Marijuana Legalization

A solid majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, either with or without taxes and regulations similar to those imposed on alcoholic beverages, according to a new survey conducted by YouGov for The Huffington Post.

The poll found that 51 percent of adults support legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol, while another 8 percent support legalizing pot but don’t want it taxed and regulated like alcohol. Only 26 percent of respondents said that marijuana should not be legalized, and another 15 percent said they weren’t sure.

Support for allowing doctors to prescribe medical marijuana for their patients was even higher than support for legalizing marijuana. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they either somewhat or strongly favored permitting doctors to prescribe small amounts of pot, and 23 percent said they were opposed. Support was highest among people aged 45 to 64 — 74 percent of whom said they favored allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana — and lowest among younger adults — only 56 percent of whom favored it.

Most other polls have found lower percentages of Americans in favor of legalizing marijuana, although they have shown a trend toward support and a few have found a majority in support. A Gallup poll released a year ago showed a bare 50 percent majority support for marijuana legalization. But a Public Religion Institute survey conducted this September found more opposed to than in favor of legalizing it. Other surveys last year, such as those by CBS News and Pew Research Center, also found higher levels of opposition than support.

The difference in the results from the HuffPost/YouGov survey and other polls may be partly explained by their methodologies. While most of the other polls used live interviewers over the phone, the HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted online.

Differences in question wording may also be part of the explanation. Whereas most surveys have asked only whether respondents favored or opposed marijuana legalization, the HuffPost survey offered a third option of legalizing pot and then taxing and regulating like alcohol. That option may have garnered support from those inclined to favor legalization but concerned about the consequences, for example, when young people smoke it or when individuals use marijuana and then drive a car.

In the HuffPost/YouGov survey, support for legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana was steady across age groups, ranging from a low of 49 percent among those between ages 45 and 64 (roughly the Baby Boom generation) to 53 percent among those age 65 and older, with younger groups falling in between. Support for legalizing without taxes and regulations showed more variation. Those under age 29 and between ages 45 and 64 were most likely to support legalization pure and simple — 9 percent and 13 percent, respectively — while those between ages 30 and 44 and those age 65 and older were less likely to support it — 5 percent and 3 percent, respectively. Those age 65 and older were most likely to oppose legalizing marijuana altogether, with 38 percent saying no.

The poll found more variation among people of different political parties. Sixty-four percent of Democrats, 41 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of independents said they supported legalization with taxes and regulations. Eleven percent of independents, 6 percent of Republicans and 5 percent of Democrats supported legalization without regulations. Overall, opposition was highest among Republicans, but even so, more Republicans favored one of the two legalization options (47 percent) than opposed legalization entirely (44 percent).

More respondents supported some form of legalization than said they had used pot themselves. A majority (54 percent) said they had never used the drug, while 38 percent said they had. Eight percent preferred not to say. Marijuana use was higher among male than female respondents. Forty-five percent of men said they had used marijuana in their lifetime, and 44 percent said they had not. By contrast, 33 percent of women said they had used marijuana, and 62 percent said they had not.

The HuffPost/YouGov survey was conducted online on Oct. 23 among 1,000 U.S. adults and has a 4.2 percentage point margin of error. It used a sample drawn from YouGov’s opt-in online panel that was selected to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. Factors considered include age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children, voter registration, time and location of Internet access, interest in politics, religion, and church attendance.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Emily Swanson
Published: October 24, 2012
Copyright: 2012 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

On a Monday teleconference call, former Drug Enforcement Agency administrators and directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy voiced a strong reminder to the U.S. Department of Justice that even if voters in Colorado, Oregon and Washington pass ballot measures to legalize marijuana use for adults and tax its sale, the legalization of marijuana still violates federal law and the passage of these measures could trigger a “Constitutional showdown.”

The goal of the call was clearly to put more pressure on Attorney General Eric Holder to make a public statement in opposition to these measures. With less than 30 days before Election Day, the DOJ has yet to announce its enforcement intentions regarding the ballot measures that, if passed, could end marijuana prohibition in each state.

“Next month in Colorado, Oregon and Washington states, voters will vote on legalizing marijuana,” Peter Bensinger, the moderater of the call and former administrator of the DEA during President Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations, began the call. “Federal law, the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court decisions say that this cannot be done because federal law preempts state law.”

Bensinger added: “And there is a bigger danger that touches every one of us — legalizing marijuana threatens public health and safety. In states that have legalized medical marijuana, drug driving arrests, accidents, and drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed. Drug treatment admissions are up and the number of teens using this gateway drug is up dramatically.”

Bensinger was joined by a host of speakers including Bill Bennet and John Walters, former directors of the While House Office of National Drug Control Policy; Chief Richard Beary of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP); Dr. Robert L. DuPont, founding director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and who was also representing the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and several others.

In response to the drug warriors calling out Holder again to take a strong public stance against these marijuana legalization measures, Mason Tvert, co-director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the group behind Colorado’s Amendment 64 said to The Huffington Post:

We believe anything claimed by participants on the call today needs to be taken with many grains of salt. These people have made a living off marijuana prohibition and the laws that keep this relatively benign substance illegal. The nation wastes billions of taxpayer dollars annually on the failed policy of marijuana prohibition and people like Bill Bennett and John Walters are among the biggest cheerleaders for wasting billions more. The call today should be taken as seriously as an event by former coal industry CEOs opposing legislation curtailing greenhouse gas emissions. They are stuck in a certain mindset and no level of evidence demonstrating the weakness of their position will change their views.

This is an election about Colorado law and whether the people of Colorado believe that we should continue wasting law enforcement resources to maintain the failed policy of marijuana prohibition. Our nation was founded upon the idea that states would be free to determine their own policies on matters not delegated to the federal government. The Controlled Substance Act itself acknowledges that Congress never intended to have the federal government fully ‘occupy the field’ of marijuana policy. We hope the Obama administration respects these state-based policy debates. If Amendment 64 is adopted by the people of Colorado, there will be sufficient time before any new businesses are established for state and federal officials to discuss the implications.

Today’s call elaborated on a September letter that nine former DEA heads sent to Holder strongly urging him to oppose Amendment 64 in Colorado, Initiative 502 in Washington and Measure 80 in Oregon. “To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives,” the nine said in the letter to holder obtained by Reuters.

A month before the 2010 election in California, Holder vowed to “vigorously enforce” federal marijuana laws and warned that the government would not look the other way and allow a state marijuana market to emerge. California’s Proposition 19 was narrowly defeated in 2010 and the pressure is on Holder again to voice opposition to these 2012 measures.

When pressed by a reporter during a Q & A following the call if the group was at all surprised that Holder had not yet made a statement about the measures, former drug czar John Walters replied, “I think it’s shocking. All you have to do is say things that this administration has already said. It would help enormously and I think it would defeat these measures.”

Both Colorado and Washington’s pot ballot measures are quite popular with voters, according to recent polling and have been backed by an increasingly diverse group across a range of ideological perspectives.

In Colorado, if marijuana is legalized it would be taxed and regulated similar to alcohol and tobacco. It would give state and local governments the ability to control and tax the sale of small amounts of marijuana to adults age 21 and older. According to the Associated Press, analysts project that that tax revenue could generate somewhere between $5 million and $22 million a year in the state. An economist whose study was funded by a pro-pot group projects as much as a $60 million boost by 2017.

Amendment 64 has received support from both Democrats and Republicans in Colorado, the NAACP, former cops and other members of the law enforcement community as well as more than 300 Colorado physicians andmore than 100 professors from around the nation. The measure appears to be popular among Colorado voters with several recent state polls showing wide support.

In Washington, a 25 percent excise tax would be in place if the state passes Initiative 502, which state revenue experts say could generate as much as $1.9 billion over the next five years, The Seattle Times reported. If passed, the initiative would allow adults 21 and older to buy up limited amounts of marijuana or marijuana-infused food products and would create state-licensed growers and retailers.

The Associated Press reports that if Washington’s I-502 passes:

• Public use or display of marijuana would be barred.

• No marijuana facilities could be located near schools, day cares, parks or libraries.

• Employers would still be able to fire workers who test positive for pot.

• It would remain illegal to privately grow marijuana for recreational use, though medical patients could still grow their own or designate someone to grow it for them.

• It would be illegal to drive with more than 5 nanograms of THC, the active ingredient of cannabis, per milliliter of blood, if the driver is over 21; for those under 21, there would be a zero tolerance policy.

This is the second time that Colorado voters will decide on pot legislation — state voters considered and rejected a similar recreational pot legalization initiative in 2006.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Matt Ferner
Published: October 15, 2012
Copyright: 2012 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

I-502 is not pro-pot

Back in the late 1980s, I agreed to be the anonymous “responsible businessman who supports drug law reform” guest on Jim French’s KIRO radio show.  My pseudonym: Jerry.  My stance: Our society would be better off by taking the crime out of the marijuana equation.  Back then, it felt risky to use my own name when talking drug policy.  The next day, I was walking through Edmonds, out for my morning cup of coffee.  Someone I didn’t know drove by, rolled down their window, and hollered, “Hey, Jerry…right on!”

About twenty-five years later, I was more comfortable publicly owning my role as an advocate for rethinking our society’s approach to marijuana laws.

By this time, I was a board member of NORML ( the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ) and had started giving talks around town on why we should learn from the Europeans and, rather than lock up pot smokers, embrace a “pragmatic harm reduction” approach that treats drug abuse as a health and educational challenge.

One evening, a police sergeant whom I consider a friend asked me, “Why are you so committed to this? You and your friends could smoke pot with discretion all you want, and no one’s going to bother you.”

Only then did I realize why I was so committed to drug policy reform.

Well-off white guys in the suburbs can smoke pot.  But the majority of the 800,000 people arrested in the USA on marijuana charges this year ( and the 9,000 people arrested in Washington State ) were poor and/or people of color.  Some have dubbed the war on drugs “the New Jim Crow.”

Marijuana use-and how we deal with it-is a serious, expensive, and persistent challenge in our society.  And it’s time for a new approach.  That’s why I am co-sponsoring Initiative 502, which will legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, allowing adults to buy up to one ounce from state-licensed stores ( much like the liquor store model ).

I-502 keeps marijuana illegal for those under 21 ( as we are committed to keeping marijuana away from young people ).  It comes with strict DUI provisions ( as we believe anyone driving intoxicated-with anything-should have the book thrown at them ).

And it calls for taxes on the legal sale of marijuana, which will raise ( according to government estimates ) $500 million a year for our state ( about $200 million for our general fund and about $300 million for health care and drug abuse prevention work ).

I-502 is not “pro-pot.” ( Most of its sponsors and supporters don’t even smoke marijuana.  ) Rather, it is anti-prohibition.

We believe that, like the laws that criminalized alcohol back in the 1930s, our current laws against marijuana use are causing more harm to our society than the drug itself.

Marijuana is a drug.  It’s not good for you.  It can be addictive.  But its use is a reality, and no amount of wishing will bring us a utopian “drug-free society.”

Marijuana is a huge underground business in our state-some experts estimate that it’s our second biggest crop, after apples.  Untold billions of untaxed dollars are enriching gangs and empowering organized crime.  And tens of thousands have died in Mexico because of the illegal drug trade in the USA.

Facing this challenge, we believe the safest approach is to bring cannabis out of the black market and regulate it.

I-502 is a smart law.  It has been endorsed by the NAACP; the Children’s Alliance ( representing about a hundred social service organizations in Washington State, including Catholic Community Services and the Boys and Girls Clubs of King County ); the mayors of Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham, and Kirkland; the entire Seattle City Council; Seattle City Attorney Peter Holmes; former federal prosecutor John McKay; current King County Sheriff Steve Strachan ( and his opponent in the upcoming election ); many of our state senators and representatives ( including Mary Helen Roberts, who represents my town, Edmonds, in Olympia ); the editorial boards of The Seattle Times, The Olympian, The Columbian, and The Spokesman-Review; and many other caring people and organizations who have studied this issue.

Most arguments against I-502 are based on the assumption that more people will smoke pot if the law passes.  Some opponents seem to believe that there’s a huge reservoir of people wishing they could ruin their lives smoking pot, if only it were legal.

I believe most people who want to smoke pot already do, and consumption won’t change substantially if I-502 becomes law.  Surveying societies that have decriminalized marijuana, there appears to be no evidence that marijuana use goes up with decriminalization.

For example, in the Netherlands-which is famous for its relaxed marijuana laws-per capita cannabis use is about on par with the US, and use among young people is actually lower than in the US.

Many say marijuana itself isn’t so bad, but it’s dangerous as a gateway drug-”one toke and you’re on your way to heroin addiction.” European societies have learned that the only thing “gateway” about marijuana is its illegality.

When it’s illegal, you have to buy it from criminals on the street who have a vested interest in getting you hooked on something more profitable and more addictive.

In 2001, faced with a troublesome spike in hard drug abuse in their society, Portugal decriminalized the consumption of all drugs.

Ten years later, according to Portuguese government statistics, marijuana use had not gone up ( in fact, cannabis use among Portuguese young adults is about half the European average ), while their hard drug-addicted population has been reduced by half.

Most importantly, drug-related crime is down, freeing up Portuguese law enforcement to focus on other priorities.  And remaining hard drug users see the government as an ally in beating their addiction rather than an enemy out to arrest them.

Many worry about safety on the roads if marijuana is legalized.  Of the 17 states with provisions for medical marijuana, there has been no evidence of an increase in DUI cases involving cannabis.

But just to be sure, I-502 comes with very strict and specific DUI provisions.

And some are concerned that if we legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, the federal government will override the will of the people of Washington State.

No one knows for sure how the feds will react.  But our country was designed for states to be the incubators of change.  And, in the case of drug policy, there will be no change that doesn’t come from the states.

After all, it was individual states that defied the federal government and made possible the end of alcohol prohibition in the 1930s.  Since the 1990s, individual states ( currently 17 ) have allowed patients to use medicinal marijuana in direct opposition to federal law.  And, when strict parameters are set and followed, the feds have generally stayed out.

I-502 is just taking this to the next stage in a natural evolution of how our society views the challenges of marijuana-both keeping it away from young people, and regulating its responsible adult recreational use.  At the same time, it promises to replace a huge underground industry with a carefully regulated and taxed one.

There are so many reasons to end the prohibition on marijuana.  Whether you’re concerned about the well-being of children, fairness for our minority communities, redirecting money away from criminals and into our state’s coffers, stemming the horrific bloodshed in Mexico, or civil liberties, it is clearly time for a new approach.

When assessing the best way for our society to deal with the challenge of marijuana use, we need to be realistic.

There has never been a drug-free society in the history of humankind.  Marijuana is here to stay.  That’s the reality.  Rather than being hard on drugs or soft on drugs, with I-502 we can finally be smart on drugs.  Please vote yes on I-502.

Source: Edmonds Beacon (WA)
Copyright: 2012 Edmonds Beacon
Contact: 806 5th Street, Mukilteo, WA 98275
Website: http://edmondsbeacon.villagesoup.com/
Author: Rick Steves

The question for voters is not whether marijuana is good. It is whether prohibition is good. It is whether the people who use marijuana shall be subject to arrest, and whether the people who supply them shall be sent to prison. The question is whether the war on marijuana is worth what it costs. Initiative 502 says no.

If marijuana killed people, or if smoking it made people commit violence and mayhem, prohibition might be worth all its bad effects. But marijuana does not kill people; there is no lethal dose. Marijuana befuddles the mind and stimulates the appetite, but it does not make people commit arson and brigandage.

Some people abuse it, just as with alcohol, but cannabis is less of a social problem than liquor, wine and beer. And society manages those as legal, commercial products.

What would legal marijuana be like? Consider what has happened in Seattle. The city has become a sanctuary for medical marijuana, with aboveboard dispensaries. Recreational marijuana is readily available in Seattle on the illicit market, and users of small amounts are no longer prosecuted. For several years, recreational marijuana has effectively been decriminalized in Seattle, and there has been no upsurge in crime or road deaths from it.

But even in Seattle, recreational marijuana is still supplied by criminals — by definition. Prohibition creates criminals. In the 1920s, when alcohol was banned nationwide, alcohol money fed Chicago gangster Al Capone just as marijuana money feeds the Mexican gangs now.

Says former U.S. Attorney John McKay, who battled the gangs while in office and supports 502 now, “The enormous demand for marijuana in the face of criminal penalties, which has been in existence for 70 years, is spinning off enormous profits for drug cartels, for gangs, for drug dealers.”

Initiative 502 aims to take the marijuana business out of the hands of gangs. That is what legalizing alcohol did in the 1930s. Alcohol was still an intoxicant, and still dangerous. But at least spirits, wine and beer were produced in businesses that were open for inspection and had to follow the law.

The producer bought insurance and could be sued. Its product was uniform and had the company’s name on it. The executives were members of the community, and they did not shoot each other. Alcohol was sold in establishments that carded buyers who looked to be under 21, on pain of losing a valuable state license.

Parents may ask whether I-502 will make marijuana more available to their teenage children. The answer is to compare marijuana with beer. For teenagers, both are illegal — and available. But which is more easily available, the one that is banned or the one that is regulated? For more than 40 years, the one more easily available to teenagers has been the one that is banned.

Marijuana prohibition does not work. The better policy is to legalize it, license it, regulate it and tax it.

The Times editorial board supports Initiative 502 as a big step in that direction. We present some of our other reasons on this page.

Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Published: September 23, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/