☆現在「i-morley」が追いかけている「医療大麻」に関して、モーリーの知人から英文で異論が届きました。以下、全文を掲載し、末尾に意訳を入れます。

There are those who advocate for the legalization of marijuana.  Do we want to live in a society where airline pilots, doctors, truck drivers can smoke weed whenever they want?

Marijuana advocates say that alcohol is legal, but in reality, people are punished for drinking on the job.  We cannot expect marijuana to be any less regulated than cigarettes, and cigarettes are increasingly outlawed everywhere.  

Marijuana advocates seem strangely silent on the right to smoke cigarettes.  Despite the "medical benefits" claimed by advocates, marijuana smoke is composed of the same free radicals as cigarette smoke, and causes all the same harm to the human body.  

Wherever jurisdictions have allowed marijuana, there have been consistent increases in drug addiction, prostitution, and other crimes.  Amsterdam is hailed as the mecca of legalization, but the city has reduced the number of authorized outlets to reduce access.  

Despite the claim by advocates that marijuana smokers never get violent, just last week an airline passenger smoking medical marijuana became violent during the flight, and was subdued by a flight attendant who happened to be a 4th-degree black belt in Tae Kwan Do.  In short, the legalization movement is run by drug addicts who will say anything to get their way.

＜意訳＞

大麻を合法化することは、飛行機のパイロット、医師、トラック運転士がいつでも大麻を吸ってもいいといった危険性をも暗に呼び寄せることになる。そんな社会に我々は住みたいのだろうか？

大麻推進派は、アルコールと同等に大麻も合法化せよと主張する。だが勤務中に飲酒した者は罰せられる。煙草もそこら中で違法化（つまり屋内で吸えない）が進んでいる。大麻が煙草より緩く規制されると考えるのは現実的でない。

だが大麻推進派は煙草の「喫煙権」に関しては、なぜか沈黙している。「医療効果」があると主張される大麻だが、煙草の煙と同様の化学物質が含まれるし、その点では煙草と同じ害を人体に引き起こすものだ。

また、大麻が法的に許された場所では決まって、麻薬中毒、売春、その他の犯罪も件数が上がる。アムステルダムでさえ合法化のメッカと言われているが、同市はライセンスの件数を削減し、大麻へのアクセスを減らそうと努めている。

大麻支持者は「大麻を喫煙して暴力的になることは、けしてない」と言うが、つい先週航空機の中で医療大麻を使用していた乗客が暴力をふるい始め、テコンドーで4段を持つ添乗員に組み伏せられたという事件が起きたばかりだ。つまり、こういうことだ：大麻推進運動は所詮、上層部にいる麻薬中毒者が表の顔として進めているものに過ぎない。自分たちの思い通りになるまで、どのような嘘でもつき続けるだろう。

First of all, we i-morley fans welcome different views from different countries.

Because they stimulate our discussion and sharpen our thinking so that they have good effects on our actions.

I believe that many of i-morley fans are intelligent enough to develop fruitful arguments not ending up with sterile he-said/she-said battles even when they confront with seemingly conflicting views.

In the following I make some remarks on your points.

These are my personal opinions and do not represent the view of i-morley fans as a whole.

I am not a so-called "marijuana advocate" but I am strongly affirmative for the legalization of the use of the plant as far as it benefits our society.  

You seem to have made four points.

(i) Marijuana should not be less regulated than alcohol or cigarettes.

(ii) Despite the claimed medical benefit of marijuana, smoking marijuana is equally harmful as smoking cigarettes.

(iii) In every place where marijuana has been legalized, drug addiction, prostitution, and other crimes have increased.

(iv) The claim that marijuana smokers never get violent is not true.

Regarding (i), I totally agree with you. 

There is no reason for permitting one to be intoxicated with marijuana when he/she has to drive, fly an airplane, or do medical operations.  

You have to be very careful when, for example, you drive. 

This is because otherwise you cause damage to yourself and others.

But this does not imply you have to be equally careful when you are relaxing at home.

This is because the lack of carefulness has different implications in this case.

Correspondingly, in this case the use of marijuana has different implications, too.

Regarding (ii), I consider your claim is correct. 

But smoking is not the only means to take in effective ingredients of the plant.

Far less harmful methods have been developed and will be developed further.

What is important is the fact that the plant does have medically valuable ingridients.

What we should do is develop the ways we can utilize those substances maximizing their effects and minimizing their subeffects, not dismiss the plant because there is one harmful (but currently popular) intake method.

Regarding (iii), I am not sure if your claim is correct or not.

But even if your claim is correct, it is a different point if the increase of crimes has been caused by the ligalization of marijuana.

That is, what really matters is if the legalization causes the increase of crimes, i.e. if there is a causality.

You can never establish this kind of fact only with casual obeservations like what you mentioned.

Because in order to verify this, very very careful scientific research has to be done.

One has to have reliable and sufficiently large set of date, and have to perform solid statistical analysis to exclude the effects of other factors and elicit the sole effect of the legalization of marijuana.

I think this kind of scientific studies have been conducted already but I know very little about them.

Regarding (iv), I totally agree with you that it never be true that marijuana smokers never get violent. 

Anyone can get violent regardless of whether he/she is a marijuana smoker. 

Evidently, this fact has almost no implications to whether the plant should be legalized or not.

All I can say is no one should be violent. 

About the mentioned incident caused by a marijuana smoker scientifically means very little.

No one can draw the connection between marijuana smoking and violence from this sole incident.

In short, my view is that first of all we should admit that marijuana does have the positive side and there is the possibility that the plant benefits our society.

And also we have to look at the negative side to minimize the effect of that side, not to dismiss the plant.

And if it has turned out that it is too much "costly" to minimize the negative side, that is, the negative side overrides the positive side, then it is the time to discard it.

But this process requries careful scientific research and discussion of the civil level.

In Japan, we are not even at the starting point of this process.

Even scientific research using marijuana is unlawful, and dicussion is oppressed by the authority.

What we want is set at the starting point!

Koji

Niigata, Japan