OUR CHILDREN WILL PAY THE PRICE OF CANNABIS LEGALIZATION

Do we want Israel to become a powerhouse of medical and cyber technology, or turn into the world's hash den?

 

By Aviad Friedman

 

Israel Hayom

June 22, 2020

 

The unity government, which I support, has reached almost total agreement on one issue – legalizing cannabis in Israel.

And everyone is happy. The young generation is happy. They had, in effect, already decided that it was legal and young people smoke everywhere– at weddings, in cafes, and even in Torah lessons and in Hassidic sects. Traders on the stock exchange are happy, along with all sorts of former officials who lead companies, and tomorrow, when we see the heavy costs of the cannabis bubble in Israel, they'll be especially happy.

I want to voice an unpopular opinion. I oppose legalization.

I don't understand why everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Very few places in the world have gathered any experience on this subject, and only one thing is clear – what we allow cannot be banned again.

Even if we find that legalization has massive and serious consequences, even if we discover in two or three years that there is a rise in the number of addicts and see them descend into depression and hard drugs, we won't be able to close the barn door once the horses are out.

I am a great supporter of individual liberties. I want freedom when it comes to religion, state, gender, and especially economic freedom. We need these liberties, but the choice of starting individual liberty with cannabis is in my opinion unacceptable. It's not certain that a human being's right to harm themselves is the first right the government should sanctify.

I oppose legalization because I fear addiction and I fear that it will make its way from adults to teens, and then to children. In my years as head of the Israel Association of Community Centers Ltd. I have learned that drugs are an issue that affects everybody. It's relevant in Judea and Samaria. It's relevant in Tel Aviv. It's relevant in haredi communities in Betar Illit and in Jerusalem, in the Bedouin towns of Hura and Lakiya, and in Ramat Hasharon and in Ramat Gan. It affects everyone.

On Simchat Torah, my 16-year-old daughter told me about some synagogue in Tel Aviv she visited with her Bnei Akiva kids. She said it was hard for them to breathe because of the strong smell coming off the worshippers who were sitting outside and smoking grass. I realized that a few years from now, we'll be astonished to see haredi teens with grass on Purim. Remember where it all started. It always begins with social smoking and moves on, and from there we get to all sorts of addiction.

I worry about young people visiting Israel from places where cannabis is illegal, because Israel is a cool place, and Tel Aviv is a fun city and you don't need a visa to smoke freely – so why not?

And yes, I know that it will be limited to people age 21 and over, but I'd like to see the cop who can tell the difference between an 18-year-old and a 21-year-old, and I also know that no cop will approach them to ask their ages.

Do we want to be a light unto the nations and the start-up nation, or the world's hash den?

When I go for an evening run in my city, Tel Aviv, I smell the sweet smoke everywhere. I sometimes smell it at the end of the day at the places where I work. So maybe I'm conservative or old-fashioned, but have we asked ourselves if smoking cannabis serves any real purpose? Will it lead to deeper study? Important scientific discoveries? Massive work on behalf of society? Or will it lead to distance, escape, and delusion?

How many Nobel Prize laureates or brilliant students do we see smoking cannabis? Might it be a form of opting for escape, rather than dealing with challenges?

Do we want our role models to be people who launched major international companies, like Mobileye or Melanox, or who launched cannabis companies?

Do we want Israel to become a superpower in the fields of medical equipment, automatic cars, and cyber, or see it become a center of cannabis? Is that what we aspire to?

I am astonished at conservative people, including some very religiously observant ones, who criticize me for being overly open, accepting, and egalitarian, and suddenly want to be the first supporters in the world of almost unchecked legalization.

What's on fire? Where does this urgency come from?

Is it existential? Can't we get along without it? Is it some part of the personal identity, or just a fashion? Elected officials from the Right and the Left, both religious and secular, are holding up their fingers and seeing which way the wind is blowing, but don't dare to speak out against it.

It looks like our children will pay the price.