Drug WarRant

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.

The 2009 Missouri NORML/SSDP Conference is underway with a great start. After the excellent welcomes from Evan Groll and Scott Lauher (who deserve a big hand for putting this together, with others, of course), I led things off with my elevator arguments workshop. Great participation from the very engaged and large group in attendance.

Cliff Thornton then delivered the keynote, with an interesting discussion about what we do after legalization to make the transition work a societal status with “innocent” people in prison and large groups of drug war dependent workers, to a completely new societal dynamic.
I highly recommend Shakespeare’s Pizza in Columbia – oh, and a shout out to Joe and Sarah and all the others I chatted with so far. I’m looking forward to some more stimulating discussion tomorrow.
For those conference attendees new to Drug WarRant, here are a few links to things I was discussing:

• Why is Marijuana Illegal
• DrugWar Victims
• Bong Hits for Jesus
• April Witt’s piece in the Washington Post about Mayor Cheye Calvo, his family and his dogs.

Join in the conversation (and for those who won the thongs, let me know how you like them!)

I’m heading to Columbia (not Colombia) for the 2009 Missouri NORML/SSDP Conference. I’ll try to do some blogging there when I get a chance.
“bullet” Good editorial by the Daily Iowan (University of Iowa): Marijuana legalization would create jobs, government income

Most politicians have now become accustomed to advocating for the development of green jobs, but almost none of them have yet been willing to consider how a radical change in national and state drug policy could help create some of the greenest jobs imaginable by facilitating the creation of a new marijuana industry. While it is true that such a major change in government policy toward marijuana cultivation, distribution, and consumption would be (extremely) politically difficult to accomplish, it is time for serious people to start considering how to best go about advocating for just such a radical shift. […]
Some may argue that the societal cost of legalizing marijuana consumption would outweigh any benefits obtained from increased tax revenues, but such arguments are almost always based on misinformation. There simply aren‰t any good data to suggest that moderate marijuana consumption is really any worse for people than is using currently legal substances such as tobacco.

“bullet” Study Suggests MPP Was Right: Lying to Kids Doesn‰t Work

Translation: If you tell kids that smoking marijuana will turn them into heroin addicts, and then they try marijuana and no such thing happens, real-world experience will pulverize the propaganda every time. Or, as the researchers explain it:

‹When threatened outcomes are experienced as less severe than anticipated, intentions to engage in threatened behavior may be amplified.Š

“bullet” Some fun… Speaking of pork and bongs

It turns out that Americans are not particularly upset that Michael Phelps, after spending six hours a day in the pool every day for the past 10 years training to become the greatest Olympic champion in history, might want to kick back and smoke a little pot. No doubt, with all that time in the pool, Phelps missed those helpful public service announcements that used to run during Saturday morning cartoons, graphically warning that drug use inevitably leads to criminal behavior, destroys families and, if I remember correctly, fries eggs. […]
Like the press, Kellogg’s may have also misjudged the public mood. Irate at the company’s decision to drop Phelps, pot smokers by the thousands have inundated the Kellogg’s consumer hotline with phone calls, angrily demanding to know when that pizza they ordered is going to arrive.
Meanwhile, representatives from groups such as the Marijuana Policy Project and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws have gone on record indicating that they plan to organize a boycott of Kellogg’s products, “just as soon as we finish watching this ‘Gilligan’s Island’ marathon on Nick at Nite.”

“bullet” Via Lawson in comments: Official: Mexican drug turf wars have led to surge in violence
…except this time, some common sense is at least presented:

Robert Pastor, a Latin America national security adviser for President Carter in the late 1970s, calls the problem in Mexico “even worse than Chicago during the Prohibition era.”
He said a solution similar to what ended that violence is needed now.
“What worked in the U.S. was not Eliot Ness,” he said, referring to the federal agent famous for fighting gangsters in 1920s and ’30s. “It was the repeal of Prohibition.”

Nice, but catch the follow-up by Monte Alejandro Rubido Garcia, executive secretary for the National System for Public Safety:

Rubido is diplomatic, saying decriminalizing drugs is a “terribly sensible” approach that has received much thought. But he’s not buying it.
“This has become a world of globalization,” he said. “Globalization has many virtues, but some errors. I can’t conceive that one part of the world would decriminalize drugs because it would become a paradise for drug use. It might bring down violence, but there would be social damage.”

Huh? Let’s analyze that. On one hand, you have a presumed drug use paradise. On the other hand you have violence. Is this really a difficult choice?

Link

Hundreds of Mexicans blocked roads and bridges into the United States on Tuesday in a protest of army operations against drug gangs that officials said was organized by drug traffickers.
About 300 protesters, some with handkerchiefs tied over their faces, carried signs saying “Army Get Out!” in front of the town hall in the northern city of Monterrey, 130 miles (209 km) from the Texas border. It was the largest in a series of anti-army protests this week.

Interestingly, Natividad Gonzalez, governor of Nuevo Leon state, claims that the Gulf cartel and The Zetas paid the people to protest. And Reuters claimed to find a woman who refused to be named who said her neighbor had been paid to come.

“Rising levels of unemployment in Mexico make it much easier for Mexican drug traffickers to recruit youths to engage in demonstrations like this, for relatively low pay,” U.S.-based security consultancy Stratfor said in a report.

Think about that. The drug traffickers can already buy or intimidate police and government officials. Now, they can hire the people (and not just to work in the drug trade). This is a cartel public works project! Yep. The Zetas are providing a jobs stimulus package!
What’s left for the government of Mexico? How much more drug war victory can they afford before they become irrelevant?
Meanwhile, Calderon remains stubbornly oblivious.

Calderon said on Monday the rampant violence shows the drug cartels are desperate

But I dare say the people are smarter than he is. And while it’s possible that some protesters are getting a paycheck, I’d bet that some of them were there because they’re tired of the violence and don’t see it as Calderon’s road to victory. They’ve been around long enough to know that there has always been drug trafficking, but it’s the drug war that fuels the drug war violence.

Link
This certainly isn’t the first time for Illinois, but it could be the best shot to date.
Now we still have Limey Nargelenas, deputy director of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police irresponsibly shooting off his mouth about gateways and children..

Nargelenas said the problem is that individuals who just want to get high — and who aren‰t seriously ill — could abuse a medical marijuana law like the one Haine envisions.
Further, characterizing marijuana as medicine ‹sends a real bad message to the kids,Š he said.
‹We just see so many kids today that when they do try marijuana, they start experimenting with other drugs too,Š Nargelenas said. ‹We believe (medical marijuana) should be very restricted, just like any other kind of medication.Š

…but note that last comment: “just like any other kind of medication.” Ah, Limey, so you’re admitting that it is medicine.
There’s a step.
Here are the positive things that Illinois has going for it this time around:

1. John Walters won’t be flying in with his entourage to browbeat the state legislature into defeating it
2. There could be a less negative feeling about how the state law will interact with the federal law now.
3. This year’s bill sponsor, William Haine, is a former State’s Attorney. That could ease things with law enforcement.
4. The previous sponsor, John Cullerton, is now Senate president.
5. Michigan passed it last year, so the midwest is in play.

Tune into NPR today to hear Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo’s interview with Michelle Martin on her Program “Tell Me More.”
Cheye will be discussing the botched SWAT team raid on his home last July; the international response to the incident; and pending legislation in Maryland to require more transparency and accountability for police departments who use SWAT teams.

Kevin A. Sabet, who I saw debate Kris Krane at the recent International SSDP Conference (Krane won handily, but at least Sabet’s a good sport) has come up with recommendations for the new drug czar.
It really is silly how the prohibitionists (and their apologists) have to avoid at all costs actually addressing alternatives to prohibition and instead clutch at ridiculous straws to “save” prohibition, such as:

The next drug czar must not be afraid to flex his muscle.

Really? That’s why prohibition has been such a failure? If he just flexes his muscle more, the economic laws of supply and demand will cower before his blinding manhood?
So how does he address alternatives?

Drug policy is rarely a bone of contention among Democrats and Republicans. Everyone believes in prevention, law enforcement and treatment. And legalization remains (rightfully) the stuff of dreams (nightmares, really, when you take into account the heavy social costs that would result from a free, commercial market for illegal drugs).

No proof. No justification. No acknowledgement of the fact that there is absolutely no empirical evidence to support such claims, and no acknowledgement of the extreme social costs of prohibition. Note also the unexplained assumption that legalization necessarily means “free commercial market” when most legalization advocates call for regulation.
It’s dishonest, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from the prohibition enablers.
[Hat tip to Mark Kleiman for the (favorable?) link to Sabet’s piece.]

From a news conference minutes ago…

During a news conference, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said there is not enough evidence to prosecute anyone involved in the Michael Phelps marijuana case.
Monday’s news conference puts an end to speculation if Phelps would be charged with smoking marijuana in Richland County.