With a historic marijuana legalization initiative certified for
November's general election, California is ground zero for a
growing national debate. No matter what you think about
regulating marijuana for adult consumption, brace yourself for a
blast of alarmist hot air from the drug war status quo, a
nine-month onslaught of distortions, half-truths and real
whoppers. Marijuana offenses account for over half of all drug
arrests nationwide. No wonder the law enforcement lobby is
furiously digging in its heels at the prospect of "losing
marijuana." Here are three commonsense reasons to dump decades
of failed marijuana prohibition. (Spoiler alert: Billions of
dollars in new state revenue isn't one of them. That's just
gravy.)
1. Regulation will help bring marijuana distribution under the
rule of law.
Proponents for maintaining the marijuana ban claim that
legalization would aid criminal markets. But it's prohibition
that has ceded control to the black market; legalization and
regulation would mean the opposite. Ending marijuana prohibition
means ending the current state of chaos and implementing real
controls on who has access to marijuana when and where.
Whether we like it or not, marijuana is a mainstream
recreational drug and famously California's largest cash crop.
Prohibiting a commodity that popular has simply fueled a
massive, increasingly brutal underground economy. Criminal
syndicates in Mexico reportedly derive at least 60% of their
profits from marijuana sales alone. The horrifying carnage
that's claimed 15,000 Mexican lives in three years isn't about
drugs, of course, but the drug profits guaranteed by
prohibition. While regulating marijuana in California won't
single-handedly solve the problem, bringing the market for
marijuana into the open will undermine the Al Capones and Pablo
Escobars of today by ending the monopoly they currently enjoy
over their most lucrative product.
2. Marijuana use has little to do with marijuana laws.
Drug warriors paint a dire picture of skyrocketing marijuana
consumption, especially among young people, if the prohibition
on adult use ended. But marijuana use isn't primarily impacted
by criminal penalties. The U.S. has the highest rates of
marijuana consumption in the Western world despite by far the
most severe penalties. Among a stack of international studies of
this question, the 2004 findings of the American Journal of
Public Health "do not support claims that criminalization
reduces cannabis use and that decriminalization increases
cannabis use."
Adults consume marijuana in huge numbers regardless of its
illegality, and American high school students consistently
report marijuana is actually easier to buy than alcohol or
tobacco. Nearly three times as many American teens under 15 have
tried marijuana as teens in the Netherlands, where marijuana is
openly sold to adults in coffee shops. Marijuana regulation
lowers youth access, separates marijuana from harder drugs, and
helps "make marijuana boring" to kids.
3. Regulation will make marijuana safer than ever.
Get ready for "Reefer Madness" 2.0 as drug warriors try to
confuse an increasingly savvy electorate about the harms of
marijuana. Since it's now so widely consumed, many people
understand that marijuana is safer than alcohol or cigarettes
and are increasingly skeptical of laws that treat them so
differently. Science backs them up. Marijuana is far less
addictive and typically consumed in much smaller amounts. It's
impossible to die of a marijuana overdose. Crucially, marijuana
lacks alcohol's noxious association with violence, accidents and
reckless sexual behavior.
Reports that today's marijuana is more potent are often wildly
exaggerated, and potency isn't even related to addiction or
other health impacts. Nevertheless, the issue of what's in
marijuana argues for regulation not against. Marijuana is
consumed by nearly one in ten Californians annually. What
they're consuming is of widely varying quality and may contain
pesticides, contaminants, and unsafe adulterants. Regulation
would provide a framework to control potency, provide for
labeling and prohibit dangerous additives. Not only does
prohibition provide no such protections, it drives consumers
underground where the buyer must truly beware.
Advocates of a mythical "drug free" world may want to put the
genie back in the bottle, but we simply can't pretend, ignore or
arrest our way out of today's realities. As this country learned
by banning alcohol sales in the 1920s and '30s, prohibition of a
widely popular commodity will never work. Marijuana prohibition
causes more social harm than good in the form of mass arrests,
wasted criminal justice resources, out-of-control youth access,
and unregulated products consumed by millions. It's time to
regulate adult use of marijuana once and for all.
Stephen
Gutwillig is the California state director of the
Drug Policy Alliance.