Pubdate: Sat, 9 May 2009
Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2009 New Zealand Herald
Contact: http://info.nzherald.co.nz/letters/
Website: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/300
Author: Peter Huck
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Marijuana - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Schwarzenegger

GRASS IS GREENER WHEN IT'S FILLING THE COFFERS

Before he was Governor of America's most populous and wealthy state, 
before he was the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a 
refreshingly candid, self-promoting bodybuilder, with a will of iron 
and a taste for hedonism.

Thus, when he suggested this week that it was time for Californians 
to have "an open debate" on "whether to legalise and tax marijuana 
for recreational use," it was hard not to think of a more youthful 
governor, taking a big hit on a joint in the 1977 bodybuilding 
documentary Pumping Iron.

He later told GQ: "That is not a drug. It's a leaf."

The Governor wants to put everything on the table. Polls suggest 
Americans are interested in having this conversation. An ABC News 
Washington Post poll in April said 46 per cent favoured legalising 
small amounts of marijuana, more than double the number in favour 12 years ago.

A Zogby Poll in May said 52 per cent supported legalising marijuana 
as a taxed, regulated substance. And a Field Poll in April said 56 
per cent of registered voters in California also favoured legalisation.

But the word that jumps out from Schwarzenegger's comment - and one 
that may be reshaping the decades-old debate on the pros and cons of 
a drug still categorised by federal statutes as a Schedule 1 
substance - is tax. Could it be that after endless talk about the 
drug's health, social and public safety impacts, the question of 
whether or not to legitimise marijuana will come down to the 
pragmatic question: how much money can we make?

This is not a happy time in California. The state is broke, US$60 
billion ($101 billion) in the hole and counting. Yet partisan 
politics make the prospect of raising money via taxes close to zero.

When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. In March, Nevada 
considered whether to tax prostitutes, but baulked 3-4 at a US$5 tax 
on sex acts. California is now pondering whether the illicit leaf 
might green empty state coffers.

The drug is routinely described in media reports as California's 
biggest cash crop, a claim the Los Angeles Times queried in April 
with the headline: "Is pot the biggest cash crop? Only if you're on drugs."

And with good reason: no one knows for sure how much the state's 
illicit marijuana market is worth. The usual guesstimate is US$14 
billion. The national figure is cited as US$100 billion. Given 
marijuana is illegal it is reasonable to assume sellers inflate the price.

The US$14 billion figure comes from Jon Gettman, the former president 
of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Oddly, 
it is based on a tonnage estimate from the Bush White House of 10,000 
metric tonnes, about triple the figure routinely used by federal authorities.

Gettman suggests the tax, plus savings on policing, could amount to 
almost US$42 billion a year. Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economics 
professor, estimated in 2005 that US tax revenue from marijuana would 
run to US$10 billion-US$14 billion a year.

"I think the financial crisis in California and across the country 
has definitely focused people on the need to regulate marijuana," 
says Dan Bernath, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which 
favours legalisation. "But that's one of several factors. People are 
increasingly aware that marijuana prohibition doesn't work as far as 
lowering marijuana use rates."

He also cites fears of the violence associated with the illegal 
marijuana trade.

While Schwarzenegger suggests debate, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano 
introduced a bill, AB390, into the California State Legislature in 
February with the intent of legalising the purchase of marijuana by 
adults over 21. The bill will reach committee hearings late this year 
or early next year.

"California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation 
to enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and 
regulation of marijuana," Ammiano said. Regulating and taxing pot, 
says Ammiano, is "simply common sense" and a levy of US$50 per ounce 
could generate annual tax revenue of US$1.3 billion. However revenue 
can only be collected if - a big if - federal law changes.

"It's a natural evolution of policy towards marijuana, now 13 states 
have medicinal marijuana," says Quintin Mecke, Ammiano's press 
secretary. "It's not simply economic. It's time to have a rational 
public policy regarding marijuana. Clearly the war on drugs has 
failed. As for health risks, marijuana is nowhere near as addictive 
or fatal as alcohol or cigarettes which are both regulated substances."

He also suggests that, given much higher THC levels in contemporary 
strains of marijuana, legalisation of the drug, as with alcohol, will 
make it easier to manage sales.

California's debate is taking place as the ground shifts within the 
US. During the Bush administration the Justice Department took a hard 
line against medicinal marijuana. An advocacy group, Americans for 
Safe Access, says 200 dispensaries were raided in the last two years 
of the Bush era, with scores of people arrested and awaiting trial. 
In March, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that his department 
would no longer bust pot clinics that operate legally in 13 states. 
But federal agents would raid dispensaries operating as shop fronts 
for drug dealers.

To supporters, legalisation is grassroots democracy in action. 
"States make a stand, and that drives the conversation," suggests 
Mecke. But Beau Kilmer, co-director of the Rand Corporation's Drug 
Policy Research Centre, cautions, "It's a false dichotomy to just 
think about legalisation versus prohibition." He thinks the Governor 
has opened up national discussion on a "huge middle ground" of 
change, from decriminalisation to medical marijuana.

The issue has been amped up by epic drug violence in Mexico, and 
fears it may spill across the border. This week, in a chilling 
disclosure, Arizona police warned that the fugitive head of the 
Sinoloa drug cartel, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, had threatened in 
March to take a more aggressive stance towards police north of the 
border, raising the prospect of fire fights on US territory.

According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy 
60 per cent of drugs smuggled from Mexico into the US is marijuana, 
although this figure is an estimate.

It isn't a stretch to see legalising marijuana might dent cartel profits.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted in a mea culpa in 
March, the murderous drug trade is driven, in part, by America's 
insatiable appetite.

The cartels are a dark mirror of the gangster bloodletting that 
accompanied Prohibition in the 1920s, when the US banned alcohol. 
That didn't work and proponents of marijuana legalisation contend 
Mexico offers a sobering parallel of failure in America's 
decades-long war on drugs.

"We're finally starting to realise that demand for illegal drugs is 
what's driving the violence in Mexico," says Bernath. "And it is 
spilling into this country. The way to mitigate the violence is to 
remove marijuana from the illegal market."

But though the American public is shifting towards legalisation, only 
14 per cent of Mexicans favour doing so. Nonetheless, the US appears 
to be taking a softly, softly approach to marijuana legalisation.

Twelve states have voided jail time for possession of small amounts 
of marijuana. In January Massachusetts made possession of an ounce or 
less a civil citation, punishable by US$100 fine.

"A lot of old arguments used [against legalisation], such as 
marijuana is a 'gateway' drug, have simply proven not true," says 
Mecke. "A majority of Americans acknowledge using marijuana at some 
time. It's seen as mainstream and relatively not harmful."

This still provokes dissention; a peer-reviewed US scientific review 
might clear the air.

Will Ammiano's bill offer Washington a political roadmap if it 
becomes law? Bernath believes legalisation is "inevitable." Maybe, 
but as Kilmer points out the bill didn't have any co-sponsors.

And if push comes to shove the Obama administration may not want to 
upset international anti-drug agreements by legalising marijuana at 
home. Meanwhile, as long as federal authorities watch California from 
the sidelines, tax collectors might refrain from salivating.

Ultimately, there's a sense that most politicians are waiting to see 
which way the smoke blows. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake