Drug WarRant

Webinar on legalizing marijuana:

Join us Thursday for a webinar on the societal consequences and costs of Prop. 19.

San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com meets with Pleasant Hill Police Chief Pete Dunbar and former San Jose Police Chief Joe McNamara to explore how society might look if voters approve Prop. 19 and legalize marijuana use for adults.

Title: Societal Consequences of Prop. 19

Date: Noon to 12:45 p.m. PDT, Thursday, Aug. 12.

Confirmation: After registering, you will receive an e-mail containing information about joining the webinar.

Space is limited: Reserve your webinar seat now at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/455759873

System requirements
–PC-based attendees: Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000
–Mac-based attendees: Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) or newer

Various recent discussions have made me want to chat about Prop 19 some more. I’m no expert on Prop 19, and nobody is an expert on exactly what will happen after Prop 19’s passage, but there are some things that are known.

1. Prop 19 is not being marketed merely as a tax income money-maker for the State of California.

I really don’t understand the odd individuals who apparently are getting outraged over what they call dishonest marketing of Proposition 19 as a massive tax income generator. Sure, there have been estimates (official ones by the State’s Board of Equalization) of what tax income could be brought in from Prop 19, based on a whole lot of variables. It would be stupid not to promote those estimates (particularly when the other side is trying to claim increased health costs without any data to support it at all). Often when Congress passes a bill, they have the CBO score it for its costs or revenue, and use those figures to push or oppose the bill (despite the uncertainty of those costs or revenues ever coming true).

Now, if Prop 19 supporters came out and said that marijuana is a horrible and dangerous thing, but at least we’ll make $1.4 billion in taxes off it (when the actual amount of tax revenue was uncertain), then that would be dishonest.

But that’s not the story here.

All you have to do is look at the official ballot statements to see that Prop 19 is being marketed as a whole lot of things, and the tax revenue is merely one of many benefits (and certainly not the most important one).

Read the whole thing again.

PROPOSITION 19: COMMON SENSE CONTROL OF MARIJUANA

Today, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are spent enforcing the failed prohibition of marijuana (also known as “cannabis”).

Currently marijuana is easier for kids to get than alcohol, because dealers don’t require ID.

Prohibition has created a violent criminal market run by international drug cartels.

Police waste millions of taxpayer dollars targeting non-violent marijuana consumers, while thousands of violent crimes go unsolved.

And there is $14 billion in marijuana sales every year in California, but our debt-ridden state gets nothing from it.

Marijuana prohibition has failed.

WE NEED A COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO CONTROL AND TAX MARIJUANA LIKE ALCOHOL.

Proposition 19 was carefully written to get marijuana under control.

Under Proposition 19, only adults 21 and over can possess up to one ounce of marijuana, to be consumed at home or licensed establishments. Medical marijuana patients’ rights are preserved.

If we can control and tax alcohol, we can control and tax marijuana.

PUT STRICT SAFETY CONTROLS ON MARIJUANA

Proposition 19 maintains strict criminal penalties for driving under the influence, increases penalties for providing marijuana to minors, and bans smoking it in public, on school grounds, and around minors.

Proposition 19 keeps workplaces safe by preserving the right of employers to maintain a drug-free workplace.

PUT POLICE PRIORITIES WHERE THEY BELONG

According to the FBI, in 2008 over 61,000 Californians were arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession, while 60,000 violent crimes went unsolved. By ending arrests of non-violent marijuana consumers, police will save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year, and be able to focus on the real threat: violent crime.

Police, Sheriffs, and Judges support Proposition 19.

HELP FIGHT THE DRUG CARTELS

Marijuana prohibition has created vicious drug cartels across our border. In 2008 alone, cartels murdered 6,290 civilians in Mexico — more than all U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

60 percent of drug cartel revenue comes from the illegal U.S. marijuana market.

By controlling marijuana, Proposition 19 will help cut off funding to the cartels.

GENERATE BILLIONS IN REVENUE TO FUND WHAT MATTERS

California faces historic deficits, which, if state government doesn’t balance the budget, could lead to higher taxes and fees for the public, and more cuts to vital services. Meanwhile, there is $14 billion in marijuana transactions every year in California, but we see none of the revenue that would come from taxing it.

Proposition 19 enables state and local governments to tax marijuana, so we can preserve vital services.

The State’s tax collector, the Board of Equalization, says taxing marijuana would generate $1.4 billion in annual revenue, which could fund jobs, healthcare, public safety, parks, roads, transportation, and more.

LET’S REFORM CALIFORNIA’S MARIJUANA LAWS

Outlawing marijuana hasn’t stopped 100 million Americans from trying it. But we can control it, make it harder for kids to get, weaken the cartels, focus police resources on violent crime, and generate billions in revenue and savings.

We need a common sense approach to control marijuana.

YES on 19.

www.taxcannabis.org

JOSEPH D. MCNAMARA
San Jose Police Chief (Ret.)

JAMES P. GRAY
Orange County Superior Court Judge (Ret.)

STEPHEN DOWNING
Deputy Chief, LAPD (Ret.)

After reading that, can anyone honestly say “Well, I was going to vote for Prop 19, but now that I hear that it might not bring in the full $1.4 billion in tax revenue, what’s the point?”

2. Proposition 19 does not have a built-in $50 per ounce tax.

A lot of people seem to have that mistaken idea. That idea comes from a completely different bill that was proposed that has nothing to do with Prop 19. Prop 19 merely gives local government the power to set a tax and/or license fee. Each local community can decide. It could be $5 per ounce. It could be $50. It could be 0. Any community that sets it too high will likely be undercut by neighboring towns.

It’s actually an ingenious solution. By giving the power to the local communities, various options can be tried and we can learn from them. Yes, finally we can have that laboratory (flawed though it may be with the feds anxious to fight their own citizens) that we’ve been needing in drug policy for ages.

“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system,” Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in 1932, “that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

Prop 19 is one of those fabulous opportunities to actually test legalization in a limited way. Any true researcher should be drooling at the opportunity to see such a reasonably safe laboratory finally answer a ton of questions.

And this delineates the line between the researcher/scientist and the charlatan who is too invested in prohibition to even allow it to be seriously challenged.

3. If you are pro-marijuana but are anti-Prop 19, what are your reasons?

1. You are a profiteer. Like any major corporate CEO who says “screw the consumer” in order to increase the bottom line, you oppose the regulations that are part of legalization and that will make your job as a drug dealer harder or more competitive.
2. You are a moron. You believe in some perfect world where marijuana is free for everyone. Cannabis is a gift from God, you say, and to involve taxes and government regulation soils it (as you smoke the moldy crap grown by Mexican cartels). Have you read the papers? Watched cable news? Read any web page on the internet that doesn’t have a cannabis leaf prominently on the top of it? Do you really see this world as one where a hippy nirvana is on the horizon ready to arrive any day now if we just hold off and defeat Prop 19? You are a moron.
3. You tell me.

4. There are a few things Prop 19 will not do.

• Prop 19 will not require anyone to consume cannabis who doesn’t want to
• Prop 19 will not make your brain surgeon, bus driver, or airline pilot suddenly decide to do their job high.
• Prop 19 will not suddenly turn the highway into a demolition derby.
• Passage of Prop 19 will not make the opponents of Prop 19 any smarter.

I upgraded both WordPress and the Atahualpa Theme. Let me know if you see anything that isn’t working right after the upgrade. Thanks.

You may have heard this story already, but White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs recently attacked the President’s critics on the left.

The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

Gibbs later walked back his remarks partway, but the outburst is telling.

First, attacking criticism from the left is just stupid on his part. It’s certainly not going to stop it. And none of the critics on the left are saying that Obama is like George Bush. They’re saying that many of his policies are like George Bush’s, as Glenn Greenwald has exhaustively detailed, and that he has reneged many of his campaign promises, particularly in the areas of civil liberties and government secrecy/accountability.

But Gibbs is also tone-deaf in a second way. By using the phrase “Those people ought to be drug tested,” he is showing a lack of respect for the huge portion of this country that is calling for a serious dialogue on drug policy.

It’s reminiscent of Obama’s glib Townhall response last year

“There was one question that voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation,” he said. “And I don’t know what this says about the online audience, but … this was a popular question. We want to make sure it’s answered. The answer is no, I don’t think that’s a good strategy to grow our economy. All right.”

Add to that the drug czar’s “legalization is not in our vocabulary” nonsense, and you have a White House that is not only unwilling to engage in the important questions about drug policy, but is also uninterested in showing anything but cluelessness.

True and necessary change is not going to come from the top. It’s going to come from the people rising up for something better for the kids, and it’s going to come from California challenging the U.S. Government.

Small ‘c’ conservatives should end the war on drugs by Charles W. Moore

Interesting reading that really slams U.S. drug and prison policy and also slams Canada for following us. I particularly love the descriptions of Conrad Black, who spent some time in U.S. prisons.

Mr. Black lobbed withering and well-deserved broadsides from behind bars at the United States justice system, which he accurately describes as “putrefied,” “‘a carceral state’ that imprisons eight to 12 times more people per capita than the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Germany or Japan…”

“From my cell I scent the reeking soul of U.S. justice,” Mr. Black proclaimed in a 2008 letter to the London Sunday Times, asserting that America’s justice and penal systems are in critical condition, largely because of the so-called “war on drugs,” especially marijuana, which can only be regarded by thinking persons – including and especially conservatives – as hysterical, bordering on the psychotic. […]

Mr. Black characterizes “the entire ‘war on drugs'” as dismal failure, “a trillion taxpayers’ dollars squandered… one million small fry imprisoned at a cost of $50 billion a year”… “with absurd sentences, (including 20 years for marijuana offences, although 42 per cent of Americans have used marijuana and it is the greatest cash crop in California.)… targeted substances are more available and of better quality than ever, while producing countries such as Colombia and Mexico are in a state of civil war.”

Mexicans, US question drug legalization proposal

This is a very surreal article to read, because of the sense of almost panicked confusion regarding the idea of legalization. The great thing is that now, in an article like this, you’re hearing legalization as a legitimate option, and that’s making those who oppose it have a hard time describing why legalization won’t work.

“The legalization proposal is mistaken, because it shows a lack of understanding of Mexico’s problem and avoids the main cause, which is quite simply the government’s loss of the monopoly on the use of force,” the group said, referring to cartels that confront security forces with grenades, automatic weapons and now car bombs.

Right.

Or how about this bizarre statement:

“I favor regulating the market … medicinal marijuana is an attempt to regulation,” Gonzalez said, “But legalization, never, ever.”

In case you missed it… a good interview by Reason.tv with LEAP Executive Director Neill Franklin

I agree with Scott Morgan:

I’m particularly interested in Neill’s argument regarding the dramatic drop in clearance rates for homicides over the past few decades. Of course, it would be difficult to prove empirically that increased drug prosecutions make it harder to solve murders. Still, it’s certainly an unflattering portrait of modern law enforcement priorities that we get better and better at arresting people for petty marijuana possession, while more and more people are literally getting away with murder.

….

This is an open thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjCL-mSDFQw

OK, let’s start listing the outright lies in this piece of nonsense.

The #1 ADDICTION for 60% of TEENS in DRUG rehab.

Lie. As we have shown time and time again, the presence of individuals in rehab is not necessarily an indication of addiction. The majority of those in treatment with marijuana as the primary drug are there because of criminal justice referrals (ie, to avoid other penalties) and not because of addiction.

A GATEWAY drug to Cocaine and Meth

Lie. Numerous studies have debunked this myth, including the 1999 Institute of Medicine’s “Assessing the Science Base” which declared: “There is no evidence that marijuana serves as a stepping stone on the basis of its particular physiological effect.” In fact, that report also noted that the only conceivable gateway effect related to marijuana is specifically due to its illegal status.

4 times more MIND-ALTERING than in the 1970’s.

Intentionally Misleading. The fact is that THC levels have varied throughout time (although who knows what they mean by “mind altering”), but smokers tend to self-titrate to get the effect they desire. It’s like saying that scotch is four times more mind altering than beer, but you don’t drink a six-pack of scotch. And, of course, while you can die from an overdose of alcohol, you can’t do the same with marijuana, regardless of its potency.

50-70% MORE CANCER-CAUSING than Cigarettes.

Blatant Lie. Cigarettes are cancer-causing and marijuana is not. The biggest study done in the world, funded by the U.S. Government proved that even heavy use of marijuana adds absolutely no risk of head, neck or lung cancer, and may even have a small reverse effect.

MARIJUANA. What’s Good About Legalizing It? NOTHING

Lie. There are dozens of good things about legalization, from reducing crime, to hurting the Mexican cartels, to reducing criminal justice costs, to increasing tax revenue, to improving safety, to reducing use by children, to reducing corruption, to improving liberty, and on, and on.

Passage of Prop. 19 would mean: Marijuana could be SOLD IN GROCERY STORES.

So What? Proposition 19 allows local governments to regulate the place of sale, so they could choose to allow it or disallow it in grocery stores. Right now, I can buy all sorts of dangerous drugs in grocery stores, including alcohol, tobacco, and a range of prescription and over-the-counter products that can cause death if misused.

Passage of Prop. 19 would mean: Skyrocketing usage among Teens and Young people.

Lie. Right now, criminal marijuana dealers do not check for age. Under proposition 19, selling marijuana to those under 21 would be prohibited. Under decriminalization in the Netherlands, they have a dramatically lower rate of teen use of marijuana than we do.

Passage of Prop. 19 would mean: “DRUGGED DRIVING” on Streets and Freeways.

Unsupported fear-mongering. There’s no evidence that dangers of drugged driving would increase with passage of Proposition 19. In fact, evidence shows that numbers of traffic accidents have had no correlation with amount of use or availability of marijuana.

Passage of Prop. 19 would mean: Higher COSTS for Everyone as Addictions SOAR

Lie. This is totally unsupported by any data that exists out there. The fact is that costs for everyone will dramatically decline due to a suddenly streamlined criminal justice system.

Passage of Prop. 19 would mean: Marijuana Operatives could buy THOUSANDS of Acres of farmland.

So What? In a poor economy, having a fresh infusion of capital into land purchases is a good thing. And shouldn’t marijuana be grown above-board in farms rather than clandestinely in public parks?

Prop. 19 Means: Messed up minds. Messed up lives. Messed up families. California out of Control. Is this the kind of California you want?

Meaningless Nonsense. No evidence given of anything actually getting messed up due to Prop 19.

Don’t Buy The Lie

True. Don’t buy any of the lies from these charlatans.

StopProp19.com is a project of SaveCalifornia.com. These are the folks who opposed gay marriage and fought for the passage of Prop 8.

They’ve got nothing to offer except lies, intolerance, and hate. These are people who have specific moral views that they want to impose on the rest of society. They know that their views are so bankrupt that vast sections of society won’t ever be convinced to follow them, so they want the government to help them impose their “morality” on others, and they will resort to any immoral action to advance their cause.

They are the scum of the earth.

News is that the folks who opposed gay marriage and supported Prop 8 in California are now coming out with STOP PROP 19 DOT COM to oppose marijuana legalization. Those who have sneaked a peak at their messages say:

There’s no announcer or sound bites, but the production is dramatic and the messages are powerful. One claim reads marijuana is “The number one addiction for 60% of teens in drug rehab.” Another claims marijuana is “50-70% more CANCER-CAUSING than Cigarettes.”

Messages are powerful? I guess that assumes that the truth doesn’t matter.

Russ Belville has some fun with Tossed SALAD: Stoners Against Legalization Article of the Day, where he takes a look at the rather bizarre antics of those who “got theirs” now and don’t want the rest to have it legal.

Over at the RBC, Keith Humphreys makes the case that the remaining states that mirrored the federal governments bad crack-powder cocaine disparity in sentencing should follow the federal government’s recent moves and reduce that disparity statewide. He notes that in California, that could save $60 million annually. Excellent suggestion and one that is, unfortunately, likely to be fought every step of the way by the prison guards union.

…

This is an open thread.

A really powerful set of articles in The Guardian today.

Starting off with War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle by Rory Carroll and Paul Harris

Mexico’s president Felipe Caldéron is the latest Latin leader to call for a debate on drugs legalisation. And in the US, liberals and right-wing libertarians are pressing for an end to prohibition. Forty years after President Nixon launched the ‘war on drugs’ there is a growing momentum to abandon the fight

It’s a pretty good discussion about recent political and drug war developments in the Americas.

Even better is the extremely strong and stinging piece against prohibition by the editorial board:

A unique chance to rethink drugs policy

If the purpose of drug policy is to make toxic substances available to anyone who wants them in a flourishing market economy controlled by murderous criminal gangs, the current arrangements are working well.

If, however, the goal is to reduce the amount of drugs being consumed and limit the harm associated with addiction, it is surely time to tear up the current policy. It has failed.

This is not a partial failure. For as long as courts and jails have been the tools for controlling drugs, their use has increased. Police are powerless to control the flow. One recent estimate calculated that around 1% of the total supply to the UK is intercepted.

Attempts to crack down have little impact, except perhaps in siphoning vulnerable young people into jails where they can mature into hardened villains.

When a more heavyweight player is taken out, a gap opens up in the supply chain which is promptly filled by violent competition between or within gangs. Business as usual resumes. […]

It is far from certain that decriminalisation, regulation or legalisation would work. But they should be examined as options, for it is absolutely certain that prohibition has failed.

Wow. The trifecta finishes off with Drugs: the problem is more than just the substances, it’s the prohibition itself by Maria Lucia Karam, a retired judge in Brazil and board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Violence is not necessarily related to drugs. As the alcohol or tobacco businesses demonstrate, the production and supply of drugs are not inherently violent activities. Weapons and violence only accompany those activities when undertaken in an illegal market. The prohibition yields the violence, as disputes must be settled out of court and on the streets. Paradoxically, when we prohibit these widely used substances, we are actually relinquishing meaningful control over them.

Prohibition consigns the drug market to criminalised actors not subject to oversight of any kind. Legalisation would mean regulation and regulation is the best way to control the dangers of drug use, while cutting the cartels off at the knees. […]

Latin America is advancing the debate, but even in the US there are efforts to undo the damage of prohibition, the most prominent being California’s effort to legalise marijuana.

Hopefully, the thousands of Mexicans, Brazilians and people from other parts of the world who have been killed in the insane “war on drugs” will not have died in vain. Their deaths are already showing that it is time to put an end to all the pain and harms caused by drug prohibition; it is time to legalise and regulate the production, the supply and the consumption of all drugs.

… argument is one of the more ridiculous ones that I’ve heard.

Keith Humphreys, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, discussed the potential consequences of legalizing marijuana.

Here’s the kicker:

Q: What about the argument that taxing marijuana will provide fiscally strapped cities and states with much-needed revenue?

Humphreys: I am not sympathetic with that argument, either on the values front or on just straight economics. If as a society we’ve decided that if it makes revenue we’re for it, why are we wasting time with cannabis? We should be legalizing child pornography and human trafficking. There’s lots of awful things that raise money, and that doesn’t make them right. The idea that we can make a buck here, and therefore it’s the right thing to do for kids in California … I think that’s morally bankrupt.

I really get tired of these jerks/liars who act like the whole tax revenue argument has been made in a vacuum. Nobody who supports legalization has ever said that tax revenue is the only reason to legalize, and it’s disingenuous to say the least to make that implication. And to compare it to child pornography and human trafficking? Now that’s morally bankrupt. It’s also intellectually dishonest, and seeing a professor make such a statement offends the educator in me.

But then again, he’s being paid to be… disingenuous. According to his bio at Stanford:

He is currently on leave from Stanford while he serves as Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Update: It appears now that his bio is out of date. He apparently has returned to Stanford. So that eliminates that excuse.

With the Just Say Now campaign underway at FDL, Jane Hamsher has emerged as a progressive leader on drug policy reform. She talks about it at The Atlantic.

CG: Do you see a lot of support for legalizing marijuana in the Netroots community, or in the more staid progressive community including unions, civil rights groups, and people like that?

JH: Well, interestingly enough, the issue has never gained traction in the quote-unquote liberal political blogosphere. People were always a little bit nervous about it. So it hasn’t had support, but it’s tremendously popular on the Internet and among the Obama surge voters.

CG: I remember when Obama did one of his first tele-town-halls as president, one of the questions that got the most votes was, “Are you going to make marijuana legal?”

JH: Yeah, I believe there were three polls on the transition team’s website, and questions about marijuana topped all three of them, with millions of voters. So for the people who supported Obama, it’s clearly an important issue.

I think this is good recognition that, among progressive voters, there is strong potential interest (just as there is among traditional conservative voters), but that, until now, it’s been the progressive leadership that’s been unwilling to consider it.