If you challenge conventional dogma, you run the risk of being labeled a heretic and you face a midnight arrest and subsequent show trial.
If you follow the example of Socrates and defend yourself to the embarrassment of the authorities, you can expect them to come down hard on you. If you partially recant, like Galileo, you may get off easy.
But of course, Galileo lived in different times. And when he explained that the earth orbits the sun, the evidence was there for all to see. People knew or suspected that the accepted dogma was likely mistaken. It had become commonly recognized that the earth was not the centre of the universe, even though the authorities continued to say it was. And of course, because the authorities make the rules, it was a crime to debunk their position.
So although Galileo was convicted, his sentence reflected the fact that the authorities were simply wrong. His criminal record may have kept him from publishing, but at least he was not imprisoned.
It is becoming commonly recognized that the prohibition against marijuana has been a mistake. It is not nearly as harmful as the police would have us believe, and the prohibition has merely empowered criminal organizations that commit all sorts of other crimes. If you advocated for marijuana decriminalization in years past, you faced a midnight arrest, show trial and harsh punishment. But now the establishment in BC has come around to your views.
As we explained before, a significant group of influential people have now switched sides and started to advocate for the decriminalization of marijuana. Some new voices were added to the list this week when several BC mayors signed on to a letter calling on the Provincial Government to work toward decriminalization.
In a few decades this will not be controversial. We happen to live at a point in time when most people are coming to the conclusion that the harms created by the prohibition of marijuana are far more damaging that the substance itself. There is, however, one significant stumbling block — the Federal Government still believes that the sun circles the earth. And still more shocking is that, in this case, this is not a metaphor.
Simply put, there is no chance that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives will ever back away from their position on marijuana. And unless there is a big shakeup in the next couple of years, you can expect them to be re-elected at least one more time. Meaning that marijuana prohibition will probably still be here at the end of this decade.
Nevertheless, now is good time to join this group of semi-iconoclasts and challenge established beliefs about marijuana. Even if you are arrested in the middle of the night, you can always follow the example of Galileo and you might get a light sentence.