Pubdate: Mon, 29 Apr 2013
Source: Daily Item (Sunbury, PA)
Copyright: 2013 Washinton Post Writers Group
Contact:  http://www.dailyitem.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1045
Author: Neal Pierce, Washinton Post Writers Group
Page: A5

SMARTER PATH ON MARIJUANA LAWS

The time is at hand for the Obama administration to stop dithering, 
to take a clear position on the rights of Washington state and 
Colorado - and by precedent all others - to experiment with legalized 
marijuana.

That's what Govs. Jay Inslee of Washington and John Hickenlooper of 
Colorado are asking the Justice Department to do - even though they 
personally opposed the marijuana legalization measures their voters 
approved last November.

The governors insist they can make their states' new laws work well 
through responsible regulations that license, regulate and tax the 
production and sale of marijuana. New state labeling laws, say 
supporters, will also remove confusion and dangerous use levels by 
showing the potency in terms of THC, the psychoactive component of 
the cannabis plant, analogous to the labeling of alcoholic beverages.

Clearly it's a direction the American people - who favor marijuana 
legalization 52 to 41 percent in polling - would approve.

A collaborative approach would be consistent with President Obama's 
own marijuana history - a substance he tried himself as a youth. 
Asked last December about the Colorado and Washington legalization 
votes, he told Barbara Walters "It would not make sense for us to see 
a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have 
determined that it's legal," because "we've got bigger fish to fry."

But Mr. President, there are serious issues to resolve. As personal 
purchase and use of marijuana are permitted in some states, can the 
practice really be contained at state borders? Will television, Web 
and print advertising be allowed? Will the legalizing states allow 
many small or just a few large suppliers? How much marijuana will be 
eligible for sale at one time?

And then questions that undecided states may want to hear answered: 
Will the big tax revenues that marijuana supporters predict actually 
come true? Will driving under the influence of marijuana prove a real 
problem - and if so, how will it be controlled? Or on the health 
front: Will freely available marijuana help returning veterans 
suffering from PTSD? And generally, will it lead to more or less use 
of a substance we know is clearly dangerous: alcohol?

Those are the types of intriguing questions that journalist-scholar 
Stuart Taylor Jr. probes in a newly released Brookings Institution 
policy paper - "Marijuana Policy and Presidential Leadership: How to 
Avoid a Federal-State Train Wreck."

Central to his case: the argument for an early, upfront agreement by 
the Obama administration and the states. Because the opposite could 
well "backfire by producing an atomized, anarchic, state-legalized 
but unregulated marijuana market that federal drug enforcers could 
neither contain nor force the states to contain."

And back to Obama - what about the U.S. Justice Department? It could 
use threats of conspiracy prosecutions to scare off applicants for 
state licenses to grow and sell marijuana. But there are federalism 
barriers: Washington can't directly force states to enforce federal 
law. And there are only 4,400 federal Drug Enforcement Administration 
agents - "nowhere near enough," Taylor suggests, "to restrain the 
metastasis of the grow-your-own-and-share marijuana market that state 
legalization without regulation would stimulate."

The recent precedents aren't good. Faced by 18 states' laws already 
allowing marijuana for medical use, the Justice Department has swung 
back and forth from general permissiveness to cracking down 
unmercifully in individual cases.

But the law's criminal sanctions for cultivating, possessing or 
distributing marijuana aren't alone, notes Taylor. The statute also 
instructs that the attorney general "shall cooperate" with states on 
controlled substances, with power "to enter into contractual 
agreements ... to provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory 
activities."

This is the opening, Taylor argues, that the Obama administration 
should take to negotiate with the states legalizing marijuana use - a 
process that would lead them toward careful regulation and standards, 
and away from the threat of irrational federal prosecutions.

In a more sensible world, Congress would be rewriting the Controlled 
Substances Act to reclassify marijuana as the relatively low-risk 
drug it clearly is. But who'd expect this Congress to do anything so rational?

That leaves states to regulate carefully on their own. And a clear 
challenge for Obama. Here's a president who's been bold enough to 
jump ahead of Congress on issues ranging from gay marriage to amnesty 
for DREAM Act immigrants. So now, why not smooth the way to marijuana 
reform when states choose it? And especially when polls show 
legalization is favored overwhelmingly by youth - the Americans whose 
early and intense support was indispensable to his becoming president?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom