Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: North Coast Journal (Arcata, CA)
Column: The Week in Weed
Copyright: 2015 North Coast Journal
Contact:  http://www.northcoastjournal.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2833
Author: Grant Scott-Goforth

GIVE IT AWAY NOW

Washington, D.C. is shaping up to be the most fascinating setting of 
the great American marijuana experiment.

A series of political quirks have made the city's marijuana-friendly 
lawmakers and residents agitated, but the outcome - a potentially 
commercialism-free, socialistic utopian marijuana share society - is 
being cautiously heralded by some analysts.

D.C. had been moving toward the decriminalization of weed for some 
time when Congress, in all its wisdom, passed a law banning the city 
from spending money to regulate pot. That old governmental logic: 
Prohibit spending money to get rid of costly-to-enforce laws. Anyway, 
when D.C. voters repealed the law prohibiting marijuana last year, 
local lawmakers were left with one choice: a marijuana share economy.

Unlike Colorado or Washington, where the state governments carefully 
track the growth, preparation and trade of marijuana, D.C. - unable 
to fund an ABC-like marijuana oversight board - decommercialized the industry.

So you can possess pot, grow it, smoke it and give it away. But you 
cannot trade or sell it.

Mark Kleiman of the RAND Corporation thinks this is a good idea. 
According to a recent New York Times article, Kleiman and his fellow 
researchers have recommended that states find "intermediate options 
between prohibition and commercial legalization," like nonprofit 
cooperatives or government-run grows (like the system Uruguay 
recently adopted). Another option is a grow-your-own weed economy like D.C.

That, Kleiman argues, reduces the negative impacts likely to appear 
in full commercialization: "The main risk is that marijuana 
businesses will - as alcohol and tobacco companies did - successfully 
market their products to heavy users who would be better off using 
less, and that they will resist regulations that discourage problem 
use," writes the Times.

Conservative commentator David Frum, who opposes outright 
legalization, told the Times that the D.C. model has merit. "It does 
seek to thread a path between the evils of having an industry that 
creates a lot of dependency and, on the other hand, having a lot of 
people in jail for issues that are fundamentally of dependency and 
not moral failing."

The big question is if grow-and-give marijuana will work. There's 
little doubt some aspect of the black market will continue. Not all 
of marijuana's frequent users have the means or desire to grow their 
own. It's hard to imagine many people taking on the costs of growing 
- - in D.C., it would have to be indoors - in order to give buds away 
with nothing expected in return.

But Kleiman says grow-and-give has the potential to get rid of the 
"flagrant" black market - the kind of street dealing and 
money-changing that harms neighborhoods and leads to violence - while 
not opening the floodgates to Big Marijuana.

California, meanwhile, isn't flummoxed by congressional meddling like 
D.C., so it's unlikely that such a radical mode of legalization would 
ever stick here.

So far, Ballotpedia lists only one legalization ballot measure with 
the potential to appear on the 2016 ballot, though there are 
apparently others in the works. California Marijuana Legalization 
Initiative, sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project, would regulate 
and tax weed, leaving everything else to the private sector.

The Golden State's medical marijuana industry operates in the 
billions, and there hasn't been the scent of a non-commercial 
proposal from any industry associations, advocates or legislators. 
There's simply too much money to be made. And lost.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom