Recreational marijuana wanted but not needed

“What’s the rush?” PBS Anchor Judy Woodruff asked last Sunday during a “Meet the Press” discussion on legalizing marijuana.

Then she realized her pun, guffawing along with panelists. What she meant: “Why are we in such a hurry to legalize a potentially addictive and dangerous substance?”

The other meaning of “rush” caused the laugh, since it refers to the effect of mood-altering substances, along with “high,” and “buzzed.”

Many drugs have this effect, some more immediate and intense than others: caffeine, alcohol, tobacco and arguably sugar among the legal, and marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin among the banned.

However, marijuana also works as a serious medicinal drug for a host of ailments, high or no high. Few question its genuine benefits for cancer patients, people in chronic pain, glaucoma sufferers and others. In fact, 23 states including Iowa have legalized its active ingredient for medical use. This should have happened years ago.

The marijuana rush, however, creates other issues.

Both Washington and Colorado have legalized recreational marijuana, and other states are watching, as are the feds. As last Sunday’s New York Times editorial put it, “It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol. The federal government should repeal the ban on marijuana.”

We’re moving toward a whole new attitude toward casual use of marijuana.

Is this a good thing? Smart people disagree about this, because there’s potential for harm in any drug that alters consciousness.

Most of us seek to feel good, and drugs work as a shortcut since feeling joy (as opposed to a rush) comes from a complex of causes: mood, genes, family, friends, engaging work, meanings you seek and values in which you believe. All are chancy and subject to intrusions of bad luck.

Drugs bring feel good-ness without discipline and commitment, and actually can provide a higher high than anything “normal” life provides. Pills, potions and powders are the fool’s gold of happiness, and a certain percentage fall into addiction.

Addicts tend toward depression long-term, since they don’t grow beyond their need for more highs.

So anyone who believes in hard work to reach long-sought goals that bring satisfaction and joy beyond a buzz is better off without constantly seeking artificial highs.

The high gets old; joy doesn’t.

However, if you want a drug that ruins lives, kills people by the thousands, where overdoses are common in every emergency room, we already have alcohol.

Along with tobacco, we struggle with these drugs’ effects constantly. They’re a scourge, ruining lives with disease and depression.

On a scale of harm, marijuana probably ranks down there with sugar, which contributes to diabetes, obesity and tooth decay, but it’s only mildly addictive. We give it by the pound to children, after all.

Given how we treat alcohol and tobacco, legalizing recreational marijuana nationally makes sense, and will certainly lift a burden from courts and prisons. Granted, not for children under 21 and not to be treated as completely harmless. Like alcohol and tobacco, it must be controlled and regulated.

Still, I have one reservation: Why waste time with rushes and buzzes when real joy is there for free, with no health issues? My personal challenge concerns finding a life balance, and consciousness-altering drugs make finding balance between escape and work, joy and rushes, ever more elusive. Highs are tempting, at times irresistible.

Substances that offer highs will be sought after and used, as any trip through a bar on a Saturday night will reveal. Yet do we need yet another temptation to get buzzed?

Probably not, especially one as “cool” as legal marijuana will become. Stoner parties will become the rage for awhile.

We don’t need it, really. But we sure seem to want it.

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Recreational marijuana wanted but not needed