Marijuana to the Vote

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright March 24, 2010
All Rights Reserved.                                

      "The times they are a-changin’” for the very real possibility of legalizing marijuana in California.  Collecting nearly 700,000 signatures, legalization proponents collected far more than the 433,971 signatures needed for the November ballot-initiative, with a good chance of passing.  A California Field Poll taken last April showed that over 56% of voters favored legalization, a clear shift in public opinion from the early '70s when the last legalization effort failed.  Yesterday’s long-haired antiwar protesters are now today’s neatly quaffed mainstream baby-boomers whose attitudes toward marijuana haven’t changed much from the Hippie-Dippie days when marijuana was associated with a self-destructive counterculture, spurred by youthful revolt against the unpopular Vietnam War.  With their hair cut and working mainstream jobs, today’s baby-boomers demand legalization.

            California’s landmark Prop 215, the Compassionate Use Act, passed by voters [55.6%-44.4%] Nov. 5, 1996, legalized medical marijuana cultivation and use.   Medical marijuana, while fought in some areas for its proliferation of marijuana dispensaries, has been incorporated for 14 years into today’s California culture.  Opponents decry questionable prescriptions and widespread abuse of Prop. 215, designed for so-called legitimate medical necessity.  While detractors cite widespread abuse by physicians and patients alike, namely, prescriptions given copiously without any real medical need, the critique has paved the way for the state to collect the expected hefty sums of tax dollars from legalization, estimated around $2 billion a year.  While not enough to close today’s whopping $20 billion budget deficit, expected taxes from legalization are a welcomed revenue stream. 

            Banned in the U.S. by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, marijuana was falsely categorized as a dangerous narcotic, promoting government propaganda about its dangers to society.  When the1952 Boggs Act and 1956 Narcotics Control Act went into effect, mandatory sentences were imposed on cannabis possession and use, filling state prisons around the country with non-violent drug-related offenders.  An estimated 60% of today’s overcrowded and costly prison populations around the country are filled with drug-related offenders.  Failure to reform marijuana laws is inexcusable, sending states, like California, into insolvency.  Today’s laws don’t discourage cannabis use, only assure that the courts and prisons are clogged with drug-related inmates.  Legalizing marijuana will save state and local governments untold billions in prosecution, court and incarceration costs.

            Marijuana legalization opponents don’t have the same zealotry—or funding—as pro-life groups, when fighting pro-choice or gay marriage legislation.  When California’s Prop 8 or Marriage Protection Act passed Nov. 5, 2008, the Mormon and Christian churches ponied-up over $40 million to ban gay marriage.  Opponents hope for the same drive to kill California’s legalization initiative on November’s ballot.  “The overarching issue is given all the social problems caused by alcohol abuse, all the social and public policy problems caused by pharmaceutical abuse and that tobacco kills—given all those realities, what on earth is the good to be served by adding another mind-altering substance to the array,” said John Lovell, a lobbyist for police and safety associations, making the case of legalization.  Marijuana legalization could very well reduce alcohol,  prescription and illicit drug abuse.

              Lovell thinks the legalization initiative will “sink like a rock in the North Atlantic.”  All recent trends and polling suggest otherwise.  Despite greater availability, California’s 14-year experiment with medical marijuana indicates that pot use hasn’t caused the medical and social problems predicted by opponents.  While there’s controversy about marijuana’s medical benefits, there’s no debate left about the so-called “gateway effect” where marijuana use leads to more dangerous drugs.  Most marijuana users—whether medicinal or recreational—are perfectly content to continue pot smoking without adding other prescription or illicit drugs.  Legalization will be a hot potato in this year’s hotly contested governor’s race, where former Democratic Gov. and current state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown is expected to run against former Ebay CEO Republican Meg Whitman.

            Obsolete marijuana laws have cost California untold billions from unnecessary prosecution, court expenses and incarceration costs.  Unknown costs to individuals, families and society from the criminal justice system are incalculable. Medical marijuana critics are correct that there’s some questionable clinical value to cannabis use, prompting the current move to legalize and tax.  Since Prop 215 passed in 1996, there’s been ample time to study the effects of medical marijuana in terms of increased use and adverse side effects.  Unlike alcohol, prescription and illicit drugs, marijuana use remains relatively safe, showing few, if any, adverse effects on individuals or society.  Since marijuana use remains constant, legalization should help break the illegal drug trade, save the state untold billions in wasteful prosecution and incarceration expenses and generate billions in new tax revenues.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.