Pubdate: Wed, 02 Dec 2009
Source: New Haven Register (CT)
Copyright: 2009 New Haven Register
Contact:  http://www.nhregister.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/292
Author: George Will
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/author/George+Will (George Will)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

MEDICINE OFFERING A REAL ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

INSIDE the green neon sign shaped like a marijuana leaf  is a red 
cross. It serves the fiction that most  transactions in the Denver 
store involve medicine.

The U.S. Justice Department has announced that federal  laws against 
marijuana would not be enforced for  possession that conforms to 
states' laws. In 2000,  Colorado decided to make medical marijuana 
legal. Since  Justice's announcement, the average age of the 400 
people a day filling prescriptions at the state's  medical marijuana 
dispensaries has fallen  precipitously. Many new customers are 
college students.

Customers tell doctors at the dispensaries that they  suffer with 
insomnia, anxiety, headaches, premenstrual  syndrome, "chronic pain" 
or whatever and pay nominal  fees for prescriptions.

Most just want to smoke pot, says Colorado's attorney  general, John 
Suthers, who is trying to save his state  from institutionalizing 
such hypocrisy. His dilemma is  becoming commonplace: 13 states have 
laws permitting  medical use of marijuana, and 15 more are considering them.

Marijuana has medical uses, such as controlling nausea  caused by 
chemotherapy, but the helpful ingredients can  be found in other 
medicines. Medical marijuana was  legalized in Colorado, but, Suthers 
says, no serious  regime was developed to regulate who could buy or grow  it.

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

Fifty-six percent of Californians support legalization,  and Roger 
Parloff wrote recently in Fortune magazine  that they essentially 
have this. He noted that many  customers arrive at dispensaries "on 
bicycles, roller  skates or skateboards." A Los Angeles city 
councilman  estimates there are about 600 dispensaries in the city, 
which would outnumber Starbucks 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 lucrative  15-minute transactions with marijuana seekers.

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: The Nevada Brothel 
Association regards  taxation as legitimation and insurance against 
prohibition as the state's frontier mentality recedes.

State governments, misunderstanding markets and  ravenous for 
revenues, exaggerate the potential  windfall from taxing legal 
marijuana. California thinks  it might reap $1.4 billion. But Rosalie 
Pacula, a RAND  Corp. economist, estimates that 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 normal 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 that 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 young 
nonusers 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."

They will care less as law loses its dignity. By  mocking the idea of 
lawful behavior, legalization of  medical marijuana may be more 
socially destructive than  full legalization.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom