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
Why should the government be entitled to decide how many women a man can marry?
I think we all should vote our consciences.
“Proponents of legalization suggest that the experiences of countries such as Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland prove the efficacy of legalizing or decriminalizing various types of illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. They maintain that because such drugs are legal, these countries have fewer addicts and less drug-related crime. . . . The statements of the legalizers here are empirically untrue. As we discuss each country in turn, it will be shown that legalization did not work in any of them.”
If you want the information backing this conclusion, go to www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/debates/myths/myths4.htm. I think experimentation has been tried and we ought to take lessons for those experiments. The article discusses the increased problems created by addicts who are getting younger and younger, crime increases to support the more common addictions, not to mention the problems created by “drug tourism”. I am not willing to gamble our children’s future on it.
That’s exactly my point. You don’t think harmful activities should be banned by government, or that government should be able to protect the culture we have. We’ve had 6,000 years of monogomous marriage in western civilization, but you would overthrow that because you have adopted libertarianism as a philosophy, where if you can’t figure it out using reason you reject it. What would result if we got rid of monogamous marriage?
To you, tradition doesn’t matter, harm doesn’t matter, just your opinion based on a very small snippet of experience (your life). You go so far as to say that people shouldn’t be allowed to legislate at all about it.
Why shouldn’t people be able to contract themselves into slavery?
“I can say with confidence that marijuana is probably just as easy, if not easier, to get for underage kids than alcohol.”
I don’t think that is necessarily the case. A whole lot of kids get their alcohol, at least before they figure out how to buy or steal it, by getting into their parent’s alcohol supply. And a lot of parents know it is happening and look the other way. I suspect the same will be true of their parent’s marijuana stash.
” . . . marijuana is not physically addictive.”
Whether or not marijuana is physically addictive, I think a lot are psychologically addicted to it. And our coming generation is being raised to be pain and effort-averse, hooked on caffeine, psychologically enfeebled by the self-esteem pushers, poorly educated, and socially isolated or hooked on cyberspace socializing. Along with the difficult economic problems currently and foreseen for several years more, at the least, those kids, my kids, are not good candidates for this grand experimentation.
I don’t think we are going to convince each other to change our votes. I live in California and will vote no. If you live here also, vote as you wish. I’m going to grab a few more zzzs before morning breaks.
Second offense, executed!!!
the chemical presence of marijuana tends to stay in the bloodstream just a little (/sarc) longer than alcohol ..... at least 30 days longer
I didn’t realize that. Is it enough to impair mental functioning? I have read some posts by users, some of whom praise it to the max while others call it insidious to their normal functioning. I know the jury is still out on some of the possible health risks, like lung cancer but that it has more carcinogens than does tobacco and that some experts expect regular users to develop cancer in the same or more patterns as the years go by. (Though I suppose that’s more an argument for brownies as opposed to smoking it.)
How would they feel if their homes were confiscated for cigarettes or eating bacon, because congress passed thelaw?? Oppression is wrong..
Run or push drugs and your home should be confiscated.
“Some of my finest hours have been spent sitting on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.” - Thomas Jefferson
From His autobigraphy
Ah the insight and vision of the God given freedoms which were seen from the founding Fathers, sometimes the truth takes a different perspective
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