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LEGALIZE MARIJUANA IN PA.? BEFORE YOU LAUGH, CONSIDER THIS

Any time you go to a civic event in Harrisburg that gives the public a chance to speak, odds are good that a graying, older woman named Ava Berg will show up and use the forum to advocate for her favorite cause, legalizing marijuana.

That's what happened Thursday evening at Harrisburg Hope's well-attended forum on promoting economic development, held at Hamilton Health Center, a sparkling new facility that is a point of pride in the struggling neighborhood of Allison Hill.

When Berg stepped up to the microphone, the panelists and most in the audience knew what was coming, and looked politely amused.  Having heard her several times before, I did too -- until she made this point:

Forty years ago, you could get arrested for playing the numbers.  Now, she said, the lottery yields the state $3 billion dollars a year.  ( Her number is high for the lottery, but if you add in the state's take from casino gambling, it's pretty close to $3 billion.  )

Legalizing marijuana is a ready-at-hand economic development idea that would actually work, Berg said.  It's something you can do almost anywhere and would create jobs and tax revenue.

Berg noted that other states have legalized dope ( Washington state and Colorado ).  She claimed 85 percent of Pennsylvanians favor legalization -- but she neglected to mention that those results are only for medical use of marijuana, not toking up for fun.  A Franklin and Marshall poll in May found that, for now at least, a majority of voters ( 54 percent ) oppose legalizing recreational marijuana.

Berg ran out of time, but she could also have mentioned Pennsylvania's experience with alcohol.  At one time, it was considered so evil that sales of it were outlawed, but the nation relented and the state got into the booze-selling business.  All told, the sale of alcohol nets the state about a half-billion dollars a year.

Once considered self-destructive vices that government should outlaw for people's own good, gambling and alcohol are now major sources of government revenue.

Moderator Alan Kennedy-Shaffer noted that state Sen.  Daylin Leach has filed a bill to legalize marijuana, SB 528.

In a statement on his website, Leach says his goal is "finally ending a prohibition on a natural substance that causes no more harm than alcohol."

When I saw the news about Leach's bill, I shrugged, figuring it was far beyond the pale of Pennsylvania's conservative state politics.

But if you stop and consider Ava Berg's point about how social attitudes have changed about gambling, and look at the profits it brings the state, maybe Leach's idea is not so far-fetched after all.