Pubdate: Thu, 10 Oct 2013
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559

LEGALIZATION IS THE ANSWER

Decriminalizing Pot Will Put an End to Cultivation As a Criminal
Enterprise

Another effort to decriminalize the recreational use of marijuana is
now underway in California (see "Marijuana flashback," by Tom
Gascoyne, Newslines, page 14). Organizers are getting a game plan
together to gather about 500,000 signatures to qualify an
initiative-the so-called California Cannabis Hemp Initiative-for the
November 2014 ballot. They have until February to do so.

Considering how expensive and ultimately destructive the war on pot
has been in the Golden State, particularly to the lives of those
who've been busted for using, growing or selling the drug, this
legalization effort is commendable.

Prohibitions on marijuana have never worked. From the days of Reefer
Madness to today, whether kids or adults, people will find a way to
get their hands on pot. If there's one thing criminalization has
succeeded in doing well, it has been to keep the profit motive in
place. Case in point: Many growers are against legalization. They
don't want their product-the No. 1 cash crop in the state-devalued.
That's telling.

Keeping pot illegal has led to a huge industry of pot profiteers
growing under the guise of the state's medical-marijuana law, the
so-called Compassionate Use Act. Growers often plant much more
marijuana than necessary by cultivating indoors or in remote locations.

In Butte County, this has led to grotesque environmental violations in
the foothill regions, where whole hillsides have been graded and
clear-cut to accommodate pot farms. There, the threat of chemical
fertilizers seeping into the nearby watersheds, including the Feather
River and Lake Oroville, is very real.

As it stands, marijuana cultivation is largely a criminal enterprise.
Let's not forget that people are still murdered over this herb. The
only sensible answer to putting an end to the harmful costs society
has been paying for decades is to legalize marijuana and allow adults
to legally purchase it from safe sources in the daylight as they do
other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt