Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
California's budget crisis has pushed the long policy debate over marijuana to center stage – no surprise, because marijuana is the state's largest cash crop, and the state is paying bills with IOUs and axing vital public services.
But the potential tax revenue – $1.4 billion, according to the Board of Equalization's recent analysis – of Assembly Bill 390, pending legislation seeking to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol, may be the least important reason to end marijuana prohibition.
Unlike other budget plans on the table, from laying off police officers to increasing taxes on middle-class families, regulating marijuana would be a good move for California even if the state treasury were rolling in money.
The first question to ask about any public policy is: Is it working? For marijuana prohibition, the clear answer is "no." It's painfully clear that our marijuana laws have failed to reduce marijuana use. Seventy years of marijuana prohibition have turned a little-known medicinal herb into a product that's been used by nearly half of all Americans, including President Barack Obama and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
One in 10 Californians admits to using marijuana in the past year, despite record arrests and record seizures of marijuana plants year after year. Marijuana prohibition is one of the most wasteful and ineffective government programs ever.
Prohibition has been of no help to parents, either. Marijuana is sold at virtually every high school in California and, according to the state's official survey, more teens currently smoke marijuana than smoke cigarettes – a legally regulated product.
By maintaining the legal status quo, the state is abnegating control of this mind-altering substance to the criminal market, where sellers have no incentive to restrict their sales to adults. A legal, regulated market with strict penalties for selling to minors and honest education about marijuana is the most effective way to reduce teen use. Indeed, it's already worked with tobacco.
The draconian marijuana laws are even more insane when considering that police departments everywhere are stretched to the brink. In 2007, California saw more than 74,000 marijuana arrests – 80 percent for mere personal possession. That same year, more than 166,000 violent crimes went unsolved in the state. These staggering statistics should be reason enough to rethink our marijuana laws.
Marijuana prohibition shares eerie parallels to the dark days of alcohol Prohibition. Instead of Al Capone smuggling booze out of Chicago, today's prohibition criminals are growing large-scale marijuana farms in our national parks. Creating a legal, regulated market for marijuana will put these bad guys out of business – just as the end of alcohol Prohibition closed the door to bootleggers.
Another reason to repeal marijuana prohibition is that we have no business making responsible, adult marijuana consumers into criminals. Independent scientific research consistently concludes that marijuana is far safer than alcohol – both in risk of addiction and toxicity. What message are we sending by criminalizing millions of otherwise law-abiding people who choose to relax at the end of the day with a safer substance?
The policy of making criminals out of so many productive members of society and spending vast resources chasing down plants causes widespread disrespect for the law.
Ending marijuana prohibition would bring users into the light and do away with the wink-wink, nudge-nudge attitude so many people have developed about marijuana.
By changing the way we deal with marijuana, California could serve as a beacon to the nation for a new, effective policy rather than the embodiment of everything wrong with the old, ineffectual one.
The resulting new tax revenue would only be icing on the cake.
F. Aaron Smith is the California policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project, the nation's largest marijuana policy reform group.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: sacbee.com
Author: F. Aaron Smith
Copyright: 2009 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: Contact Us - sacbee.com
Website: F. Aaron Smith: Legalized pot is more than a tax bonanza - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee
But the potential tax revenue – $1.4 billion, according to the Board of Equalization's recent analysis – of Assembly Bill 390, pending legislation seeking to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol, may be the least important reason to end marijuana prohibition.
Unlike other budget plans on the table, from laying off police officers to increasing taxes on middle-class families, regulating marijuana would be a good move for California even if the state treasury were rolling in money.
The first question to ask about any public policy is: Is it working? For marijuana prohibition, the clear answer is "no." It's painfully clear that our marijuana laws have failed to reduce marijuana use. Seventy years of marijuana prohibition have turned a little-known medicinal herb into a product that's been used by nearly half of all Americans, including President Barack Obama and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
One in 10 Californians admits to using marijuana in the past year, despite record arrests and record seizures of marijuana plants year after year. Marijuana prohibition is one of the most wasteful and ineffective government programs ever.
Prohibition has been of no help to parents, either. Marijuana is sold at virtually every high school in California and, according to the state's official survey, more teens currently smoke marijuana than smoke cigarettes – a legally regulated product.
By maintaining the legal status quo, the state is abnegating control of this mind-altering substance to the criminal market, where sellers have no incentive to restrict their sales to adults. A legal, regulated market with strict penalties for selling to minors and honest education about marijuana is the most effective way to reduce teen use. Indeed, it's already worked with tobacco.
The draconian marijuana laws are even more insane when considering that police departments everywhere are stretched to the brink. In 2007, California saw more than 74,000 marijuana arrests – 80 percent for mere personal possession. That same year, more than 166,000 violent crimes went unsolved in the state. These staggering statistics should be reason enough to rethink our marijuana laws.
Marijuana prohibition shares eerie parallels to the dark days of alcohol Prohibition. Instead of Al Capone smuggling booze out of Chicago, today's prohibition criminals are growing large-scale marijuana farms in our national parks. Creating a legal, regulated market for marijuana will put these bad guys out of business – just as the end of alcohol Prohibition closed the door to bootleggers.
Another reason to repeal marijuana prohibition is that we have no business making responsible, adult marijuana consumers into criminals. Independent scientific research consistently concludes that marijuana is far safer than alcohol – both in risk of addiction and toxicity. What message are we sending by criminalizing millions of otherwise law-abiding people who choose to relax at the end of the day with a safer substance?
The policy of making criminals out of so many productive members of society and spending vast resources chasing down plants causes widespread disrespect for the law.
Ending marijuana prohibition would bring users into the light and do away with the wink-wink, nudge-nudge attitude so many people have developed about marijuana.
By changing the way we deal with marijuana, California could serve as a beacon to the nation for a new, effective policy rather than the embodiment of everything wrong with the old, ineffectual one.
The resulting new tax revenue would only be icing on the cake.
F. Aaron Smith is the California policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project, the nation's largest marijuana policy reform group.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: sacbee.com
Author: F. Aaron Smith
Copyright: 2009 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: Contact Us - sacbee.com
Website: F. Aaron Smith: Legalized pot is more than a tax bonanza - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee
