The bill would also place an 18-month moratorium on new commercial dispensaries. The bill also would require dispensaries to grow the majority of the marijuana they sell, thus eliminating freelance growers.

Perhaps most significantly, the bill would draw a crucial distinction between small-scale and large-scale medical-marijuana providers.

Small-scale providers — people growing and supplying marijuana to five or fewer patients — would not have to be licensed and would qualify for the protection the medical-marijuana section of Colorado’s constitution gives to “caregivers.”

Large-scale providers, like dispensaries, would have less statutory protection, meaning cities and counties would have broad authority to regulate or even ban them from their communities.

“That’s not a right in the constitution,” state Sen. Chris Romer, a Denver Democrat who is one of the bill’s sponsors, said of dispensaries. “That’s a privilege we’re going to grant them with a license. If you want to organize yourself as a medical-marijuana center, then you have to play by the rules we set forth.”

The announcement of the bill, which is expected to be formally introduced this afternoon, drew sharp reactions from a handful of medical-marijuana advocates who attended the news conference unveiling its details.

Afterwards, Carla Boyd, a medical-marijuana patient and caregiver, told Romer she thought the bill would lead to monopolization in the industry. Dispensaries that couldn’t afford the new requirements for growing or security would be run out of business, she said.

“You’re taking away a lot of jobs,” she said. “…This is the Walmart of medical-marijuana, and it’s not right.”

Brian Vicente, the executive director of the medical-marijuana patient-advocacy organization Sensible Colorado, took a milder approach but still raised concerns.

Of the provision that could allow communities to ban marijuana clinics, Vicente said, “it could be seen as a significant weakening of the constitution. We don’t need patients bussing to get medicine.”

He said his organization has no objection to requiring dispensaries to operate as non-profits.

However, Vicente said he plans tomorrow to file a proposed ballot initiative with the state to take dispensary regulations directly to the voters.

The proposed initiative — which would need about 75,000 signatures to make the ballot — is a hedge in case lawmakers pass regulations the cannabis community finds unacceptable.

“State-licensed medical marijuana patients need storefront dispensaries in the same way that other sick Coloradans need pharmacies,” Vicente said in a statement accompanying the announcement of the proposed initiative. “Medical marijuana patients will not go without medicine in Colorado.”

The debate over medical-marijuana at the state Capitol this session has been the focus of an intense lobbying battle between law enforcement groups, which want to eliminate retail marijuana dispensaries, and medical-marijuana advocates, some of whom favor as few government regulations on the industry as possible.

Other medical-marijuana groups have been lobbying behind the scenes for moderate regulations on the booming industry, hoping that some government oversight will professionalize and legitimize the business.

Mike Saccone, a spokesman for state Attorney General John Suthers, said his office needs to review the bill more before taking a formal position on it. But he said the attorney general believes retail dispensaries are outside of what voters intended when they approved Amendment 20, the constitutional provision that legalized medical-marijuana in Colorado.

“Amendment 20 clearly laid out a model that, until a year ago, was doing pretty well with just patients and caregivers,” Saccone said.

Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Author: John Ingold
Published: February 3, 2010
Copyright: 2010 Summit Daily News
URL: http://tiny.cc/hVUuE
Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php

The simple truth is that prohibition doesn’t work, and regulation and education do. Most young people will tell you that marijuana is easy to buy despite nearly a century of prohibition that has cost billions of tax dollars and put thousands of people behind bars.

Anti-drug groups such as D.A.R.E. refuse to acknowledge that today’s marijuana prohibition causes the same problems as alcohol prohibition did in the 1920s. It’s no wonder, then, that D.A.R.E. has been called ineffective by the National Academy of Sciences and, in 2001, was placed under the category of “ineffective programs” by the U.S. surgeon general. The Government Accountability Office reported in 2003 that there are “no significant differences in illicit drug use between students who received D.A.R.E. . . . and students who did not.”

The fact is that legalizing, taxing and regulating substances reduces the harm caused by those drugs. A University of Florida study provided statistically overwhelming evidence that raising taxes on alcohol reduces consumption.

The Tax and Regulate initiative on California’s November ballot would levy a tax of $50 per ounce on marijuana; the money raised would help fund drug-abuse and prevention programs.

Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs on the planet, yet thanks to aggressive taxation in many areas and education efforts, cigarette use in the U.S. has declined sharply over the last few decades. We didn’t have to arrest, incarcerate or impose prohibition to achieve those results; we merely had to tell the truth to young people about the very real harms caused by cigarette addiction while imposing taxes and age restrictions. The most recent Monitoring the Future Survey, which asks students about their drug use, shows that more 10th graders now use marijuana than cigarettes.

Legalizing and taxing marijuana won’t cure California’s chronic budget woes. But should we really be cutting from education while spending all the money it takes to enforce our failed prohibition policies? Furthermore, the Tax and Regulate initiative would not allow the use of marijuana by people under 21. I certainly don’t want more young people smoking marijuana. But some of the teens I helped as a substance-abuse counselor told me that it was easier to purchase marijuana inside their own schools than it was to buy beer or cigarettes from a convenience store. This is not what a successful policy looks like.

Many Americans are coming around to this view. Depending on the poll, either a majority or near-majority of Americans say that marijuana should be taxed and legalized. Even the American Medical Assn. has called for the federal government to review its absurd classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, which puts cannabis right alongside heroin and PCP.

D.A.R.E. can warn people all day about the harm associated with marijuana use. What it refuses to acknowledge is that these arguments only support ending prohibition. If marijuana is so dangerous, D.A.R.E. and its allies ought to support efforts to remove control over distribution from black-market drug dealers.

It’s time for D.A.R.E. to take a back seat to evidence-based drug prevention programs that don’t use scare tactics. It’s time to legalize marijuana.

Note: Taxing and regulating has worked with cigarettes and alcohol. Why not try it with marijuana?

Jonathan Perri is the Western regional director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

Related Article: http://www.cannabisnews.org/united-states-cannabis-news/dont-legalize-marijuana/

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Jonathan Perri
Published: February 1, 2010
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

He responded that he had heard that back in the day, circa the late ’60’s, hippy hoodlums would bake their dope into brownies, consume and wait for the effects. So, he suggested she could bake her medical marijuana into her much-loved cinnamon rolls and enjoy with breakfast. I immediately looked up two things: her recipe for cinnamon rolls and what medical marijuana is used to treat.

Unfortunately for my grandmother, the bill to legalize medical marijuana was narrowly defeated in the New Hampshire General Court. All jesting aside, I really do mean it when I use the word “unfortunately” to describe the situation in not only New Hampshire, but in all other states that have yet to realize the potential net positives that stem from the legalization of medicinal forms of marijuana.

The D.C. Council, in a moment of unconventional wisdom a few weeks ago, became the newest torchbearer in the fight for the legalization of medical marijuana. A bill that is supported by a majority of the council, according to the Washington Post, was recently proposed and awaits a formal vote and then a signature by Mayor Adrian Fenty. No doubt this act of sensibility will be confronted with plenty of baseless, partisan and obfuscatory hoopla.

Cross-country campaigns to legalize medical marijuana are not wholly initiatives that are gateways to the full legalization of marijuana for recreational use. The proposed legislation stipulates that medical marijuana is to only be used for “chronic or long-lasting, debilitating… intractable pain which does not respond to ordinary medical or surgical measures.”

Studies from Columbia University and the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine have shown cannabis to substantially aid in the coping with HIV/AIDS. Researchers from Harvard and the University of Madrid have shown cannabis to help the retardation of cancerous cells. Cannabis has also been suggested the world over as a non-addictive alternative to opioids. In this way, cannabis can solidly be considered a miracle drug for those who are afflicted with chronic pain and suffering.

The American Medical Association recently joined its colleagues in the American College of Physicians, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Nurses Association, and other organizations in calling on marijuana to be classified as a legitimate medicine and not as an illicit drug.

It is quite contradictory for us as a country to keep drug dispensaries on nearly every corner fully stocked with all sorts of nasty, side-effect-ridden and potentially fatal, dangerous drugs, while summarily excluding marijuana for unknown, if not purely political, reasons. Our very own Drug Enforcement Administration reports that prescription drugs are abused almost as much as the illegal marijuana. Yet somehow, in our infinite wisdom, we find it completely acceptable to continue to dispense narcotics while simultaneously blocking the use of medical marijuana.

I doubt many of my peers at GW are suddenly going to develop arthritis, glaucoma or severe chronic pain so they can use the medical marijuana dispensaries. It will be treated like any other drug that is used to help our fellow citizens cope with their ailments. This is not going to induce more illicit drug use or ruin the pinnacle of society.

I unequivocally applaud D.C.’s government for charging through and casting off the hypocrisy. Let our physicians practice medicine the way they see fit and let them have every tool at their disposal to help their patients through their darkest hours.

The writer, a sophomore majoring in international affairs, is a Hatchet columnist.

Source: GW Hatchet (George Washington U, DC Edu)
Author: Andrew Pazdon
Published: February 1, 2010
Copyright: 2010 The GW Hatchet
Contact: letters@gwhatchet.com
Website: http://www.gwhatchet.com/

In a 15,000-square-foot warehouse just down the road from the Oakland Airport, an entrepreneur is opening a one-stop shop for medicinal marijuana cultivation that’s believed to be the largest in the state.

Don’t know the first thing about growing pot? The folks at iGrow have a doctor on site to get you a cannabis card and sell you all the necessary equipment for indoor, hydroponic cultivation – from pumps, nutrients and tubing to lights and fans.

Don’t know how to set it up? For a fee, on-site technicians will show you how to build it in your home and even maintain it weekly.

“A lot of people don’t know much about growing pot,” said Dhar Mann, 25, the owner, who stood in front of an array of Ikea-like displays, showing different rooms of cannabis cultivation systems. “Since there are no full-service resources like us, they take risks, like electrical fires.”

This is hardly a fringe business. When iGrow opens today, at least three City Council members will attend. So will most of the leaders of the cannabis industry in Oakland, a city long at the vanguard of medicinal marijuana.

Today’s opening also comes on a key day for proponents of a statewide ballot measure to allow recreational marijuana. They plan to turn in about twice as many signatures as needed to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

The supporters of that measure are being led by Richard Lee, owner of Oaksterdam University, an Oakland-based business that trains people for work in the cannabis industry.

The medicinal marijuana world is still unsettled. Cities from Los Angeles to Berkeley are grappling with how to permit and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries.

Oakland, where voters last summer agreed to have the city to tax and regulate “cannabis businesses,” has allowed only four licensed dispensaries.

Though iGrow provides all the supplies and know-how for cannabis cultivation, they don’t sell the seedlings – only dispensaries can. And even some of the vendors tread a delicate line.

Gabriel Goodhart, the owner of Easy Feed Systems based in West Oakland, was setting up one of the system displays at iGrow on Wednesday. His company has an explicit policy of not setting up any system where marijuana is visible when they show up – or even mentioning the word “marijuana.”

“Liability is shifting,” said Goodhart, a libertarian who is a registered Republican. “A small business like ours can’t take the risk.”

But, he believes, the issue is a moral one.

“It’s not fair to medical patients to put them in a gray area where they have to be involved in criminal activity to stay healthy,” he said. “That’s like not having health insurance.”

The cost of creating your own cultivation system or relying solely on a dispensary is vast.

At a dispensary, a patient might spend $120 a week for a quarter-ounce of marijuana.

However, it might cost $1,000 to set up an eight-plant system, said Zeta Ceti, one of iGrow’s “indoor growing technicians.” But in the course of a year, they might only use half of their harvest and be able to sell the remaining 3 pounds for $12,000 to a dispensary.

Link: http://tiny.cc/MS1mU
Source: Hearst Communications Inc.
Author: Matthai Kuruvila

Many dispensary owners say they’re on board with regulations if they give them uniform guidelines and avert a more severe crackdown like one approved this week in Los Angeles. Hundreds of Los Angeles pot shops face closure after the City Council voted Tuesday to cap the number of dispensaries in the city at 70.

The Colorado proposal—before a legislative committee Wednesday—would make it more difficult for recreational pot users to become legal medical marijuana patients. It would bar doctors from working out of dispensaries, make it illegal for them to offer discounts to patients who agree to use a designated dispensary, and require follow-up doctor visits.

Some patients worry it will cost them hundreds of dollars on top of the $90 annual fee they pay to register as a medical marijuana user.

William Chengelis said he can’t get his regular Veterans Administration doctors to sign off on medical marijuana and said buying pot illegally and paying the $100 fine would be cheaper than paying a private doctor for follow-up visits.

“I cannot afford this bill,” Chengelis told lawmakers.

While some advocates see any regulations as a violation of the medical marijuana law passed by voters in 2000, many dispensaries say they welcome the certainty that more regulation would provide.

“We’re saying we really can’t operate without any rules,” said Matt Brown, a medical marijuana patient and leader of a coalition of about 150 dispensaries and over 1,000 patients.

Erik Santos, who operates a dispensary out of an office building in a trendy part of Denver’s downtown section, thinks it makes sense to limit large marijuana growers to industrial areas and keep dispensaries out of residential areas. He wants lawmakers to pass laws now before even more dispensaries open up and prevent those with possible criminal ties from giving the industry a bad name.

Another bill still in the works could set up more regulations on dispensaries and suppliers.

Colorado cities are also looking to lawmakers to pass regulations. Hundreds of dispensaries have popped up across the state—in empty storefronts, office buildings and even a historic movie theater.

Some cities have passed moratoriums on pot shops as they figure out how to regulate them and wait for more guidance from the state. The Denver suburb of Centennial voted to ban dispensaries and close a shop that had already opened, but a court blocked that move.

“Everyone is waiting to see what happens this (legislative) session,” said Mark Radtke, a lobbyist for the Colorado Municipal League.

Colorado already has some rules in place for medical marijuana dispensaries, including prohibiting dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools, day cares and other dispensaries. Felons convicted within the last five years would be barred from running shops. Dispensary owners would have to be licensed, pass a criminal background check and pay a $2,000 application fee along with $3,000 a year to renew licenses.

The rules are set to take effect March 1, although they could change depending on what state lawmakers to decide to do.

Fear that dispensaries would attract crime has been raised by those concerned about the growth of dispensaries. But police in Denver are discounting that.

Police say medical marijuana dispensaries were robbed or burglarized at a lower rate than liquor stores or even banks last year. A memo reported by The Denver Post on Wednesday says they were hit at about the same rate as pharmacies.

Link: http://www.denverpost.com/localpolitics/ci_14279271
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Colleen Slevin, Associated Press Writer
Published: January 27, 2010
Copyright: 2010 The Associated Press

The 9-3 vote drew loud protests from clinic supporters, who plan to challenge it in court, but was also blasted by medical marijuana critics who said allowing any clinics flies in the face of federal law.

“To us it looks like the council has a de facto ban on medical marijuana,” said Kris Hermes, spokesman for the pro-medical marijuana group Americans for Safe Access.

Under the new law, which is expected to be signed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, clinics will be barred from operating within 1,000 feet of sensitive areas, such as parks, schools, libraries and churches.

While cash can be used to purchase marijuana, all sales must be documented and the dispensaries cannot make a profit; they can only recover operating expenses.

Over a several-year period, when a loophole-ridden moratorium on pot clinics was in place, the number of dispensaries in Los Angeles exploded to an estimated 800 to 1,000.

Officials hope the new ordinance can ultimately limit the number to 70 – although the 137 that were approved before the moratorium will be allowed to continue operating. Many of those, however, will likely be forced to move to new locations to meet the new restrictions.

Before it becomes law, the City Council has to approve a fee ordinance, which could take effect up to 60 days after approval.

Villaraigosa has said his concern was that the measure comply with all state laws.

Officials with the Los Angeles Police Department said they are working on a plan to close the shops that were not properly registered, but are hoping for voluntary compliance with the law.

The City Council has been working on the measure for more than three years and has had to deal with multiple versions after City Attorney Carmen Trutanich rejected the original proposals and called for a much tougher measure banning any sales involving marijuana.

Trutanich said he supported the final measure – which was difficult to craft because of the competing arguments.

“With the passage of the ordinance, Los Angeles is taking an important step forward to ensure that seriously ill and deserving patients have reliable access to safe and lawful sources,” Trutanich said in a statement.

Don Duncan, California director of Americans for Safe Access, said the measure represents a bittersweet victory – in that regulations were adopted, but have a wide-ranging impact in closing a number of clinics.

“Although historic, the passage of medical marijuana dispensary regulations by the second-largest city in the country has been undermined by restrictions that threaten to wipe out nearly all of the dispensaries in Los Angeles,” Duncan said.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a supporter of medical marijuana, voted against the measure because he believes it is too stringent. Council members Bernard Parks and Jan Perry also voted against it.

“This is just crazy,” Rosendahl said. “The voters approved medical marijuana and we should make sure it is available to people who need it.”

Clinic operators complained there are not suitable locations available – and that landlords are increasing rents because they know the operators have nowhere else to go.

David Backes, who operates a registered collective in Eagle Rock, said he will be forced to move.

“The closest location is nine miles away in an industrial area,” Backes said. “And the space available is 23,000 square feet. I only have 1,200 square feet now. It’s like moving a store front into an airplane hanger.”

But Councilman Parks, a former Los Angeles police chief, said the measure goes too far in allowing marijuana distribution.

“The last time I looked, it is still a violation of federal law,” Parks said. “As long as the federal government pre-empts states and municipalities, as long as it is listed as a Schedule One drug, I think it will be impossible to tell if it is being sold. As long as we have federal laws, I don’t think this will withstand challenges.”

Barbara Monahan Burke of the Studio City Neighborhood Council questioned if the city will be able to enforce the ordinance.

“You will need to give more money to Building and Safety to hire the inspectors to enforce this,” Burke said. “Every time we ask Building and Safety to do anything, they tell us they don’t have the people to do the job and can’t afford to pay the overtime.”

Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Author: Rick Orlov, Staff Writer
Published: January 26, 2010
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Website: http://www.dailynews.com
Contact: http://www.dailynews.com/writealetter

The vote amounts to a major setback for backers of medical marijuana and a victory for community groups that have long complained about the proliferation of the dispensaries near residential neighborhoods, schools and parks. Los Angeles has more of the outlets than any other city in the states that allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

“These are out of control,” said Councilman Ed Reyes, chairman of the planning and land-use management committee, which oversaw the writing of the ordinance. “Our city has more of these than Starbucks.”

The measure, which passed on a 9-to-3 vote, would impose stringent rules on the location of the dispensaries — essentially moving them to industrial zones — and restrict their hours. The ordinance, which city officials acknowledged would be difficult to enforce, would limit the number of dispensaries at 70 but suggested that even fewer would be permitted if there was not ample space under the new parameters to accommodate them.

The ordinance requires the signature of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa before taking effect, and will require council-approved fees levied on the dispensaries to cover the city’s cost of monitoring.

While medical marijuana use and sale have enjoyed general support throughout the city and among lawmakers, the aggressive proliferation of dispensaries in recent years has tried the patience of even the most liberal of groups.

“I’ve seen enough people come into my committee, and you can see they are hurting,” Mr. Reyes said. “So this is very difficult.”

The meeting was peppered with angry testimony from medical marijuana users, who threatened to run lawmakers out of office, as well as neighborhood association members who worried that enforcement would be lax.

California voters approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes in 1996, and cities across the state have since struggled with how best to regulate the distribution of the drug. Many cities have imposed restrictions on the number and location of dispensaries, and Los Angeles imposed a moratorium about two years ago while the City Council studied the issue. In the meantime, however, hundreds of dispensaries continued to open despite the ban.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Jennifer Steinhauer
Published: January 26, 2010
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa must approve the ordinance for it to take effect. City officials believe it will be at least 45 days before they can enforce the new rules.

Enforcement could be a major effort for the cash-strapped city. No one is exactly sure how many pot clinics there are in Los Angeles – the best estimate is somewhere between 800 and 1,000 – and getting the owners to comply with the ordinance will likely meet resistance.

“I don’t want to say this is an impossible task, but it’s going to take a lot more effort than maybe the city realizes at this point,” said Robert Mikos, a law professor specializing in federalism and crime policy at Vanderbilt University Law School. “Just because the city says, ’stop what you are doing,’ doesn’t mean (dispensary owners) are going to give up easily.”

One possible option for dispensaries is to seek an injunction to stop the city from enforcing its ordinance.

The ordinance calls for spreading the 70 clinics evenly throughout the city with a community districting plan. For instance, the Wilshire area west of downtown would have six clinics – the most under the new law – while places such as free-spirited Venice, with 17 currently, would only have one.

City officials would require dispensaries to be at least 1,000 feet from “sensitive uses” such as schools, parks and other gathering sites. Most clinics would have to relocate, presumably to industrial areas, a move criticized by some medical marijuana advocates who say patients will have to travel long distances to get their medicine.

The number of clinics has exploded. More than 600 have opened over the past 10 months, despite a 2007 city moratorium prohibiting new medical marijuana dispensaries. The shop owners took advantage of a loophole known as a hardship exemption that allowed them to open while awaiting city approval.

More than 180 clinics qualified to remain open because they were established before the ban was enacted. About 137 of those sites still operate and would be allowed to remain open if they meet other requirements in the new ordinance.

City Council members have fumbled with an ordinance for years, trying to come up with language that jibes with state law. Only four dispensaries were open in 2005, when discussions first began.

The outlook for medical marijuana in Los Angeles remains hazy. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley has said he will target pot clinics that profit and sell to people who don’t qualify for medical marijuana.

While the ordinance says no collective can operate for profit, cash and in-kind contributions as well as “reasonable compensation” would be allowed.

The new ordinance follows a recent California Supreme Court decision that struck down a law seeking to impose limits on the amount of marijuana a patient can possess. It also came months before a possible ballot measure seeking the legalization of marijuana in California.

Fourteen states, including California, permit medical marijuana. The drug, however, remains illegal under federal law.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Greg Risling, The Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Copyright: 2010 The Associated Press

This was only a first step toward legislation, but San Mateo police Chief Susan Manheimer quickly described the looming possibility as “mind-boggling.”

John Lovell, speaking for the California Peace Officers Association, said it was “the last thing our society needs.”

It wasn’t hard to envision lawmen up and down the state nodding in agreement.

The viewpoint is understandable.  It is part of the internal wiring of police agencies.  The War on Drugs declared by President Nixon in 1971 has spanned four decades and seven administrations.

The thing is, it has failed.  A far better idea is to legalize and regulate marijuana sales.

There are at least 1,500 current and former law enforcement professionals who agree.  They are members of LEAP ( Law Enforcement Against Prohibition ), who base their opinions on years of experience.

Jack Cole, co-founder of the 8-year-old organization, is a retired New Jersey State Police lieutenant who served 12 of his 26 years on the job as an undercover narcotics cop.  He describes the War on Drugs as “not only a dismal failure but a terribly destructive policy.”

Norm Stamper, former Seattle police chief, used to kick in drug dealers’ doors early in his 34-year career.  His opinion: “It has cost the national treasury obscene amounts of money.  And for what?”

James Gray, an Orange County Superior Court judge for 20 years, remembers sentencing one dealer after another to no perceptible end.  “The closer you get to the issue,” he said, “the more you see we couldn’t do worse if we tried.”

They liken the ban on recreational drugs to Prohibition, when the government’s ill-fated attempt to end the sale of liquor created a lucrative industry for criminals.  Sound familiar?

LEAP has packaged its argument in a convincing 12-minute video ( http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Content&pid=28 ), in which Cole explains that an estimated 1.3 percent of the U.S.  population was addicted to drugs when the Harrison Act, a national anti-drug law, was enacted in 1914.

And 1.3 percent was believed to be addicted when the War on Drugs was unveiled.  And 1.3 percent was addicted when a study was conducted in 2006.

So to sum up the 95-year battle against drugs: Nothing’s changed.

The bootleggers and speak-easies that circumvented Prohibition have been replaced by drug cartels and street dealers.  Far smarter than banning drugs would be government regulation.

“It’s easier for teenagers to get marijuana than alcohol,” Gray said.  “That’s because alcohol is regulated and controlled by the government, and illegal drugs are controlled by drug dealers.  They don’t ask for IDs.”

In addition, dealers often recruit teenagers to sell.  And when they do, they sell to other teens.  “I’ve seen this too many times in juvenile court,” he said.  “I am determined to put an end to it.”

James Anthony, a former Oakland prosecutor and member of LEAP, said the government errs in using a criminal justice approach to remedy a public health problem.  Police should focus on public safety — stopping major crimes — not chasing bags of marijuana.

“I’ve worked closely with a lot of police officers who will admit, off the record, that the approach we’re taking is not working and never will,” Anthony said.

Among the obvious benefits to the proposed Assembly bill:

# Law enforcement resources allocated more wisely and a decline in the prison population.

# State revenues from sales taxes estimated at $1.4 billion.

# An end to the wrangling over medical marijuana.

# Revitalization of the hemp farming industry.

# Deglamorization of marijuana for recreation.

Gray calls the last bullet point the “Holland effect,” noting that legalizing marijuana in The Netherlands has lessened its appeal: Per-capita consumption is only half what it is in the United States.

“They have succeeded in making marijuana boring,” he said.

It would be foolhardy to suggest that change will come without cost.  Even advocates concede there will be an initial uptick in users.  The curious will inhale this opportunity.

Anthony said there might also be a knee-jerk reaction from drug dealers deprived of income.

“If people can’t make a living selling marijuana in the underground market,” he said, “you may see a spike in other crimes of economic opportunity — muggings, car burglaries, that kind of thing.  We have to look at society as a total system.”

Legalization represents a major reversal in policy, but that doesn’t make it bad.  When you find out you’ve been going in the wrong direction, the smart thing is to turn around.

Source: Contra Costa Times (CA)
Contact: ccnletters@bayareanewsgroup.com
Copyright: 2010 Bay Area News Group
Website: http://www.contracostatimes.com/
Author: Tom Barnidge, Contra Costa Times columnist