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THE REAL 'REFER MADNESS' IN CALIFORNIA IS NOT LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

It seems the governor is finally listening to the more than half of California residents who support the legalization of marijuana. 

This week, Gov.  Arnold Schwarzenegger said it's not time for action, just chatter.  He suggested a dialogue should start and "we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what affect it had on those countries, and are they happy with that decision."

We should start by telling the truth about marijuana.  Stop feeding us a cleaned up, not-so-obvious version of "Refer Madness"-esque propaganda. 

For instance, the absurd commercials that push ridiculousness into our faces have got to go.  For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's an example.  A teenager comes home and her dog starts a conversation with her.  He tells her he wants her to stop smoking pot because she's not the same and he wants his friend back. 

It's apparent the dog represents a friend who is afraid of confronting her about smoking.  But a talking dog? Talking dogs are for children -- very small children.  Don't tell me someone out there actually thought a teenager might look at that and have an "Aha" moment. 

Furthermore, pot is not a gateway drug and does not cause you to rape or kill.  We can start seriously talking about legalizing this drug after the myths are cleared up, once and for all. 

State Assemblyman, Tom Ammiano ( D ) San Francisco, brings Bill AB 390 to the people of this great state.  The Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act states it would "legalize the possession, sale, cultivation, and other conduct relating to marijuana and its derivatives by persons 21 years of age and older ...  It would set up a wholesale and retail marijuana sales regulation program."

Schwarzenegger said the only ways to solve our budget problems are to cut spending and raise taxes.  If Californians were allowed to legally puff we would achieve both -- simultaneously.  The state would gain by taxing the green stuff and could cut spending by decriminalizing the substance, releasing thousands of prisoners and preventing future wasteful arrests. 

The bill essentially calls for marijuana to be treated like alcohol.  This seems appropriate considering we are in the worst economic times since the Great Depression, which happened around the same time as Prohibition.  The problems of the 1920s and '30s were similar to our problems today -- just substitute alcohol with weed. 

Clearly, Prohibition took money directly from the states.  Because alcohol was illegal and still in demand, gangsters and violence thrived.  The millions of dollars that went into gangsters' pockets could have gone to the governments.  The Volstead Act made criminals out of regular, everyday people.  Let's just say most people on this campus would be in trouble if Prohibition were still the law. 

Think what it would be like if weed were legal.  Hundreds of thousands of people arrested each year would be free.  According to Socialworker.org, the last 10 years saw close to 15 million people arrested for weed, 89 percent of those 'criminals' were charged with simple possession. 

The state paid an average annual operating cost of $22,650 per inmate in 2001, according to various government websites.  That's a lot of savings. 

Today, we are in the midst of a drug war -- and an expensive one to boot.  We are creating criminals because we are not thinking logically.