Tortoise vs. Hare: Marijuana Legalization Movement
June 17th, 2009 by Rick
Like the slow but persistent tortoise in the race in Aesop’s Fables, the marijuana decriminalization/legalization movement has been faithfully trudging along for more than two decades. Like the careless hare, cocksure and arrogant, the drug warriors have been sleeping at the tree, not overly concerned about crossing the finish line — underestimating the tortoise.
A veteran of the movement, Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance said:
This is the first time I feel like the wind is at my back and not in my face.
Even people within law enforcement have begun to question the war on drugs. Norm Stamper, a former Seattle Police Chief, an active member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) said:
For the most part, what we’ve seen over the past 20 years has been incremental. [...] What we’ve seen in the past six months is an explosion of activity, fresh thinking, bold statements and penetrating questions.
More and more politicians are beginning to seriously question the drug war. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said the issue of legalization needs to be discussed, while former world leaders from Mexico and South America have formed an organization and said that the only way to stop the drug violence crossing borders is to legalize.
More and more states are pursuing a change in their laws that would decriminalize pot, as well as contemplating bills that would allow medical marijuana for registered patients. Congress, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, (D-Ohio) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va) are among several lawmakers that recognize the failed U.S. drug policies.
Sen. Jim Webb said:
Nothing should be off the table.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, during a phone interview commented on the fact of two Presidents of the United States have admitted to smoking marijuana:
Apparently that didn’t stop them from achieving their goals in life. [...] We need to come at this from a point of science and research and not from mythologies or fears.
When lawmakers speak with the drug warriors, they are now more educated on the issue and actually question their tactics and claims. Rep. Steve Cohen, (D-Tenn) grilled FBI Director Robert Mueller at a House hearing last month. When asked about lives being lost to marijuana, Mueller was stumped.
Rep. Steve Cohen said:
Exactly. You can’t, because that hasn’t happened. [...] Is there some time we’re going to see that we ought to prioritize meth, crack, cocaine and heroin, and deal with the drugs that the American culture is really being affected by?
The citizens of this country have voiced their opinions through national polls and the results are disconcerting to the drug warriors, showing that half the American Public is behind legalizing marijuana. Economic experts like, Jeffrey Miron, an economist at Harvard University, have extensively studied the cost and effect of the drug war, claiming that at least $7.7 billion would be saved with law enforcement costs. Additionally, if marijuana was regulated and taxed like alcohol, it could potentially generate more than $6 billion in revenue.
According to a DEA document:
Legalization of marijuana, no matter how it begins, will come at the expense of our children and public safety. [...] It will create dependency and treatment issues, and open the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behavior, and drugged drivers.
Bruce Mirken, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project disagrees:
The notion that we have to keep something completely banned for adults to keep it away from kids doesn’t hold up.
Now in a day and age where once strong American corporations are now declaring bankruptcy and affecting the national economy in a negative impact, can we afford not to pursue every avenue of generating much needed revenue for this country and eliminating the sheer number of incarcerations of non-violent offenders, caused by the war on drugs?
Thomas Jefferson once said:
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
The fact that more and more prominent people within politics and the marijuana movement are speaking up and denouncing the myths and boldfaced lies of the drug war, shows that the people are beginning to shift gears. People have gone from fearing the repercussions from the government to seeing the rewards just on the horizon. It’s just a matter of time before the government will fear its people, and true liberty and the pursuit of happiness is attained.
Marijuana Legalization Mega Debate
May 29th, 2009 by Rick
An assorted group of guests were given a chance to rehash points from the same old tired debate about the legalization of marijuana today. Their forum this time was the New York Times, Freakonomics blog.
In attendance:
- Paul Armentano – Deupity Director from NORML
- Jeffrey Miron – a economics professor from Harvard
- Mike Braun – a former DEA Assistant Administrator
- Joel Hay – a pharmaceutical economics professor @ USC
Hay declared:
There isn’t a shred of scientific evidence that marijuana is safe and effective for any medical condition. [...] THC, the active ingredient of pot, has been approved by the FDA and on the market in capsule form since 1985.
Of course someone that is involved on some level with the pharmaceutical industry would have the audacity to bring up the fact that THC has been put into a pill — perfect for the pill poppin’ nation. The fact that he claims that there isn’t any shred of scientific evidence that marijuana is safe and effective for any medical condition, makes anything else that comes out of this fool’s mouth sound absolutely ridiculous (and he said a mouthful).
Braun, like a typical ex-Fed, plays the “what if” game and dreams up all sorts of scenarios in order to spin the issue his way:
Is the government going to hand out free marijuana to those who can’t afford it? If so, who pays for that?
Here’s a thought: Legalize the fucking plant already and let people grow it at home or in their own backyard. If anyone can legally grow it then you don’t have to worry about people breaking into your home and taking your marijuana because they could do the very same — and that would end this drug becoming used as a currency with open doorways to violence. Then you wouldn’t need to worry about creating some agency to regulate it like a pharmaceutical or hand out “free marijuana.”
Is it O.K with you if the government or corporate America opens a marijuana distribution center in your neighborhood, or should they only establish them in the economically depressed areas of town?
Oh, you mean like how they did with liquor stores, placed on every block of the ghetto? Nothing this man says after that is important because it’s just fear mongering, especially when he implies that black market marijuana is laced with LSD and PCP.
If this right here is the best argument the drug warriors can muster, then they will soon be the way of the dinosaurs. To see what actual logic Miron and Armentano use, read their full commentary at the Freakanomics Forum. Then decide for yourself who makes the stronger argument.
CNN Legalization Debate Redux
May 13th, 2009 by RussThough somewhat discouraged by its recent aborted attempt to have an intelligent discussion about weed, CNN put its ‘A’ team together to see if it could vault to the cable news network lead by presenting a single coherent thought. Led by the glamorous grey-maned Anderson Cooper, the tete-a-tete featured a mismatch for the ages:
Harvard Econ Professor Jeffrey Miron versus Bush-appointed drug czar, John Walters. The exchange resembled something like a debate between Martin Luther King’s unblemished soul, and a moldy sack of russet potatoes. To paraphrase a few of the highlights:
Miron:
Though drinkers have access to very potent types of alcohol, the vast majority drink mild forms and do so responsibly, and that is exactly what we should expect of marijuana users.
Walters:
You just ran a study about students who were killed in an elementary school in Chicago… Marijuana!
Cooper:
Are you implying that marijuana was the cause of these killings that we reported in a completely unrelated and unlinked segment?
Walters:
Listen, it’s very simple. I’ll free associate for a moment: Rape, murder, marijuana. Did you see that? The word marijuana just came out of my mouth right after murder.
Miron:
There’s not a shred of evidence that says that legalizing marijuana would increase violence. It’s prohibition, not marijuana creating the violence. It’s preposterous to say otherwise.
Walters: (drools on self)
$77 Billion Generated by Legalizing Drugs
March 30th, 2009 by RickHarvard Economics Professor Jeffrey Miron was a guest on a CNN show, hosted by Rick Sanchez. Miron claims that a $77 billion revenue would be created by legalizing drugs. Miron breaks it down by saying $44 billion will be saved by not spending the money on police for arrests, judges and prosecutors for all the trials and prisons and prison guards for the incarceration. Another $33 billion would be obtained by tax revenue of legal drugs, like how cigarettes and alcohol are regulated. Miron even says that legalizing and ending the prohibition will reduce the violence crossing the boarder from Mexico.
Sanchez brings up the point that the economy depends on the prisons and the prison system. He asks what would happen to all their jobs and the DEA. Miron then says that jobs shouldn’t be created by forbidding something.
Really? That’s what you’re worried about, the jobs of prison guards and DEA agents? They work in the law enforcement field, they can create programs that transfer those people to work in other government agencies dealing with law enforcement. As far as prison guards losing their jobs, there will still be murders, robberies and all the evil that men do — so prisons will still be needed to incarcerate those individuals committing those acts.
Miron’s viewpoint centers around the fact that if drugs were made into legal goods, then that would shift their underground market appeal. The negative aspects of prohibition like organized crime that create corruption and violence would diminish like it had done when the prohibition on alcohol was lifted.
At the end, Sanchez asks what Miron’s colleagues think of his ideas and wouldn’t people think that he was a stoner. Miron goes on to say that a lot of economists see the unattended consequences of it and realize that a lot of the negative aspects of drugs have come from the drug prohibition.
I’m not sure about legalizing all drugs, but legalizing marijuana would be a step in the right direction and despite what Obama believes, it may just have a chance to ahem… “grow the economy.”
