Whether or not Jews are inhaling and exhaling, they’re not “just saying no” to the idea of medicinal marijuana.
According to a Los Angeles Times exit poll conducted after the November elections, Jewish voters overwhelmingly supported Proposition 215, the ballot measure legalizing marijuana for medical use; 75 percent of Jews polled voted for the measure, as opposed to 54 percent of Catholics and 44 percent of Protestant voters.
And it’s not just Prop. 215. Jews comprise a remarkably large contingent in the growing movement to reform drug policies in America.
“Jews are always at the forefront of struggles for social justice,” says Bill Zimmerman, the Los Angeles-based campaign manager of Prop 215. “In every movement I’ve been a part of, I have found a disproportionate number of Jewish people, including civil rights, anti-war, the women’s movement, disarmament, the environment and now the movement to reform the drug war.”
The Lindesmith Center, a New York policy and research institute promoting alternatives to America’s “zero-tolerance” drug policies, opened a satellite office in San Francisco two years ago. The West Coast branch is headed by Marsha Rosenbaum, a former drug researcher who has penned several books on the subject, including “Women on Heroin.”
Rosenbaum claims that two-thirds of the leaders in the drug reform movement are Jews, who he says are attracted by the issue’s “intellectual foundations and clear sense of injustice.” Jews have often been “a voice for people who aren’t spoken for, unafraid to articulate ideas that are unconventional,” she says.
Most of the institute’s ideas revolve around “harm reduction” measures, a broad concept that ranges from providing heroin addicts with methadone or clean needles to decriminalizing drugs altogether.
The idea, Rosenbaum says, is to accept the fact that America is losing its 25-year war on drugs, as evidenced by the swelling prison population, a substantial portion of which comprises drug offenders.
“We’ve tried to get rid of drugs, but we can’t seem to. How can we reduce the harm caused by drugs? Nobody’s arguing that drugs are great — they’re not,” Rosenbaum says. Society should accept that “human beings want to alter their state of consciousness; they do and they will. Drugs are here to stay. Let’s reduce the harm. That’s a radical notion if you’re a drug warrior,” she adds.
“Our policies, rather than drugs, are the problem,” Rosenbaum says.
The New York office of the Lindesmith Center is run by Ethan Nadelmann, a former Princeton University professor who keeps kosher and contends that his upbringing — he was raised by a Reconstructionist rabbi father and an Orthodox mother — influenced his decision to become an activist. He draws a parallel between drug users and Jews, both of whom have been “demonized.” He says the demonization of addicts is “almost like McCarthyism revisited.”
The Lindesmith centers, both here and in New York, were funded by a $4 million grant from billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew. Soros also contributed $550,000 to the Yes on Prop. 215 campaign.
In the case of legalizing marijuana for the purpose of easing the symptoms of diseases like AIDS and cancer, Rosenbaum says Jews are also concerned about the inherent civil liberties issues.
“That’s a big Jewish hook. Why does the government decide what medicine is appropriate, shouldn’t that decision be made between patient and physician?” she asks.
As a spiritual leader, Rabbi Martin Weiner cited compassion as a reason for his support of Prop. 215. In a newsletter to members of Congregation Sherith Israel, the large Reform temple in San Francisco of which Weiner is head rabbi, he wrote an editorial headlined “I never inhaled, I never smoked, but…”
In the piece, Weiner recounted the story of a congregant who underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer and suffered from terrible nausea.
She and other patients have been helped by marijuana, which “allows them to eat and enjoy a much better quality of life while fighting disease,” he wrote.
To many in law enforcement, the anecdotal relief reported by such patients doesn’t justify legalizing medicinal use of marijuana.
“Pharmacology has progressed way past marijuana,” says Stan Vegar of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s San Francisco office. “There’s better things out there.”
Vegar says those who supported Prop. 215 just didn’t understand the implications of the measure.
“Your 14-year-old daughter can grow [cannabis] if she’s got a hangnail. Your `primary caregiver’ could be a masseuse,” Vegar says, alluding to the measure’s loosely drawn parameters.
In a recent interview, Vegar slammed the drug reform movement in general, saying most incarcerated drug users are in prison for violent crimes. If placed in treatment programs, as drug reformers suggest, they would simply fail. “The types who may become drug users are the very same types of people who have a limited dedication and personal drive. Why aren’t they successful in treatment programs? Treatment is wonderful, but you’ve got to want to be there.”
Even if marijuana were scientifically proven to alleviate symptoms of disease, Vegar says legalization isn’t worth the potential benefits.
“Kids have a funny way of penetrating these markets we designate as just for medicinal use,” Vegar insists.
As activists, doctors and the criminal justice system grapple with the issues of addiction, prevention, crime and punishment, for Weiner, the bottom line is clear: When it comes to the use of medicinal marijuana — and the rabbi makes a point of warning against recreational use of the drug — he says he is guided by the words of medieval physician Rabbi Moses Maimonides.
“May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain.”