Pubdate: Mon, 01 Feb 2016
Source: Trentonian, The (NJ)
Copyright: 2016 The Trentonian
Contact:  http://www.trentonian.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1006
Author: Dave Neese, For The Trentonian

POT LEGALIZATION PIPE DREAM

Is the Zonker community inclined to overindulge in the product it 
champions - namely, marijuana? Seems so. That could explain the 
yawning gaps in Zonker logic - the apparent burnt spots in the medial 
temporal lobes from the pothead community's misfiring synapses.

The Zonker community takes its name from Zonker Harris, the 
cannabis-addled character in the Doonesbury comic strip. Talking up 
marijuana, Zonker's namesakes illogically say that since alcohol is 
legal, marijuana should be too.

Alcohol fuels crime, domestic abuse, deteriorating health, bankruptcy 
and highway carnage, to name just a few. So, heck, why not legalize 
marijuana along with it?

By this "logic," if there's a bubonic plague loose on the land, 
what's the harm in a little ol' outbreak of Ebola as well?

According to the University of Colorado Medical School's research, 
fatal traffic accidents involving marijuana use increased from 4.5 
percent of highway deaths to 10 percent after the legalization of 
marijuana in that state.

Now, marijuana legalization efforts are rolling down the runways of 
other states with the hope of taking wing. So, a question: Do we 
really want the Zonker Harris cohort behind the wheel padding such 
statistics as the 35,000- plus annual traffic fatalities we already 
have? Just asking.

Yes, there are way scarier statistics than the ones involving weed. 
There are the 88,000-plus annual deaths the CDC attributes to alcohol.

Then there are the 33,600 annual firearms deaths. But if that 
constitutes a national crisis, as progressives never tire of telling 
us, what label do we apply to the 47,000 annual deaths attributed to 
dope? To ODs and such?

And keep in mind, a certain number of the firearm deaths might better 
be counted in the dopedeaths column, given the open warfare on the 
streets by armed gangs fighting over narcotics turf.

The Zonker community, while prone to snigger over nothing in 
particular, is especially prone to be overcome by a case of mirthful 
giggles at the thought of the old "Reefer Madness" propaganda 
campaigns waged back in the day. Folks were depicted as taking a toke 
and being transformed into rapists and ax murderers.

Undeniably, there was a lot of shouting "Wolf!" But the moral of the 
Boy Who Shouted Wolf story is not that there are no wolves. Or that 
wolves are nothing to be concerned about.

Not all of the second thoughts being voiced today on pot are coming 
from panic-promoting anti-drug czars with self-aggrandizing political 
agendas. Medical research is raising questions about the neurological 
implications of marijuana use, especially among adolescents.

Studies published in reputable research journals have reported a 
correlation - not yet a proven causation but a clear statistical 
correlation - between marijuana use and later heroin, cocaine and 
meth use. In other words, indications are that marijuana is indeed a 
"gateway" to more serious drug abuse.

Correlation findings include research reported in 2014 in the journal 
European Neuropsychopharmacology. A 2003 study of twins, published in 
the AMA's journal, also reported a statistical correlation between 
pot smoking and more hard-core drug use.

Just from a commonsense standpoint, can you realistically visualize 
first-time drug experimenters taking up needles, spoons, rubber 
tubing and the other accoutrements of heroin use without ever having 
gone through the intermediate step of smoking pot?

True, most marijuana smokers don't go on to use heroin, coke or meth. 
But it's a likely winning wager that virtually all heroin, coke or 
meth addicts used (maybe still are using) marijuana.

Don't confuse legalization with decriminalization. Decriminalization 
- - traffic ticket-type fines for minor possession infractions instead 
of draconian sentences - makes sense.

Legalization, not necessarily.

The Canadian Medical Association advises its physician members that 
they may decline to prescribe medical cannabis due to "insufficient 
evidence on clinical risks and benefits."

Dr. Mark Ward of Canada's McGill University Health Center, a leading 
cannabis researcher and no hysteric on the subject, says he agrees 
with that policy to this extent: "We need more research."

The Zonkers are no longer lonesome fringe figures in their quest for 
legalization. They have acquired powerful allies in revenue-ravenous 
state and local governments and school districts. The allies are 
desperate to cover the costs of their corpulent bureaucracies. They 
have over-priced payrolls and humongous pension liabilities to feed.

And the bureaucracies see marijuana legalization as a moneymaker. 
Legalize it and tax it! You can practically hear the lips smacking in 
the back rooms of the state legislatures. Parsimonious taxpayers 
refuse to forfeit their final farthings to yet more income and sales 
and property taxes, not to mention myriad fees. But maybe, just 
maybe, they'll go for a legalized-pot tax measure.

Legalization referenda shrewdly avoid phrasing the question for 
voters to ponder as an indulgence of the Zonker community's 
recreational reveries. Instead, the legalization referenda are 
phrased as revenue-raisin' tax acts to educate children, save the 
environment and accomplish other worthy and noble goals.

The revenue ruse gives libertarians what psychologists call cognitive 
dissonance - extreme discomfort from being confronted with fervently 
held but directly conflicting values.

Libertarians' flagship journal, Reason magazine, loves 
marijuanalegalization as much as it hates government bureaucracy and 
taxes. What's a poor conflicted libertarian to do!

Being of pristine ideological belief, Reason grapples with the 
dilemma. Ultimately, the emirs of libertarian dogma come down on the 
side of opposing the practical politics of marketing pot legalization 
as a revenue measure.

As Reason accurately notes, first of all this sales approach has the 
hallmarks of a typical political tax scam.

Short of the entire population becoming Zonkers, there's no revenue 
pot of gold at the end of marijuana legalization rainbow. Taking into 
account the several special and ordinary sales and use taxes levied 
on legalized Colorado grass, the levies collected pursuant thereto 
cover not even 1 percent of the state's budget. And Colorado is much 
less a big spender than, say, New Jersey.

Still, such as the revenue is, the Zonkers are counting on the 
bureaucracy to develop an irreversible craving for it that will keep 
any legalization repeal initiatives at bay.

The pot legalizers roll out the example of the "failed" alcohol 
Prohibition of the 1920s. However ill-advised it was in practical 
terms, Prohibition did in fact sharply curtail alcohol consumption 
and its negative consequences.

Ultimately, Repeal was instituted in large measure thanks to the 
lobbying efforts of powerful distillery and brewery interests and the 
government's desperation quest for revenues and jobs in the Great 
Depression - and less so due to concerns about Al Capone and the 
outlaw element.

Re-legalizing booze and brew and regulating and taxing them worked 
because they are liquid bulk products not easily hidden or smuggled. 
They are far more difficult to hide and smuggle than, for example, 
pot, coke, heroin and meth.

A second marijuana legalization sales pitch - that commercialization 
of pot will put the vicious Mexican narcobanditos out of business - 
is likewise farfetched.

Already, Colorado's legalization initiative has activated an 
extensive regulatory apparatus. Legalization has awakened a burrowing 
bureaucracy reminiscent of the those toothy gastropods - the giant, 
wormlike "exogorths" - of Star Wars.

Regulating and taxing marijuana, it turns out, entails an army of 
clerks, administrators, auditors, inspectors, programmers, attorneys, 
HR monitors, coordinators, interfacers and what-have-you.

And being public-sector employees, they must, of course, be well 
provided with paid holidays not provided in the private sector, 
including such as Presidents Day, Columbus Day and King Day. And they 
must have a double layer of protection including unionization and 
civil service.

The banditos are loaded down with no such personnel burdens. Thus 
they can easily undercut the price of the legalized market. The 
banditos continue to flourish in Denver and other Colorado pot 
markets even as they reinvest the profits in coke, heroin and meth 
diversification. If anything, legalization drums up business for them.

And, of course, the banditos also have full, exclusive use of a 
highly effective management tool to encourage productivity: grisly 
violence including but not limited to dismemberment and such.

The legalize-regulate-and-tax initiative is, in sum, but the latest 
installment in the long chronicle of snake-oil peddlers hustling 
their miracle, cure-all tonics.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom