Pubdate: Sun, 22 Jun 2014
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2014 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340

STATE STORE SYSTEM PERFECT MODEL FOR LEGALIZED POT

A wine and spirits store on Columbus Boulevard. A state Senate
supporter of legalizing pot says infrastructure is already in place.

Hey, Gov. Corbett. I know you're still determined to sell off the
State Store system, even to the point of threatening funding for
schools and other essentials if you don't get your way. The prospect
of raising more than a billion dollars from selling off private liquor
licenses must look irresistible in the face of a $1.4 billion budget
shortfall.

The thing is, you couldn't have picked a worse time for another death
struggle with that Great White Whale of Pennsylvania Republicans,
libertarians, and wine snobs everywhere.

Why? I'll answer with one word: marijuana.

Peer just a bit into the future, and it should be easy to see the
connection - even if you can't quite picture "Pocono Pink" alongside
the single-malt Scotch at your neighborhood liquorama.

Medical marijuana is already legal in more than 20 states, and even
you've cracked open the door to that. Meanwhile, Colorado and
Washington have legalized recreational weed and are expecting a big
infusion of tax revenue. It's safe to say that Pennsylvania won't be
the third state to take that step. But if those voter-mandated
experiments don't flop, it also won't be the last.

Meanwhile, we're sitting on a system ideal for moving cautiously -
Pennsylvania-style, that is - into the future. And you want to get rid
of it?

I'm hardly the first to mention this. Three senators, led by Daylin
Leach (D., Montgomery), offered a bill last year that would allow
State Stores to sell pot.

"We have a preexisting infrastructure that's already familiar with
dealing with an intoxicant - dealing with checking customers' ages,
dealing with tax collection," Leach told me last week. "We don't have
to reinvent the wheel."

Leach's first priority, though, is medical marijuana, because patients
are suffering without a nontoxic treatment their doctors want them to
have. He and a cosponsor, Sen. Mike Folmer (R., Lebanon), have been
meeting with you and your staff, and hope you and they are close to
agreement.

I know the step past that is more controversial, especially for an
ex-prosecutor. But Leach, for one, thinks that might not last long.

A key reason is demographics. For everyone from baby boomers on down,
Reefer Madness is more a silly flick than a serious warning.

"This is going to be like marriage equality," Leach says. "It reaches
a tipping point, and then it just happens. Keep in mind there was only
one place you could gamble 40 years ago - Las Vegas. Now you can
gamble in some form in 48 states."

Look, I understand why many voters, not to mention most of my friends
and colleagues, dislike the State Store system. After 32 years in
Pennsylvania, I'm no closer to understanding the supposed wisdom of
our post-Prohibition alcohol rules than I was the day I arrived.

Sure, making customers go to those dingy, old, hole-in-the-wall State
Stores made buying booze anything but attractive - but they're mostly
gone. And if the state's aim was to discourage alcohol use for
public-health purposes, why did it make me buy an entire case of beer
just to avoid getting gouged for a sixpack at a bar or deli?

So if you and the legislature reach a deal that, say, allows beer and
wine sale in groceries, no argument here. I'm only trying to think
ahead - including about our revenue needs, just like you.

Chris Goldstein, cochair of the Philadelphia chapter of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, tells me that the state
spends $100 million a year on enforcing marijuana prohibition. Former
Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hanger - yes, I know he was a
harsh critic - says that, based on Colorado's experience, ending the
prohibition could add $300 million a year in revenue, on top of those
savings.

Neither Goldstein nor Hanger puts money at the top of his list when
talking about reform, to be sure. Instead, they talk about injustice -
about the insanity of jailing so many people for possessing a
substance safer than alcohol and in widespread use. In Philadelphia,
the racial disparity in arrests is stunning - one reason City Council
here just voted for pot's decriminalization.

So here's my proposal: Keep the State Stores - and your mind - open.
The other Prohibition didn't last, either.
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MAP posted-by: Matt