Posted on 09/19/2010 3:45:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
"In almost every respect imaginable, Prohibition was a failure," former New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent concluded at the close of his new book, "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition." "It encouraged criminality and institutionalized hypocrisy. It deprived the government of revenue, stripped the gears of the political system, and proposed profound limitations on individual rights."
America's laws against marijuana have had similar effect. About 40 percent of Americans have tried the weed. In March, the Partnership for a Drug- Free America reported that 38 percent of ninth- through 12th-graders studied in 2009 reported consuming marijuana in the past month.
The last three presidents opposed legalizing marijuana, even though President Obama says he smoked marijuana, George W. Bush hinted that he did and Bill Clinton said he did not inhale. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger inhaled on camera -- and the most he'll say now is that it is "time for a debate" on California Proposition 19, the November ballot measure that would legalize marijuana under state (but not federal) law.
In 2005, Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron looked at the cost of marijuana prohibition. He estimated that legalizing and taxing marijuana would yield $6.2 billion in annual tax revenue nationally -- assuming that governments levied taxes comparable to alcohol and tobacco taxes. In addition, the federal government would save $2.4 billion, while state and local governments would save $5.3 billion on enforcement.
Miron has argued that usage rates would not necessarily rise if marijuana were legal. I think usage will go up; even proponents admit that Proposition 19's passage probably would lower the cost. There is no way to sugarcoat the possibility that, despite bill language that legalizes possession only for adults 21 years old or older, some teens may find it easier to get pot. And that is not a good thing.
On the other hand, it's not as if prohibition has put a dent in teen usage. The same survey that found that found 38 percent of high school students had used marijuana found that 39 percent consumed alcohol in the past month.
Okrent believes that legalizing and regulating marijuana could make it harder for young teens to get. The repeal of Prohibition -- with closing hours, age limits and government's ability to shutter violators -- "made it harder, not easier, to get a drink."
Pleasant Hill Police Chief Pete Dunbar told the San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board that the violence associated with the marijuana trade makes it "the most dangerous drug" of all. Hence his opposition to Proposition 19.
But the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition includes a growing number of former cops and prosecutors who support Proposition 19 because they want to starve criminal enterprises.
Stephen Downing, a former Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief, likened drug gangs to a starfish -- cut off one limb, and they grow another. "If you take away 60 percent of the cartels' traffic, it will have a real impact on their profits," Downing told me.
"California's No. 1 cash crop is marijuana," he added. California growers, under regulation and paying taxes, could squeeze Mexican cartels out of the trade.
Downing told me he sees it as his "patriotic duty" to fight for Proposition 19. ?Dunbar called the measure "too loosey-goosey." Proposition 19 leaves it to local governments to decide if they want to regulate and tax the production and sale of marijuana -- and that means different laws for different locales.
But as attorney James Wheaton, who wrote the measure, explained, "Oakland is going to have completely different issues than Humboldt County." Communities that want to ban the sale of marijuana will be free to do so.
When I was younger, I knew kids who started using drugs and never reached their full potential. ?Today, I have a lot of successful friends who used marijuana when they were younger, are glad they never were arrested, but say they will vote against Proposition 19 because they don't want to send the wrong message. In part, I think, they want the government to do their parenting for them.
But it's wrong to criminalize behavior -- possession of up to an ounce of (nonmedical) marijuana remains a misdemeanor in California -- to send a message. You criminalize behavior that threatens public safety. While marijuana use can threaten public safety, in every way, laws against marijuana enrich criminal cartels.
What is the benefit? In order to decrease the chance of kids using drugs -- by what, 1 percent? -- the public for years has backed laws that fuel violent and criminal practices.
Two years before repeal of Prohibition, smart people were convinced that Prohibition would never be overturned. Its author proclaimed that there was as much chance of repealing the 18th Amendment as there was for a hummingbird to fly to Mars "with the Washington Monument tied to its tail."
Okrent told me he didn't know he was for Proposition 19 until he started promoting his book. "People are going to consume this stuff," he told me.
It's just that simple. That's why the law doesn't work
Yes, I seriously think outlawing cigarettes would be the best thing to do. It’s not important enough to debate very long, but I think cigarrettes are far more harmful than people realize.
Cigs are the most addictive drug out there and more people’s lives are harmed and ultimately destroyed by them than any other drug.
I happen to be in the Baby Boomer Generation, not quite adult in the 60s but close. I still maintain that marijuana usage is not accepted nearly as much as many want to believe. While a lot have undoubtedly tried it, I suspect there are not that many regular recreational users. But, even if it were, I would still oppose legalization. It is a step way too far and is likely to severely cripple the rising generation, a generation that is crippled enough already with the self-esteem movement, the lack of real challenges in life, the helicopter parents and more.
The example of the Army is interesting but I don’t consider that a measure of public acceptance. The Army has its own problems with recruiting and have had to lower its standards in a lot of ways besides past drug use. I don’t know how the Army handles drug use by current soldiers but I suspect it is not much tolerated.
I know money is power but I disagree that the criminals will simply fold their tents and steal away if the money is no longer there for marijuana. Their human nature will not change with the law; they will merely move on to some other lucrative criminal enterprise, most likely much worse than pushing marijuana. As I pointed out in another post, in Amsterdam, the pushers now sell marijuana much more potent than the law allows. Criminals are criminals and they will commit crime, by marijuana pushing or some other means.
I know the arguments for legalization and I sympathize to some extent, but the desire of recreational marijuana smokers to get their “weekend buzz” as one poster termed it without hassle comes with a tremendous amount of risk for society as a whole, especially our children. Again, look at what happened to the attitude toward abortion when it went from illegal to legal. Most people were horrified by the act and today the incidents of abortions have increased exponentially and the majority of people now accept it as a right, not an unfortunate necessity.
By all means, allow that socialist dystopia known as California to grease its skids on the fast track to hell. Legalizing, encouraging, and superimposing a marijuana paradise on top of the fool’s paradise they’ve already built makes eminent good sense.
Anti-drug laws create more problems than they solve.
It’s amazing to me that many people who are otherwise advocates for small, non-intrusive government still rally to the cause of the war on drugs, particularly given all the abuses that entails...
What right does the government have to arbitrarily ban certain drug use while permitting others? What right does the government have to tell a responsible, tax-paying adult that alcohol is permissible and marijuana is not? How many people are in prison at this very moment, lives ruined, their children missing a parent, unemployable when they get out, because they engaged in a behavior that simply cannot be called criminal in any meaningful sense.
If you think the government has the right to restrict this, then it’s really not an unimaginable a stretch to use the same types of arguments that I’m seeing here to justify limiting Big Mac consumption, with all of the coercive power of the state behind that effort as well. It’s all part of the same kind of nanny-state mentality...
Addictive substances are not just a matter of judgment. Addiction robs judgment. The libertarian argument is weak when it comes to destructive addictive substances because people are weak when it comes to destructive addictive substances.
Men like to have lots of women. Monogamy remains the law.
BTW, the murder rate for Amsterdam is comparable to the safest cities in the US.
*nationmaster.com
Probably because it wasn't much of a prohibition. People who wanted alcohol could still get it legally, and possession was legal, too.
“Exactly how would this put our whole society at risk, “especially our children”? I’m guessing that you don’t have a concrete answer for that. There is no answer you can give that doesn’t already exist within a country where marijuana is illegal throughout.”
I think I have answered this. It will increase, not decrease the crime rate, and those crimes will be worse than marijuana pushing. It creates a state that draws drug users to it and the state will have to pick up the costs of those who abuse the drug instead of merely using it. It lessens the public approbrium of drug intoxication. It exposes the children to pushers wanting still to illegally push marijuana. I haven’t even mentioned the medical aspects of regular marijuana use or drug intoxication, particularly on young people. My point is that the real ramifications of this policy change may, and most likely will, be catastrophic for the next generation and the generations after that, all so the current folks can enjoy their occasional buzz. All of that is danger to our society.
As to widespread acceptance, I don’t know. I don’t associate with known drug users. How many of my acquaintances use it, I can’t say, but they certainly keep it hidden if they do. I know that publicly it has been largely unacceptable until the past twenty years or so since “I didn’t inhale”. There has been a concerted effort by many to make it acceptable and claim it is widespread. I haven’t looked at reliable numbers who claim to be otherwise law-abiding folks who use it regularly. But I think the number who try it, and who end up using it regularly, are quite different.
Marijuana is a tool for slavery.
Try comparing Netherlands to nearby European countries with similar demograohics. The Dutch had much lower crime rates before legalizing drugs.
“In March, the Partnership for a Drug- Free America reported that 38 percent of ninth- through 12th-graders studied in 2009 reported consuming marijuana in the past month.
Dreadful statistic. USA is going to the dogs if the next generation is like that.
Succumbing to this is not a good idea.”
I look at that statistic and think gee things probably haven’t changed that much from when I was in HS back in the 70’s, kinda the more things change the more they stay the same.
2 January 2008
AMSTERDAM -- 147 murders were committed in the Netherlands last year, one fewer than in 2006 and therefore a record low, according to the annual report from Elsevier.
http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/local_news/Record-low-murder-rate-once-again.html
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