Pubdate: Sat, 28 Nov 2009
Source: Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)
Copyright: 2009 Columbia Daily Tribune
Contact:  http://www.columbiatribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/91
Author: George Will
Note: George Will is a columnist for The Washington Post.

LEGAL 'MEDICAL' POT A DANGEROUS FARCE

DENVER -- Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped  like a
marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves  the fiction that
most transactions in the store --  which is what it really is --
involve medicine.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced  federal laws
against marijuana would not be enforced  for possession of marijuana
that conforms to states'  laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical
marijuana.

Since the Justice Department's decision, the average  age of the 400
people a day seeking "prescriptions" at  Colorado's multiplying
medical marijuana dispensaries  has fallen precipitously. Many new
customers are  college students.

Customers -- this, not patients, is what most really  are -- tell
doctors at the dispensaries they suffer  from insomnia, anxiety,
headaches, premenstrual  syndrome, chronic pain, whatever and pay
nominal fees  for "prescriptions." Most really just want to smoke
pot.

So says Colorado's attorney general, John Suthers, an  honest and
thoughtful man trying to save his state from  institutionalizing such
hypocrisy. His dilemma is  becoming commonplace: Thirteen states have,
and 15 more  are considering, laws permitting medical use of  marijuana.

Realizing they could not pass legalization of  marijuana, some people
who favor that campaigned to  amend Colorado's constitution to
legalize sales for  medicinal purposes. Marijuana has medical uses --
such  as to control nausea caused by chemotherapy -- but the  helpful
ingredients can be conveyed with other  medicines. Medical marijuana
was legalized, but,  Suthers says, no serious regime was then
developed to  regulate who could buy -- or grow -- it. (Caregivers?
For how many patients? And in what quantities, and for  what "medical
uses.")

Today, Colorado communities can use zoning to restrict  dispensaries
or can ban them because even if federal  policy regarding medical
marijuana is passivity,  selling marijuana remains against federal
law. But  Colorado's probable future has unfolded in California,
which in 1996 legalized sales of marijuana to people  with doctors'
"prescriptions."

Fifty-six percent of Californians support legalization,  and Roger
Parloff reports in the Sept. 28 Fortune  article "How Marijuana Became
Legal" that they  essentially have this. He notes many California
"patients" arrive at dispensaries "on bicycles, roller  skates or
skateboards." A Los Angeles city councilman  estimates there are about
600 dispensaries in the city.  If so, they outnumber the Starbucks
stores there.

The councilman wants to close dispensaries whose intent  is profit
rather than "compassionate" distribution of  medicine. Good luck with
that: Privacy considerations  will shield doctors from investigations
of their  lucrative 15-minute transactions with "patients."

Colorado's medical marijuana dispensaries have hired  lobbyists to
seek taxation and regulation for the same  reason Nevada's brothel
industry wants to be taxed and  regulated by the state: The Nevada
Brothel Association  regards taxation as legitimation and insurance
against  prohibition as the booming state's frontier mentality  recedes.

State governments, misunderstanding markets and  ravenous for
revenues, exaggerate the potential  windfall from taxing legalized
marijuana. California  thinks it might reap $1.4 billion. But Rosalie
Pacula,  a RAND Corp. economist, estimates prohibition raises
marijuana production costs at least 400 percent, so  legalization
would cause prices to fall much more than  the 50 percent the $1.4
billion estimate assumes.

Furthermore, marijuana is a normal good in that demand  for it varies
with price. Legalization, by drastically  lowering price, will
increase marijuana's public health  costs, including mental and
respiratory problems, and  motor vehicle accidents.

States attempting to use high taxes to keep marijuana  prices
artificially high would leave a large market for  much cheaper illegal
- -- unregulated and untaxed --  marijuana. So revenues -- and law
enforcement savings  -- would depend on the price falling close to the
cost  of production. In the 1990s, a mere $2-per-pack  difference
between U.S. and Canadian cigarette prices  created such a smuggling
problem Canada repealed a  cigarette tax increase.

Suthers has multiple drug-related worries. Colorado  ranks sixth in
the nation in identity theft, two-thirds  of which is driven by the
state's $1.4 billion annual  methamphetamine addiction. He is loath to
see complete  legalization of marijuana at a moment when new methods
of cultivation are producing plants in which the active  ingredient,
THC, is "seven, eight times as  concentrated" as it used to be.
Furthermore, he was  pleasantly surprised when a survey of nonusing
young  people revealed that health concerns did not explain  nonuse.
The main explanation was the law: "We  underestimate the number of
people who care that  something is illegal."

But they will care less as law itself loses its  dignity. By mocking
the idea of lawful behavior,  legalization of medical marijuana might
be more  socially destructive than full legalization.

George Will is a columnist for The Washington Post. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D