Lies the government told you (18 page)

Health policies like the trans fat ban can work to put small mom-and-pop stores out of business. When the trans fat ban was first proposed, much of the opposition came from small business owners who would be required to do extra clerical work and spend money in the conversion process. Restaurants and bakeries also had to figure out how to re-create many of their recipes to make them taste good without the use of these fats. For instance, Stuart Zaro, president of Zaro’s Bakery in New York, revealed that there was about a 20 percent increase in the cost of baking without trans fats. Additionally, bakeries are now forced to fill out sheets detailing the ingredients used in preparation of the food. As the economy worsens, we need to ask whether these policies causing many small local businesses and national chains to spend large amounts of money are really helping anyone.
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Also questionable is whether government interference was even needed to curb consumer use of trans fats since in recent years many companies and restaurants have been cutting down on or eliminating the use of trans fats due to consumer demand. It turns out that many Americans already knew to avoid trans fat–laden foods even before the government forced us to stop eating them.

The government’s paternalistic nature toward its people is in no danger. The Obama administration appears to be moving full steam ahead in this government-knows-best direction. In May 2009, for instance, President Obama appointed Thomas Frieden, M.D., as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Dr. Frieden is the former New York City Health Commissioner, and held that post when New York City established the bans on trans fats and smoking in bars and restaurants.

On June 22nd 2009, President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the
power to regulate the tobacco industry. The Act gives the FDA the power to regulate tobacco ingredients, cap nicotine levels, and control advertising.
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In fact, regular cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco are the only tobacco products off-limits to the FDA.
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Unfortunately, we have learned over the years that when Congress grants virtually unlimited power to government agencies, they feel a pressing need to use it in the most foolish, yet ambitious ways possible.

On September 22nd 2009, the FDA exercised its authority under the Act and banned the sale of flavored cigarettes. The FDA argued that these products attract children and teenagers to smoking, and act as a gateway for young people to become habitual smokers.
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Like the trans fat ban, this regulation removes individual choice and treats us like morons. In addition, it absolutely will not work to decrease teenage smoking or smoking-related deaths. The folks at the FDA
must
realize this fact; if they don’t, they might be more dim-witted than we originally thought. Advertising is at the core of the tobacco industry’s success. The industry revolves around recruiting new smokers. We’re dealing with an industry that has succeeded despite the fact that its products slowly kill people! Banning flavored cigarettes doesn’t put a dent in big tobacco’s armor; rather, it’s just another challenge. Should the government ban tobacco advertising? Ban tobacco? Or just stay out and let people make free choices?

Criminalizing Marijuana

Many of the Founding Fathers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, cultivated hemp, the plant from which marijuana is derived.
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In the late eighteenth century, many medical journals recommended the use of hemp seeds and roots for treating sexually transmitted diseases, inflamed skin, and incontinence.
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Unfortunately, a change in our attitude toward drugs came in the nineteenth century, when a noticeable number of Americans became unknowingly addicted to morphine.

Although there was an attitude of concern about drug use, it took some time for the country to criminalize it. By 1937, marijuana was outlawed in twenty-three states, mostly in an effort to stop former morphine addicts from starting to use a new drug or as a backlash against newly arrived Mexican immigrants who sometimes brought the drug to the United States with them.
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On October 1st 1937, under President Franklin Roosevelt, the Marijuana Tax Act went into effect, which imposed a prohibitive tax on the “evil” drug. Congress held just two hearings on the law, which was introduced by Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina. Harry Anslinger, arguing for the tax, stated to the House Ways and Means Committee that “traffic in marijuana is increasing to such an extent that it has come to be the cause for the greatest national concern. . . . This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.”

In addition, two veterinarians testified that dogs (not people, but
dogs
) do not respond well to marijuana. One of the vets stated, “Over a period of six months or a year (of exposure to marijuana) . . . the animal must be discarded because it is no longer serviceable.” The testimony for the tax, as you may have concluded, was far from convincing. Furthermore, the committee rejected testimony from the American Medical Association, which pointed out the government’s lack of evidence of harm to humans.

Just three months after Representative Doughton introduced the bill, in June 1937, the House passed it. One congressman commented on the bill, stating that it had “something to do with something that is called marijuana. I believe it is a narcotic of some kind.”
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In 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, a comprehensive law regulating a myriad of controlled substances. It banned all marijuana outright.

In addition to prohibiting drugs for recreational use, the government has also criminalized the use of marijuana for medical use. In
Gonzales v. Raich
(2005), the Supreme Court decided that Angel Raich and Diane Monson could not use physician-prescribed medical marijuana to relieve their serious medical conditions. Raich and Monson had relied on cannabis treatments for many years. In fact, Raich’s physician believed that ending such treatments “would certainly cause Raich excruciating pain and could very well prove fatal.”
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Nevertheless, federal agents entered Monson’s house to take and destroy her six marijuana plants, despite the fact that both women were residents of California, which has authorized the use of medical marijuana since 1996. California law arguably conflicts with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the federal law that makes the “manufacture, distribution, and possession of marijuana” illegal, and makes no exception for medical use.

In a downright bizarre majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held, 6 to 3, that the Commerce Clause (which was written to authorize Congress to keep commerce between the states regular, not to prohibit it) permits Congress to control marijuana, a substance that cannot legally enter the stream of commerce. In ruling for the government, the majority likened this case to the ridiculous case of
Wickard v. Filburn
, in which the Court concluded that the federal government could regulate the wheat a farmer grows for personal use.
Raich
does the seemingly impossible, as it
extends
the Court’s decision in
Wickard
and wins the award for the most ludicrous adaptation of the Commerce Clause in American history. The Court stated that not only can the government regulate items harvested for personal use (the marijuana grown in
Raich
and the wheat grown in
Wickard
); it can regulate, through its power to control interstate commerce, something that can’t even legally be bought or sold!

Unfortunately, the Commerce Clause has become the tool through which Congress wields virtually unlimited power. Based on Supreme Court precedent, the Court in
Raich
stated that the Commerce Clause permits Congress to regulate activities that “substantially affect interstate commerce.” Furthermore, as the Court puts it, Congress need not “legislate with scientific exactitude,”
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nor make any kind of particularized findings supporting its conclusions. The idea that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Raich’s medical marijuana would find itself in the stream of commerce was good enough for the Supreme Court to side with the government, as if women growing small amounts of marijuana in their own home for their own medical use ever have a chance of affecting commerce whatsoever.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent made sense. According to Justice Thomas:

Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers . . .
By holding that Congress may regulate activity that is neither interstate nor commerce under the [Interstate] Commerce Clause, the Court abandons any attempts to enforce the Constitution’s limits on federal power.
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(emphases added)

Beyond Justice Thomas’s eloquent defense of the Constitution, there is the Natural Law argument that if Diane Monson and Angel Raich thought using marijuana would help their chronic pain, who is the government to stop them? Even if there may be certain personal health risks involved in smoking marijuana, there are certain pain-relief benefits that Monson and Raich value over any possible risks. These are decisions for individuals and not the federal government to make. Just as the right to privacy lets a farmer grow as much wheat and bake and consume as much bread as he wishes, it also keeps the federal government out of the decision-making process for physicians and their patients.

Here is what the Court has done: It has prohibited the government from intruding upon the patient-physician relationship if the government wants to save the life of a baby in a mother’s womb, but has permitted the government to intrude on the marital relationship between a farmer and wife and the patient-physician relationship if they are growing too much wheat or using any marijuana.

Moreover, the revived use of the Commerce Clause power for everything under the sun is a particularly scary exercise of government power because it seems the Clause can be stretched to cover basically any activity, commercial or noncommercial, interstate or intrastate.

The
Raich
case also unearths a battle between the states and the federal government regarding the use of medical marijuana. In 1996, voters in California voted for Proposition 215 (the Compassionate Use Act), which authorized use of medical marijuana. But, the high and mighty feds did not seem to take this vote into consideration.
Raich
proves that the
state’s rights
don’t matter, that the
people’s rights
to make personal decisions don’t matter; we all need to bow at the throne of federal authority, apparently. Here, the government’s falsehood is once again, we can choose what to do with our own bodies. In truth, the government does not even allow individuals to make choices regarding their bodies when their home state and their physicians
expressly
permit them to make those choices.

The problematic nature of this clash between the state and federal governments is well illustrated by a June 2009 medical marijuana case. Charles Lynch operated a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, California, where people would bring medical marijuana prescriptions from California physicians. Lynch’s business was run like any other pharmacy, not some type of covert drug operation. He held a grand opening in 2006, used signs to advertise, obtained a business license from the City of Morro Bay, and ran surveillance cameras for security. Yet, his business was raided by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents eleven months after opening. Lynch was sentenced to a year and a day in prison by a federal judge, even though he could have been sentenced to up to twenty years in federal prison based on the large amount of marijuana involved.

Although the sentence was considered quite short in light of federal standards, it is a long time to spend in prison for doing something that was perfectly legal within his state. This state vs. federal government battle is bound to become more of an issue as several States are pushing for legislation similar to California’s. In the meantime, the only thing going up in smoke is the fundamental right to control what goes into our own bodies.

The Right to Life

If you were diagnosed with a rare disease and had only a few months to live, would you try an experimental drug that may save your life? Would you like the choice to do so? Too bad; your government won’t let you.

In addition to prohibiting people from easing their pain with medical marijuana and growing wheat for their own consumption, the federal government’s red tape often makes it difficult for people who are dying to access potentially lifesaving drugs. The FDA’s approval process is painfully long (the average time from lab to shelf is about twelve years),
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and in the meantime people are dying.

Under the current system, a medication must pass three stages of clinical tests before it gets FDA approval. In each phase, the drug is taken by a limited number of people so as to ascertain its effects. Yet, it is often difficult for sick people to gain access to these trials, and only a restricted number of people are allowed to try the drugs. If the drug passes all three phases of testing, the pharmaceutical company marketing it must file an application formally asking for the FDA’s approval to promote the drug. You can imagine how frustrating this process must be for those who have only a limited amount of time to live. One article asks, “If they are on the verge of dying, terminally [ill] patients argue, how is it ethical to deny them the only remaining chance they may have to recover or, at the very least, suffer less or live just a bit longer?”
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