Pubdate: Sun, 11 Sep 2011
Source: Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)
Copyright: 2011 The Spokesman-Review
Contact:  http://www.spokesman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/417
Author: Kim Marie
Note: Kim Marie Thorburn, M.D., served as Spokane County health 
officer and director of the Spokane Regional Health District from 
1997 to 2006. Robert W. Wood, M.D., served as director of the 
HIV/AIDS Program of Public Health-Seattle & King County from 1986 to 
2010 and is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Washington.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

I-502 OFFERS BETTER APPROACH TO MARIJUANA

A ground-breaking marijuana law reform proposal recently began 
gathering signatures to be placed before the state Legislature in 
January. Initiative 502, supported by New Approach Washington, 
replaces marijuana prohibition with a public health approach that 
allows adults 21 and over to purchase limited quantities of marijuana 
from state-licensed and -regulated stores.

The initiative taxes marijuana and directs new revenue  estimated in 
the hundreds of millions of dollars annually  to drug abuse 
prevention, research and education, as well as the state general fund 
and local budgets. If the Legislature does not pass it, I-502 will go 
onto the November 2012 ballot.

We are two of I-502's sponsors. The others include a former U.S. 
attorney, the current Seattle city attorney, the two most recent 
presidents of the Washington State Bar Association, a state 
legislator, a prominent businessperson, and a University of 
Washington professor who is also a marijuana dependency treatment 
professional. Some of us are parents and some of us are churchgoers. 
We come from different walks of life and all of us care deeply about 
our communities.

As public health physicians, the two of us view I-502 through a 
medical and public health lens. Our goal is to improve the health of 
our patients and communities. And from our perspective, marijuana 
prohibition does more harm than good.

The United States now incarcerates more of its population than any 
other country in the world. We put one in every 100 adults behind 
bars. We represent just 5 percent of the world's population, yet we 
house 25 percent of the world's inmates.

As recently noted by Josiah Rich, M.D., and colleagues in the New 
England Journal of Medicine, the "war on drugs" has transformed the 
land of the free and brave into the world's No. 1 jailer. Twenty 
percent of the people in state prisons and local jails, and more than 
half of federal inmates, are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses.

In the last two decades, the war on drugs has become a war on 
marijuana. In 1991, 29 percent of drug arrests nationwide were for 
marijuana; by 2009, that number had increased to 52 percent. And of 
those marijuana arrests, 90 percent were for simple possession.

What has the huge cost of incarceration bought us? Broken families, 
reduced earning capacity and homelessness  but not a reduction in 
marijuana use. More than 40 percent of all Americans have used 
marijuana at some point in their lives. Few of us believe all users 
will be caught or that they deserve to go to jail, have a criminal 
record, or lose their rights to a scholarship or an organ transplant. 
The 760,000 arrests made nationwide for marijuana possession in 2009 
represented less than 5 percent of the 16.7 million Americans who 
were current (i.e., past-month) marijuana users. Prohibition isn't working.

But marijuana prohibition isn't simply failing; it's actively hurting 
us. Government budgets are a zero-sum game. Every dollar spent 
arresting, prosecuting and jailing a person for marijuana use is a 
dollar that could have been better spent on schools, family support 
services, community development or health care. I-502 recognizes that 
investment upstream  in preventive services that build healthy 
families and communities  pays much greater public health and safety 
dividends than handcuffs and jail beds.

Moreover, time behind bars compromises the physical and mental health 
of inmates. As Rich and his colleagues point out, "Locking up 
millions of people for drug-related crimes has failed as a 
public-safety strategy and has harmed public health in the 
communities to which these men and women return. A new evidence-based 
approach is desperately needed."

New Approach Washington's Initiative 502 is such an approach. We 
encourage you to sign the petitions to put I-502 before the 
Legislature and to support its passage.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom