Pubdate: Fri, 16 Oct 2009
Source: Daily Register, The (Harrisburg, IL)
Copyright: 2009 The Daily Register
Contact:  http://www.dailyregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2303
Author: Richard M. Evans

LEGALIZE THE MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION DISCUSSION

It's time to take a good, hard look at marijuana prohibition.

Despite society's most assiduous efforts over nearly a century to 
extirpate marijuana, and the consumption of untold billions of the 
taxpayers' dollars to wage a war against it, marijuana is ubiquitous 
in our culture, and ineradicable from it. That's not a 900-pound 
gorilla in the corner; it's a naked emperor.

So what do we do?

We can ignore the economic crisis and keep throwing good money after 
bad, passing this war along to the next generation to wage and pay 
for, or we can look for a better way to curb drug abuse, protect the 
public health and safety and eliminate the crime and violence 
associated with illicit trafficking. And, while we're at it, we can 
save a lot of money currently being squandered in the earnest but 
futile attempt to eradicate marijuana from our culture, and, oh, by 
the way, raise copious amounts of new revenue. Rough estimates 
suggest that the prospective revenue is at least what casinos are 
expected to produce, without the need to destroy any forests and pave 
them into parking lots.

Whether marijuana is a good thing or a bad thing is irrelevant to 
this discussion. Even if it were as dangerous as its worst critics 
allege, that would not alter the facts of its ubiquity and 
indelibility. The exaggerated claims of marijuana's harm only raise 
the questions of why the sky isn't falling and why the bodies aren't piling up.

The question in 2009 is whether we keep the prohibition laws in 
place, or repeal them, replacing them with a system of regulation and 
taxation, with controls over cultivation, purity, distribution and 
sales, and age limits on purchases.

There's a big problem with that suggestion, however, and it's not 
that it's a radical idea. Privately, people readily agree that we 
shouldn't be arresting people for pot - growing it, selling it or 
using it - and ought to be looking seriously at the revenue 
potential. The problem is they say it only in private, fearful that 
speaking up in public about the wrongheadedness of the marijuana laws 
would put their job, security clearance or custody of their children 
in serious jeopardy. It's a simple matter of priorities, and they 
have theirs right.

The immediate struggle is not to legalize marijuana, but to legalize 
discussion about it.

Rhode Island has made an extraordinary beginning. By a formal 
resolution adopted this past July, the Rhode Island Senate set up a 
commission to make a thorough study and issue a full report on the 
efficacy of marijuana prohibition. The commission is charged with, 
among other tasks, evaluating whether prohibition has kept marijuana 
from the reach of children, whether the illicit earnings from 
marijuana fund organized crime or drug cartels and whether 
prohibition begets crime and violence instead of preventing it. The 
commission is also to look at the revenue potential of a regulated, 
taxed system of cultivation, distribution and sale. Watch for the 
report of their findings and recommendations in late January 2010.

In California, three legalization initiatives are working their way 
to the 2010 ballot, and a regulate-and-tax bill is pending in the 
state Legislature. Nobody is snickering, not least the governor, who 
has urged serious consideration of this approach. A similar bill, 
called "An Act to Regulate and Tax the Cannabis Industry," will be 
considered by the Revenue Committee in the Massachusetts Legislature 
on Wednesday of this week.

Marijuana's detractors are fond of pointing out how marijuana has 
changed over the years, increasing in potency. I don't know about 
that, but I do know that the marijuana issue has certainly changed. 
For generations, marijuana law reform advocates have pointed to the 
injustice of prohibition. Now they are also pointing to the 
obsolescence and inaffordability of prohibition.

Marijuana is here to stay. Let's get serious, and get real, about it.

Richard M. Evans is an attorney in Northampton, Mass. To reach him, 
and for more information on the proposal to regulate and tax 
marijuana, go to www.cantaxreg.com.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart