Pubdate: Sat, 09 Jan 2016
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2016 The Orange County Register
Contact:  http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: Jacob Sullum
Note: Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and 
Reason.com and author of the book "Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use."

FREE-MARKET FANS WON'T BE HIGH ON NEW POT LEGALIZATION MEASURE

Proposition 19, the California marijuana legalization initiative that 
lost by seven points in 2010, was about 3,000 words long. The Adult 
Use of Marijuana Act, the legalization initiative that seems to have 
the best shot at qualifying for the 2016 ballot, runs more than 
30,000 words. That does not necessarily mean the AUMA is 10 times as 
good as Prop. 19, but its backers seem to be betting that specificity 
will allay voters' concerns.

Recent elections do not provide much evidence to support that 
expectation, and there is something to be said for keeping things 
vague. Leaving details such as tax rates and warning labels to 
legislators and regulators avoids potentially contentious issues 
while making room for the considered judgment of people with more 
public policy expertise than the average voter. While legislators do 
not necessarily read the bills they pass, it seems even less likely 
that voters will wade through all 62 pages of the AUMA. Those who do, 
even if they are inclined to support legalization, are apt to be 
troubled by some of the initiative's provisions.

It is hard to say whether size matters to voters. Washington's 
Initiative 502, at more than 20,000 words, won by 11 points in 2012. 
But so did Colorado's Amendment 64, a svelte contender at 3,700 
words. Oregon's Measure 91, which won by 12 points last year, was 
15,000 words long. In that same election, Alaska's Measure 2, a mere 
4,100 words, won by seven points. But the District of Columbia's 
Initiative 71, which was one-third as long as Oregon's ballot 
measure, had the biggest margin of victory by far: an astonishing 40 points.

Then again, Ohio's Issue 3, a relatively slim 6,600 words, went down 
in flames this year, losing by 27 points.

AUMA, which has the support of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Facebook 
president Sean Parker and the activists who originally backed a rival 
effort known as Reform CA, is longer than any of those initiatives. 
It is much longer than the four other legalization initiatives that 
are expected to be on U.S. ballots next year, the heftiest of which, 
Maine's, contains less than half as many words. That's because AUMA, 
which incorporates the recommendations of Newsom's Blue Ribbon 
Commission on Marijuana Policy, is packed with prescriptions that 
will thrill technocratic meddlers but repel fans of free markets.

Ohio's 2014 initiative failed spectacularly, largely because of a 
provision that alienated legalizers as well as prohibitionists: a 
cannabis cultivation cartel that would have limited commercial 
production to 10 pre-selected sites controlled by the measure's 
financial backers. The AUMA includes a different sort of 
protectionist scheme: a five-year ban on growers cultivating more 
than 22,000 square feet indoors or more than an acre outdoors. That 
ceiling is aimed at "allowing smaller growers to establish themselves 
in the market."

AUMA, which also bars "large cultivation licensees" from holding 
distribution licenses, says regulators should strive to avoid the 
"creation or maintenance of unlawful monopoly power." It is not clear 
what that goal, which is supposed to guide licensing decisions, will 
mean in practice. But it is not hard to imagine how a policy 
officially aimed at promoting competition might be used as a cover 
for protecting entrenched interests.

AUMA's limits on marijuana advertising are also anti-competitive. It 
prohibits signs on highways that cross state lines or within 1,000 
feet of various locations where children gather, ads "intended to 
encourage persons under the age of 21 years to consume marijuana," 
and "symbols, language, music, gestures, cartoon characters or other 
content elements known to appeal primarily to persons below the legal 
age of consumption." Although marijuana's continued federal 
prohibition complicates the question, the constitutionality of those 
speech restrictions is doubtful.

The Adult Use of Marijuana Act improves on earlier efforts in some 
ways  for example, by allowing deliveries of marijuana to consumers 
and cannabis consumption in settings outside of private residences. 
But it is also inappropriately harsh, prescribing a $500 fine and up 
to six months in jail for possessing more than an ounce in public or 
growing more than six plants at home.

It should go without saying that even the most picayune regulatory 
system is preferable to prohibition. But that is a pretty low bar.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom