Drug WarRant

Nate Silver in his post Americans Growing Kinder to Bud brings us this pretty chart regarding polling data on marijuana legalization over the past 40 years.

It’s a fascinating chart. You see the clear temporary reversal of opinion trends during the Reagan “Just Say No” era, but since then the trend toward legalization has moved inexorably forward, even despite some of the most virulent anti-pot government propaganda during the past 8 years. (I credit the growing drug policy reform movement for defanging that particular effort).
Nate notes the political difficulties associated with legalization and says:

My guess is that we’ll need to see a supermajority of Americans in favor of decriminalizing pot before the federal government would dare to take action on it. If the upward trend since 1990 holds (and recall my earlier caution: it might not), then legalization would achieve 60 percent support at some point in 2022 or 2023. About then is when things might get interesting.

If marijuana criminalization was simply a matter of federal law, I’d agree. But the states add another element that could speed up the process in some ways (as more and more move to medical marijuana, decrim, or outright legalization, making federal law approach irrelevancy) or slow it down in others (some states may not be ready for legalization even in 15 years).
And I also think, as one commenter over there said, that the trend may not be flat – that we would be reaching a critical mass that would create a dramatic increase in support for legalization.

What could be better? Marijuana legalization, Calvina Fay, and Lou Dobbs, all in one video.

In comments, give your vote for the most outrageous statement in the video.

Attorney General Eric Holder in a press conference today about the arrest of members of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, with DEA head Michele Leonhart standing next to him, was asked about the medical marijuana raids and the fact that Obama had promised to end them during his campaign (scroll to the 25 minute mark in the video).
His reponse:

“What the President said during the campaign, you’ll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we’ll be doing here in law enforcement. […] He is formally and technically and by law my boss now, and so what he said during the campaign is now American policy.”

Note: This doesn’t mean that there will be no more raids on medical marijuana dispensaries at all. Certainly, the State of California could conduct a raid on a dispensary that it claimed was violating state law (and any resulting cases would likely be tried in state court where you could mention state medical marijuana law).
Also, theoretically, the State of California, believing that a dispensary was violating state law, could ask for help from the DEA, but I would imagine Holder would find that to be politically unpleasant and would ask why the state is incapable of doing it themselves.
What does seem clear from Holder’s statement is that there will be no more DEA raids of dispensaries that are operating legally under state law, but not under federal law. This should also mean no more Charlie Lynch trials. I hope the judge sentencing Lynch takes that important point into account.

Go to Taxing pot could become a political toking point
Scroll down to:

Anti-drug groups are anything but amused by the idea of California collecting a windfall from the leafy herb that remains illegal under federal law.
“This would open another door in Pandora’s box,” said Calvina Fay, executive director of Save Our Society From Drugs. “Legalizing drugs like this would create a whole new set of costs for society.”

Next to it, you should see a poll: Should the state tax and regulate marijuana?
You know what to do.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is the “quasi-judicial control organ monitoring the implementation of the United Nations drug control conventions” (makes me queasy just writing it). It is also the most out-of-touch hard-core international drug warrior body out there. Unfortunately, it has, for way too long, had significant influence in determining international drug control efforts. However, its rabidly ridiculous approaches are getting more and more obviously irrelevant as time goes by. Eventually, there will be a clash as governments refuse to be taken in by this charlatanism.
Well, the INCB has come out with its new report and it’s the same garbage as always. Pages and pages of dreck, covering every country in the world, with such nonsense as:

The Board is concerned that in the United States, the disagreement between the Government and several states regarding the use of “medical cannabis” continues. […] The Board calls upon the authorities of the United States to continue its efforts to stop that practice, which is in contradiction to national law and is in violation of article 23 of the 1961 Convention. [not true, by the way]

Or with the Netherlands:

The Board has longstanding concerns regarding certain policies adopted by the Government of the Netherlands, in particular the policy that allows small amounts of cannabis to be sold and abused in so-called “coffee shops”.

Note the “abused” word.
Of course, the INCB never addressed one very important question related to the coffee shops. A question asked by Dr. Frederick Polak. It’s a simple question that he has asked the head of the UNODC (Costa) four times, and each time Costa refused to answer it. (I witnessed one of those times in New Orleans a little over a year ago.) Here’s the question:

How do you explain that in the Netherlands, where cannabis is legally available for adults, the level of cannabis use is lower than in most other EU countries and in the US?

Good question, Mr. Costa. Why won’t you answer it?
Dr. Polak has now created a website — Dare to Act — based solely on asking this question, and giving you the opportunity to help him ask the question. Give it a shot.
Ask the question.

Tearful Atlanta Cops Express Remorse for Shooting 92-Year-Old Kathryn Johnston, Leaving Her To Bleed to Death in Her Own Home While They Planted Drugs in Her Basement, Then Threatening an Informant So He Would Lie To Cover It All Up

Philadelphia Will Do reports about some reactions to New Jersey’s medical marijuana bill:

• Sen. Gerald Cardinale (R-Bergen): ‹It‰s the wrong thing for people in New Jersey and the wrong thing for our children.Š
• Joyce Nalepka, president, DrugFree Kids: ‹There is no therapeutic use of this, and this is a bill based on a lie.Š
• David Evans, executive director, Drug Free School Coalition: ‹This is dressed up as compassion but this bill is way, way too looseá It will be too easy to get marijuana.Š
• John Tomicki, executive director, League of American Families: ‹Parents are alarmed they‰ve given the green light for marijuana use.Š
• Terrence Farley of the anti-medical marijuana law enforcement group Safe Approved Medicine for New Jersey: ‹Marijuana is not medicine.Š

and more…

Update: I kept searching Ö because that‰s what I do when I‰m done a post, I keep gathering information about it! Ö and learned more about Gerald Cardinale, my new favorite New Jersey senator:

‹Moderate use of marijuana causes brain cells to die,Š Cardinale said. ‹That‰s why the federal government made marijuana forbidden.Š

Hey! Somebody needs to head over to the ‹Why is marijuana illegal?Š page at Drug WarRant and learn some fun historical facts. I can‰t wait for the debate in the Assembly.

In Washington, marijuana decrim was shot down by this horrifying story from Democratic State Senator James Hargrove:

Jim Hargrove, after emphasizing he’s a college graduate, said that he saw one of his former fraternity brothers who smoked pot back in the day and — apparently because of marijuana — the poor pothead was still wearing the same trench coat he had 20 years ago.

Smoking marijuana causes people to wear the same trench coat for 20 years. That’s why it’s illegal!
In Montana, as part of a medical marijuana education event at the state Capitol, there were “five live, flowering and very odiferous cannabis plants on display in the second floor rotunda.”

Rep. Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, told the Bozeman Chronicle that he was furious over the cannabis rally. According to House Majority Leader Margarett Campbell, D-Poplar, McGillvray wanted security guards to remove the marijuana plants from the rotunda but was told the display was legal under Montana law.
“You don’t get to pick and choose which events are covered under the First Amendment,” Campbell said.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has introduced a marijuana legalization bill in California: The Marijuana Control, regulation and education act (AB 390)

In a nutshell, here’s what the bill would do: “Remove all penalties under California law for the cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, and use of marijuana, natural THC and paraphernalia by persons over the age of 21,” “prohibit local and state law enforcement officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws…” and establish a fee of $50 an ounce on marijuana on top of whatever pot will cost in a legal future – which legalization advocates say is about half what it costs now. This tax rate figures at about a buck a joint.

It may not have a chance, but is it a sign of the times that we’re actually going beyond fighting for medical marijuana bills and then getting a decrim bill passed in Massachusetts and now talking about a legalization bill?
Is it possible that the “L” word is becoming less taboo? I have never shied away from it, because I believe it’s the true answer — legalization does not mean an absense of regulation (quite the contrary – legalization is required in order to have regulation), and decriminalization, while a softer more gentler word, is a very poor substitute as it tend to maintain all the black market problems of prohibition.
So people are talking about legalization. Mark Kleiman, who has previously supported some kind of legalization of marijuana, but has generally used the “L” word as a derisive epithet aimed at “drug policy reformers” (yes, in scare quotes) who don’t agree with his plans to save prohibition as a whole, has now come out with a post titled Legalizing cannabis: is the ground shifting?

Obviously, this isn’t something the Obama Administration is going to jump on, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a big move late in a second Obama term or sometime in the term of his successor (assuming the Democrats keep winning elections). If I had to quote odds, I’d say about even money on legalization within fifteen years.

The update in his post is priceless:

Matt Yglesias points out that legalized pot is more popular than Republicanism. Yet under the rules of the media-political game as currently played, Sarah Palin’s lunatic views, or John Boehner’s count as respectable opinion, while cannabis legalization remains a “fringe” position.

So true. And it’s nice to have an academic like Kleiman agree that legalization should not be considered a “fringe” position. Perhaps his academic colleagues, such as Peter Reuter will get the message as well and start actually having policy discussions about it, instead of taking the cheap, incomplete and dishonest approach as they did in the 2005 studies by AEI and RAND.

Nor do we explore the merits and demerits of legalizing drugs, even though legalization is perhaps the most prominent and hotly debated topic in drug policy. Our analysis takes current policy as its starting point, and the idea of repealing the nation’s drug laws has no serious support within either the Democratic or Republican party.

It’s because nobody has been willing to have the “open, honest national dialogue” about legalization (as recently called for by the El Paso city council) that we have so little hard information as to what options could exist in a legalized market (and really, isn’t this what public policy experts should be… expert at?)
Kleiman says he’s “not a big fan of legalization on the alcohol model.” He’s convinced that any form of drug legalization will involve massive commercialization along the lines of beer ads.

As we did with alcohol, the country will lurch from one bad policy (prohibition) to another (commercial legalization).

While that is certainly one option (and I don’t see it as negatively as Kleiman does), why does the only other option have to be a half-assed decriminalization?

So I continue to favor a “grow your own” policy, under which it would be legal to grow, possess, and use cannabis and to give it away, but illegal to sell it. Of course there would be sales, and law enforcement agencies would properly mostly ignore those sales. But there wouldn’t be billboards.

The vast majority of people won’t grow their own. They aren’t equipped or interested. Why keep the black market? And even worse, why keep the cannabis option for law enforcement agencies to target people for arrest?
Finally, the grow-your-own only option does not allow for variety or the cannabis connoisseur. I have 7 kinds of single-malt scotch, and I enjoy them all for different occasions or moods. Is one expected to grow 7 different strains to enjoy them all? (not everyone consumes dope just to get wasted, just as not everyone drinks alcohol just to get stupid).
Why not look at other alternatives? Here’s one (and maybe we’ll come up with some more in comments or in future posts).
Grow-Your-Own plus Legal Cannabis Cafes

• Growing your own cannabis would be legal for your own consumption, or to give away. No sales allowed. No taxes levied.
• Licensed Cannabis cafes (like in Amsterdam, only fully legal) would provide social outlets for enjoying cannabis (vaporized or eaten — no smoking in most states, don’t you know), and also for purchasing cannabis to take home, complete with a menu of choices (and probably a drive-through window). Sales tax added to all cannabis.
• Licensed growers would supply the cafes (in some cases, cafes may also grown their own).
• Cafes could advertise, but no advertising for “brands” of pot
• Commercialization: You’ll probably end up with a chain of cannabis cafes (like Starbucks) along with local ones but what you won’t have is a Budweiser.

What other options do you see?
Note: Kleiman sees legalization in 15 years. Paul in comments sees “de facto marijuana legalization in about 5 years in the majority of states.” I’m really not sure how to gauge this one. I agree with Paul that the “states” are the issue. You can’t legalize marijuana at the federal level alone. It has to be removed from the federal laws, of course, but then it’s up to the individual states. Now maybe some states like California will try legalization even with the federal laws on the books, but it’ll always be messy.
At some point, the federal law will cease, and then the states will be left to figure out a solution. Us “drug policy reformers” will be there with plenty of suggestions. It would be nice if the public policy folks joined in.
In fact, what would really be nice is if RAND or AEI or some other think-tank or coalition of academics were to pull together all the “legalization” experts and come up with a comprehensive study along the lines of: “Cannabis Legalization Models for the States.”
Now that would be some useful public policy.
Update: More discussion on this at TalkLeft.

Sorry folks, but I’m on the road visiting my Dad in the hospital (he’ll be OK, and he’s being released today).
No time to blog, so talk amongst yourselves.