End the War on Pot

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This is Nidhi

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were two philosophers that helped introduce the basis for utilitarianism. Bentham believed in the notion human beings must avoid all pain and seek anything pleasurable. For Bentham, something was considered to be morally right if the majority of people believed that idea was beneficial and will help the general population seek more pleasure and avoid pain. He did not want human beings to use emotions or sympathy when making any decisions. Bentham firmly believed that is something is considered to be “intrinsically good,” it must be sought after especially if it helped avoid pain and gave the greatest amount of happiness.

Mill approached utilitarianism a little differently than Bentham. Mill believed that human beings should seek anything that provided them with more pleasure than pain, but he did not treat all types of pleasure equally like Bentham. Mill felt that there needed to be some distinction between “higher pleasures” and other pleasures. Higher pleasures included academic fields like art and literature. Mill believed that people would get the greatest amount of pleasure from these higher pleasures and there is nothing like gaining pleasure by expanding one’s knowledge.

Nicholas Kristof
Photo: NYTimes.com

In Nicholas Kristof’s article, End the War on Pot, he brings forth some interesting points about marijuana. In a utilitarian standpoint, he is only looking at marijuana’s benefits in an economic perspective and he completely neglects the pleasure aspect of marijuana. Many people who like to use marijuana simply use it as a form of pleasure and enjoyment. If Kristof was truly going to use utilitarian thinking, he should have included the principle of avoiding pain to seek more pleasure. Realistically, people who like to smoke marijuana are mainly seeking pleasure. It appears that Kristof was trying to advocate for making marijuana legal, but trying to do it without being controversial. If he had said that marijuana is a pleasurable substance in the majority of his opinion piece, he may have had fewer people agreeing with him. When Kristof spoke about the economical benefits, he was trying to avoid the most important part of marijuana: pleasure.

In an article in Time, the author cites Kristof and talks about how marijuana is always considered to be a gateway drug. Even Kristof suggests that legalizing marijuana could be problematic because some people will get addicted and then move on to even harder drugs. However, Maia Szalavitz, the author of Marijuana the Gateway Drug: The Myth That Will Not Die, claims that even researchers believe that there are no facts that show marijuana users will become addicted to harder drugs. She does point out that people who have tried marijuana may move on the harder drugs.  However, this is mainly due to the fact that drug dealers that supply marijuana often encourage users to try even harder drugs that they can offer. Many people that are drug abusers use harder drugs and the first substance that they have ever tried is usually marijuana, or more frequently alcohol.  I guess the country will have to wait until tomorrow night to see how voters view marijuana.