Drug WarRant

There’s been a lot going on with Prop 19 — it gets hard to keep up at times.

Peter Bensinger wrote a letter trying to convince people that marijuana impairment lasts over 24 hours. Cully Stimson, instead of slinking away in embarrassment and disgrace after his last absurd attempt, actually tried again and was once more soundly dismantled. Los Angeles Sheriff Baca publicly announced his intention to break his oath of office. Mark Kleiman, in some kind of bizarre attempt to avoid any personal responsibility for the policies he promotes, reiterated his likely intention to attempt to vote with the losing side.

However, there’s even more good stuff happening on the positive side of Prop 19, including some wonderful endorsements (although one of those below is generally spun a different way…)

• Peter Lewis kicked in over $200,000 to join some other big donations for Prop 19.
• Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders called for an end to marijuana prohibition.
• Surprising positive news from the feds. Attorney General Eric Holder likes Prop 19 so much he said that if people would vote for it, he’d have the federal government take over all marijuana arrests and prosecutions in California, potentially saving the state millions of dollars.
• San Diego Citybeat had the most entertaining media endorsement in the state regarding Prop 19, and yes, they’re for it!
  

  And, yes, we also disclose that legalization will a) help CityBeat’s bottom line—and consequently allow us to serve you better—and b) make our nights and weekends way more fun. For those who value personal liberty, yes on 19 is the only moral vote.

• And now, the mothers join in… Tomorrow (Tuesday) at 10:30 am, a group of mothers will be at West Hollywood Park to announce their support for Proposition 19. This is a critical subset of voters, and it’s great to have them on our side. It’s so important that they understand that it’s criminalization that puts kids in danger, not legalization.

If you’re a mother and would like to make your voice heard, sign on to the letter here

To the Voters of California:

As mothers, we treasure, nurture, and protect our kids, and, as mothers, we support Proposition 19, to control and tax cannabis in California.

The prohibition of cannabis has been an abject failure. These days, it’s easier for our kids to buy illegal cannabis than legal and age-regulated alcohol, because street dealers don’t ask our kids for ID. Proposition 19 will make it harder for kids to get access to cannabis, by taking it out of the shadows and off the streets and controlling it like alcohol.

Proposition 19 will cut off funding to the murderous drug cartels that make 60 percent of their revenues off the illegal sales of marijuana in the United States. The revenues that now go to criminals will be captured in the form of taxes and fees and these new public funds could be used to shore up our struggling schools, hospitals, and other important public services. Meanwhile, the massive resources—to the tune of $300 million a year—spent on marijuana enforcement in California today could be redirected to fighting violent crime in our neighborhoods and communities.

Proposition 19 will keep our streets and highways safe by maintaining strict criminal penalties for those caught driving under the influence of cannabis. In addition, Proposition 19 bans smoking marijuana on school grounds, in public, and while minors are present.

Criminalizing marijuana does not deter kids, and the array of consequences stemming from arrests is damaging to future education, employment, and other prospects. We advocate using public education and other tools instead. According to the American Lung Association, U.S. consumption of tobacco has declined by more than 100 billion cigarettes over the past decade. That dramatic decline in smoking is due to education and taxation, not incarceration. Moreover, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office reports that it costs an average of $47,000 per year to incarcerate an inmate in prison in California, which is the equivalent of tuition and fees for nine students at California State University.

As mothers, we believe it’s time to end California’s failed war on cannabis, enable responsible adults to consume small amounts of cannabis in private, and keep cannabis away from our kids by controlling it and taxing it like alcohol.

California voters should vote Yes on Proposition 19 on November 2nd.

The Gala and Hall of Fame on which I was working so hard both came off very well this weekend, and now I’m taking a day to sleep it off.

What have I missed?

Eric Holder To Prosecute Distribution, Possession If Prop. 19 Passes

SAN FRANCISCO — Attorney General Eric Holder is warning that the federal government will not look the other way, as it has with medical marijuana, if voters next month make California the first state to legalize pot.

Marijuana is illegal under federal law, which drug agents will “vigorously enforce” against anyone carrying, growing or selling it, Holder said.

This is an open thread.

Pretty impressive list.

To the Voters of California:

As law professors at many law schools who focus on various areas of legal scholarship, we write this open letter to encourage a wholesale rethinking of marijuana policy in this country, and to endorse the Tax and Control Cannabis 2010 initiative—Proposition 19—that will be voted on in November in California.

For decades, our country has pursued a wasteful and ineffective policy of marijuana prohibition. As with alcohol prohibition, this approach has failed to control marijuana, and left its trade in the hands of an unregulated and increasingly violent black market. At the same time, marijuana prohibition has clogged California’s courts alone with tens of thousands of non-violent marijuana offenders each year. Yet marijuana remains as available as ever, with teens reporting that it is easier for them to buy than alcohol across the country.

Proposition 19 would remove criminal penalties for private use and cultivation of small amounts of marijuana by adults and allow California localities to adopt—if they choose—measures to regulate commerce in marijuana. Passage of Proposition 19 would be an important next step toward adopting an approach more grounded in reason, for California and beyond.

Our communities would be better served if the criminal justice resources we currently spend to investigate, arrest, and prosecute people for marijuana offenses each year were redirected toward addressing unsolved violent crimes. In short, the present policy is causing more harm than good, and is eroding respect for the law.

Moreover, we are deeply troubled by the consistent and dramatic reports of disproportionate enforcement of marijuana laws against young people of color. Marijuana laws were forged in racism, and have been demonstrated to be inconsistently and unfairly applied since their inception. These are independent reasons for their repeal.

Especially in the current economic climate, we must evaluate the efficacy of expensive government programs and make responsible decisions about the use of state resources. We find the present policies toward marijuana to be bankrupt, and urge their rethinking.

This country has an example of a path from prohibition. Alcohol is subject to a regulatory framework that is far safer in every respect than the days of Al Capone. Just like the State of New York did when it rolled back Prohibition 10 years before the nation as a whole, California should show leadership and restore respect for the law by enacting the Tax and Control Cannabis 2010 initiative this November.

So if they’re not so sure they should accept the vote of the people, then, as Paul notes, where is the validity in their election?

Heck, with Prop 19, voters are given a real choice. They can accept the proposition or reject it. With the Attorney General race, they only have a fake choice — they have to pick one of the candidates and aren’t allowed to reject them (I’ve always been a big fan of adding “none of the above” to ballots). That means that if Prop 19 passes, it is more likely the will of the people than the Attorney General’s victory.

At the end of the article, Paul Armentano asks:

Which ultimately brings up the question: If a government’s legitimate use of state power is based on the consent of the governed, then at what point does marijuana prohibition — in particular the federal enforcement of prohibition — become illegitimate public policy? Ready or not, California’s next attorney general needs to be able to answer that question objectively and definitively.

Oo, oo, I know the answer. Pick me! Pick me!

We done passed that point a long time ago…

It’s no longer in the rear view mirror…

We passed it so long ago it’s in a different time zone….

That point’s so old its clothes have gone out of style…

Oh, look! There it goes again — we just lapped it!…

I looked back with my telescope for it, but all I could see was the redshift….

We believe that legalizing marijuana in California would effectively eliminate Mexican DTOs’ revenues from supplying Mexican-grown marijuana to the California market. As we elaborate in this chapter, even with taxes, legally produced marijuana would likely cost no more than would illegal marijuana from Mexico and would cost less than half as much per unit of THC (Kilmer, Caulkins, Pacula, et al., 2010). Thus, the needs of the California market would be supplied by the new legal industry. While, in theory, some DTO employees might choose to work in the legal marijuana industry, they would not be able to generate unusual profits, nor be able to draw on talents that are particular to a criminal organization.

Jon Walker has the true story of the newest Rand report, and how some of the intellectually dishonest “academics” at Rand are trying to spin it.

They use the worst argument fallacies imaginable. The government comes out and says that 60% of the cartels’ income is from marijuana. Legalizers say that legalizing will hurt the cartels (true) and mention the government’s numbers. Rand comes out and says that the government was lying through its teeth, but they don’t really know for sure what the real numbers are, but probably lower, and therefore the legalizers’ argument for legalization is supposedly weakened. And yet they admit that the legalizers’ core argument is true (that legalization will hurt the cartels – see above). Then they word their press release in such a way that they know the newspapers will report it as a blow to Prop 19.

The fact is that Prop 19 will be the first blow of many to the profits of the cartels, and it will be significant.

I think most of you are aware that I have a day job (I don’t actually make any money blogging) that I really enjoy. Sometimes that intrudes on my ability to do much blogging.

Now is one of those times.

I am Executive Producer of a formal Gala being done in a 20,000 square-foot ballroom, with 600 attendees paying $75 each, and over 300 performers, two stages, a sword-fight going down the center aisle between the tables, two dance numbers (one with live accompaniment), two vocal ensembles, actors, a jazz band, a string quartet, a brass quintet, a guitarist, a pianist, live video feeds, a live projected data visualization, video collage, art exhibits, art sales… and a complete marching band. It’s this Saturday.

Additionally, I’m programming all the content for an interactive touch-screen Hall of Fame that will have pictures, text, video, and audio clips for 23 inductees in the inaugural class. That will be unveiled Friday.

So I might be a little bit slow in updating this blog.

Just sayin’

This is an open thread.

Mary Anastasia O’Grady is one of the bright lights in the media in actually understanding and discussing the economics of prohibition. She has an outstanding OpEd today in the Wall Street Journal: The Economics of Drug Violence: Competition in the narcotics trade is preferable to monopolistic syndicates.

It’s a very insightful article about the drug violence in Mexico and how it relates to policies in the U.S., as well as our new understanding of Colombia (she nails former DEA head Bonner).

I also enjoyed her apt description of the challenges of Prop 19:

The combination of conservatives who fear that legalization would transform us into a hash-happy heap of hippies, drug warriors who make a living off of the criminalization of pot smoking, and gangsters whose profits are tied up in prohibition could be enough to defeat it by a narrow margin.

We’ve been talking a lot about Proposition 19 here recently. That certainly doesn’t mean that it’s all we care about. It’s just particularly timely, and has real significance.

I don’t know if Prop 19 will pass or not. I feel quite optimistic about it (although that feeling certainly has failed me before). And I’m going to do what I can to try to help it along in these final days. In 23 days, we’ll know.

And just in case you weren’t sure how this would affect Drug WarRant…

• If Proposition 19 passes…
  … the drug war will still be going on, and we’ll have work to do here.
• If Proposition 19 doesn’t pass…
  … the drug war will still be going on, and we’ll have work to do here.

Via David Borden, an animated Taiwanese news report on Prop 19 with English subtitles, illustrating some of the arguments on both sides.

As Borden notes, if you’re not a west-coaster, you may need to be reminded that the bear is a symbol of California.

A good Sunday read: How to profit by expanding freedom by Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune.

Substance abuse is known to impair clear thinking and good judgment. But it’s the people pushing harsh drug laws who seem to be lost in a fog.

A frustrating article from the People’s Daily Online. Int’l community urged to join hands in addressing drugs problem

Consider the source, of course, but still — it’s a bit depressing reading this article and seeing the representatives of country after country, under the guidance of the UNODC, essentially come out and say: “The drug war is a destructive failure, so we all need to band together and have more drug war!”

Mid-Coast Forum on Foreign Relations has guest speaker Ira Glasser: The War on the War on Drugs. We don’t as often get to hear extended talks on this subject, so this is a nice opportunity.

You can listen to the entire one hour presentation. (I haven’t heard it all yet)

Ira is former Executive Director of the ACLU, and is now Board President of the Drug Policy Alliance.

He nicely starts out the talk by going over the lessons of alcohol prohibition.

ICSDP Report on US Government Data on Cannabis Prohibition, set to music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FORm4aq9dzU

Oh, this looks like fun. Students to Rally with Yes We Cannabis Fire Truck to Sound Alarm For Prop 19

This is an Open Thread