Pubdate: Thu, 02 Oct 2014
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Contact:  2014 Alaska Dispatch Publishing
Website: http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Note: Anchorage Daily News until July '14(AK)
Author: Paul Armantano
Note: Paul Armentano is the deputy director of the National 
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and is the co-author of 
the book, "Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?"

ALASKANS OUGHT TO VOTE 'YES' TO REGULATE MARIJUANA

Regulation and education are effective and proven alternatives to the 
prohibition of tobacco and alcohol, and Alaskans have a chance this 
November to do the same for marijuana.

Despite over 70 years of federal prohibition, millions of Americans 
are currently purchasing and consuming marijuana.

But only in the states of Colorado and Washington are these 
transactions legal, regulated, and taxed.

In these two states, consumers have the ability to purchase a product 
that is of known quality and potency and that is appropriately 
packaged and labeled.

The seller is not a black-market dealer; rather, he or she is a paid 
employee of a licensed business explicitly authorized to engage in 
such transactions. The profits from these transactions bring fiscal 
benefits to the local community, not the black-market economy.

For decades public officials, such as the Alaska Peace Officers 
Association ("Legal marijuana comes at a price," September 28), have 
warned that regulating cannabis production, sales, and consumption 
was a practical impossibility and that any significant change in 
marijuana policy would lead to a plethora of unintended consequences. 
Yet the initial experience in Colorado and Washington, in addition to 
many other states' deep-rooted experiences regulating the production 
and distribution of marijuana for therapeutic purposes, have shown 
these fears to be misplaced.

For example, neither the imposition of statewide medical marijuana 
legalization nor the establishment of dispensaries is associated with 
increases in violent crimes, burglary, or property crimes, according 
to a pair of recently published scientific studies.

The first, a federally commissioned analysis appearing in the Journal 
of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, determined that there are "no 
observed associations between the density of medical marijuana 
dispensaries and either violent or property crime rates." The second 
paper, published earlier this year in PLoS One, concluded that 
legalizing medical marijuana access at the state level "is not 
predictive of higher crime rates and may be related to reductions in 
rates of homicide and assault." Similarly, in the city and county of 
Denver, overall violent crime and property crimes have fallen by 9 
percent in the first six-months following the city's decision to 
regulate retail marijuana outlets.

Liberalized marijuana laws are also not predictive of upticks in 
overall cannabis use by young people.

Writing in the Journal of Adolescent Health in April, researchers at 
Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University determined, "(O)ur study 
of self-reported marijuana use by adolescents in states with a 
medical marijuana policy compared with a sample of geographically 
similar states without a policy does not demonstrate increases in 
marijuana use among high school students that may be attributed to 
the policies." Likewise, state survey data released in August by the 
Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment found that fewer 
high-school students in the state consumed cannabis in 2013 as 
compared to 2011. (Marijuana legalization went into effect in 
Colorado in 2012 although retail sales of cannabis to adults did not 
begin until January 1, 2014.) According to the survey, the percentage 
of high-schoolers who reported using marijuana within the past 30 
days fell from 22 percent in 2011 to 20 percent in 2013 -- a 
percentage that is below the national average.

In short, state officials can regulate cannabis in a manner that 
satisfies the seller, the consumer, and the taxman - and the sky 
won't fall. In fact, just the opposite is true. Regulations, such as 
age restrictions for consumers and licensing requirements for 
commercial producers and merchants, are effective and proven 
alternatives to prohibition. For instance, the public's overall 
consumption of alcohol and tobacco, and young people's use in 
particular, now stand at historic lows. According to recent federal 
government figures, alcohol consumption within the past 30 days among 
young people has fallen from 70 percent of 12th graders in 1980 to 40 
percent today.

Monthly tobacco use among 12th graders has similarly plunged, from 
nearly 40 percent in the late 1970s to just 16 percent today.

These results have not been achieved by imposing blanket 
criminalization upon society, but rather by regulation and public education.

Public officials should welcome the opportunity to bring these 
necessary and long overdue controls to the cannabis market.

A pragmatic regulatory framework that allows for the legal, licensed 
commercial production and retail sale of cannabis to adults but 
restricts its use among young people -- coupled with a legal 
environment that fosters open, honest dialogue between parents and 
children about cannabis' potential harms -- best reduces the risks 
associated with the plant's use or abuse.

To continue to criminalize the marijuana plant and to arrest and 
prosecute those adults who consume it responsibly is a 
disproportionate public policy response to what, at worst, is a 
public health concern, but not a criminal justice issue.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom