Legalize it Already

So, all right, we admit it—we at THE STATE are libertarians. Maybe not on everything, but on domestic issues we at THE STATE, and I, as a former Governor, generally take the position of “We/I don’t give a carp.”

That goes for gay marriage too. I/we don’t give a carp what you do in your own home. (That being said, a church whose tenets are opposed to same sex marriage is entirely in their right to refuse to marry such a couple, IMGO.)

Frankly, harsh marijuana laws create more problems than they solve. Consider the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on policing (police officers), adjudicating (judges and lawyers), punishing (the corrections industry), and ensuring compliance (parole and probation officers).

Nationally, America is spending about $42 billion annually in quantifiable costs to stamp out marijuana usage. At an average salary of $47,602, that $42 billion could be used to hire 880,000 new schoolteachers, for example.

Consider the revenue and taxes on that revenue lost when someone who likes to smoke a little marijuana after work is hauled into court or hauled off to jail. FBI statistics reveal that in 2006, there were 829,627 marijuana arrests nationwide. In comparison, there were 611,523 arrests for all violent crimes combined.

Anti-marijuana laws are especially harsh on minorities and the underclass. Consider the welfare payments from the state when already-poverty-stricken daddies are hauled off to jail, leaving yet more single mothers on the welfare rolls.

Consider the tax revenue lost when marijuana users purchase their goods from the black market. After all, most dealers don’t pay taxes on their drug profits.

Consider the boatloads of cash cartels make on marijuana, propelling individuals like cartel boss Joaquin Guzman aka El Chapo into the Forbes 67 richest people in the world.

Consider that legalizing and taxing marijuana could put a huge dent in the massive deficits most of the states are running right now. The marijuana industry generates more than $113 billion annually (according to research conducted in 2007). Even at a 10% tax rate, governments could rake in $11.3 billion annually.

Consider the fact that marijuana laws have not made a dent in our children’s marijuana usage. In fact, because there are no formal controls or laws governing the sale of marijuana, it is much easier for children to obtain marijuana from a dealer than alcohol from a liquor store.

Consider the fact that marijuana dealers are considered outlaws and are therefore more receptive to engage in other black market activities, like firearms possession and cocaine dealing.

Consider the fact that marijuana is probably the least of all evils when compared to all other controlled substances. As New Jersey State Senator Nick Scutari has stated, alcohol is far more dangerous both to the user and to others. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer my children to smoke marijuana over huffing compressed air or spray paint, which, as we heard yesterday, 44% of Americans favor legalization of marijuana. That’s up from 34% in 2001.

Back in the halcyon days when Obama had just taken office, the White House put up an “Ideascale” Web site to gather ideas from citizens to identify ways to “strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness by making government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.” The digital letdown was when many of the top ideas generated by the process were to legalize marijuana. SlashDot

In March of 2009, Obama held his first digital town hall. Legalization of marijuana quickly topped nearly every category of the “Open for Questions” forum.

N.J. $10M marijuana bust brings focus on drug laws that mirror Prohibition
BYLINE: Tom Moran at blog.NJ.com
March 12, 2010, 5:31AM

The Star-Ledger — New Jersey State Police Sgt. 1st Class William Peacock, left, looks at the suspect information board with State Police Lt. Richard Nuel before a press conference announcing the seizure of more than $10 million worth of marijuana and the arrest of two men and a woman involved in a high-tech cultivation operation.

The house at the center of this week’s Big Drug Bust sits next door to Elva Wilson’s home in a rural stretch of Middlesex County.

Police say an ethnic Vietnamese gang secretly grew more than 1,000 marijuana plants in the basement under high-intensity lamps. Three were arrested, and police were still searching for three more.

And yet, Wilson was unfazed. She was cleaning her house Thursday in blue rubber gloves when she was asked about it.
“To me, it’s no big deal,” she said. “We smelled it before, but we thought it was just kids partying.”

Such is the fear that marijuana now strikes in the heart of America. The latest Gallup Poll shows nearly half of all Americans want to legalize the use of marijuana. Close to 100 million have tried it.

And when you look at any objective measure — death, violence, disease and addiction — alcohol ranks as the more dangerous drug of choice by far.

Still, this attempt to stamp out marijuana use through police power goes on, year after year.

Sen. Nicholas Scutari, who serves as a municipal prosecutor in Linden, sees it up close.

“If you talk to my detectives, they’ll tell you they’re just pushing it from one corner to the next,” he says. “Really, we’ve just created a whole lot of crime by making such harsh laws on marijuana.”
The Vietnamese suspects face up to 20 years in state prison. If all six suspects are caught and convicted, the prison time alone would cost New Jersey taxpayers almost $6 million, half that amount if they all win early parole.

This crew was not particularly smart, nor menacing. Police were tipped off when a local officer smelled marijuana, apparently the unusable portions of the plant that the suspects burned in the fireplace. Police found no weapons in the house, or in the other five houses they raided later.

Still, with $10 million worth of pot and $60,000 in cash recovered, no one would have been surprised if weapons had been found. And that does make some of the locals nervous.

“My kids play outside here,” said Jen Moody, another neighbor.
To Ethan Nadelman, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, we are repeating the mistakes of the Prohibition era.

“This bust is going to have no impact on marijuana use,” he said. “There’s not one kid or adult who will not use marijuana because of this.”

We spend $10 billion to $15 billion enforcing marijuana laws each year, he estimates. FBI reports show police arrested more than 800,000 people on marijuana charges last year, 90 percent of them for possession. And yet in surveys, high school students say it is easier to buy pot than alcohol.

In Linden, Scutari sees the steady traffic of marijuana cases and wonders what the point is.

“People can’t imagine not having a drink after work on a Friday,” he says. “And alcohol is a much stronger drug.”

The politics of the drug war remain emotional, but they are clearly shifting towards greater tolerance. Fourteen states, including New Jersey, have legalized marijuana for medical uses, and 14 more are considering it. Several states are considering bills to decriminalize marijuana, and California is poised to put the question to a referendum.

Scutari sponsored medical marijuana law that was approved in January in Trenton. But it was a tough fight, and the law in New Jersey is a strict one that limits use to a small list of severe diseases. Unlike in California, no one will be riding a skateboard to the clinics here.

As for decriminalizing marijuana, Scutari says New Jersey is a long way off.

“Our state is not moving in that direction,” he says. “Down the line, some way, some day, I would think we’ll revisit this.”
In the meantime, it appears the thousands of non-violent drug offenders behind bars in New Jersey Thursday will be joined by a few new recruits. Again, just like Prohibition.

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