one of the most active criminal periods in the country.
In less than a year, there have been deaths where less than 30 people in different U.S. cities without major problems have acquired powerful arms to perpetrate one massacre after another. To our knowledge, marijuana use was not responsible for any massacre. The ban on marketing itself, however, has been.
In any case, the following question arises: If what you want is to protect the people, would it not be less incongruous to also prohibit the unrestricted purchase of firearms, due to abundant evidence of its deadly effect?
There’s no turning back: the world is turning upside down, or more precisely, it already is upside down.
In the first case, a 43-year-old individual riddled bullets into seven students in a class at the Oikos Christian University. The murderer could have committed the slaughter, among other things, due to the facilities in many U.S. states that make it easy to purchase all types of weapons.
In the second case, a group of federal agents arrested the director of Oaksterdam University, dedicated to the study of the cultivation and sale of medicinal marijuana, in which no one had committed any crime. Under California law, it is legal to sell marijuana for medicinal purposes, as opposed to federal legislation that considers it a crime.
Notwithstanding the continuing demands to ban the indiscriminate sale of weapons, powerful organizations like the National Rifle Association have found enough allies in the U.S. Congress to stop legislation that sanction the unrestricted sale and use of weapons in the country. Instead, it is noteworthy that in Congress there are those who refuse to allow the regulated sale of marijuana, like alcohol, with the argument that it would cause a substantial increase in consumption and addiction to it.
More than one of the organizations that promote the release of its sale has stated that, once the ban on the sale of alcohol was lifted, not all Americans became alcoholics, and instead it ended one of the most active criminal periods in the country.
In less than a year, there have been deaths where less than 30 people in different U.S. cities without major problems have acquired powerful arms to perpetrate one massacre after another. To our knowledge, marijuana use was not responsible for any massacre. The ban on marketing itself, however, has been.
In any case, the following question arises: If what you want is to protect the people, would it not be less incongruous to also prohibit the unrestricted purchase of firearms, due to abundant evidence of its deadly effect?
There’s no turning back: the world is turning upside down, or more precisely, it already is upside down.