Pubdate: Mon, 03 Nov 2014
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Copyright: 2014 Alaska Dispatch Publishing
Contact:  http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Note: Anchorage Daily News until July '14
Author: Ken Landfield

BALLOT MEASURE 2 WOULD REDUCE OUTLAW ELEMENT

It has been legal for adults to possess and consume marijuana in the 
privacy of their own homes in Alaska since 1975. What the Ravin 
decision did not address is acquisition. While one may of course grow 
for personal use, what ballot measure 2 addresses, as I see it, is 
commercial production and sale. In other words, today one may smoke 
pot legally; there's just no legal mechanism to purchase it. One must 
therefore break the law in order to exercise one's legal right. The 
current situation is Kafkaesque and morally confusing; ballot measure 
2 could resolve these issues.

Pot would not suddenly become legally available to youths; it would 
hardly become more readily available either. If anything, making it 
legal might diminish the outlaw cachet. Since it's never been legal 
to drive stoned, it seems disingenuous to suggest that law 
enforcement would suddenly face added expenses; nothing would change 
regarding the legality of that issue. What would change is that the 
product(s) would be regulated and controlled for quality and taxed. 
This would keep revenues out of the hands of criminals and add 
revenue to state coffers. It would also eliminate a criminal offense, 
which ought to help reduce law enforcement workload and the prison 
population, thus perhaps actually reducing law enforcement, not to 
mention societal, expenses.

I can see no reason to vote anything other than yes on ballot measure 2.

- -- Ken Landfield

Homer
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom