A New Bill in California Calls For Legalizing Marijuana
A California State Assemblyman has introduced a bill to legalize and tax marijuana; not just for medical purposes but for any purposes consumers might want it for. An idea whose time has apparently come but is it a good one?
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano said “I know the jokes are going to be coming, but this is not a frivolous issue,” said Ammiano, a Democrat elected in November after more than a dozen years as a San Francisco supervisor. “California always takes the lead — on gay marriage, the sanctuary movement, medical marijuana.” The Assemblyman says it is time to reap some state revenue from that harvest while putting a damper on drug use by teens, and cutting police and prison costs. California’s pot crop is a $14-billion industry, putting it above vegetables ($5.7 billion) and grapes ($2.6 billion). That could mean upward of $1 billion in tax revenue for the state each year in addition to the considerable savings realized from ceasing the ineffective chasing around of marijuana growers across the state.
Betty Yee, the state Board of Equalization chairwoman who appeared with Ammiano at a San Francisco news conference said “Having just closed a $42-billion budget deficit, generating new revenue is crucial to the state’s long-term fiscal health.” Also in support of opening debate on the issue are San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey and retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray, a longtime legalization proponent and author of a book on drug prohibition.
Opposing the bill are the usual suspects including the California State Narcotics Officers Association who stand to loose significant funding should the bill pass, and the often silly anti-drug activist Calvina Fay. “Legalizing drugs like this would create a whole new set of costs for society.” said Fay “If we think the drug cartels are going to tuck their tails between their legs and go home, I think we’re badly mistaken, They’re going to heavily target our children.” Obviously, (though apparently not to Fay) the illegal drug dealers would be put out of business the day the bill passes. Should some of them decide to reorganize and become legitimate growers like those who grow grapes or beans they would be subject to regulations like those who grow grapes or beans. I think what Fay is panicking about is the discussion of marketing. Would marijuana sellers be able to market their product to youth? A valid question, perhaps, but one society has come to terms with with alcohol and would no doubt do with pot as well.
There is obviously a sort of revolution afoot. In the last few years over a dozen states followed California’s lead in passing medical marijuana legislation in direct defiance of federal law which states that marijuana has no medical use and prohibits its cultivation, sale, and use. Now the next step has occurred…full legalization and regulation that would put the drug on par with another popular drug, alcohol. What will the federal government do and how will they do it?
There are several things they will need to reconcile. There are the international treaties such as the 1961 Single Convention treaty from which the scheduling provisions stem. We signed it and have been touting its importance for decades. What would happen if we were to ignore it?
Federal law includes the Controlled Substances Act which is the fundamental law guiding our handling of drugs in America. The Constitution itself comes into play because, lacking a Constitutional Amendment such as the one that made alcohol prohibition possible in 1920, our Supreme Court has ruled that the Commerce Clause is justification for the federal government to interfere in a state’s business when it comes to marijuana. (Apparently someone growing a few marijuana plants for their personal use somehow has an effect on the price of the plant in interstate commerce… ).
Then you have enormous, well funded agencies, (the DEA comes to mind), that would need to be either significantly cut back or eliminated completely. You have thousands of people in prison for various marijuana offenses. What do you do with them? What about all our elected officials, the congressmen and senators who have been proclaiming how tough they are on drug users as they vote for new prisons and tougher sentencing laws? Are they supposed to just say “Well, I was wrong… sorry.”?
As you can see this is a complicated issue and I’ve just scratched the surface here. Perhaps the real question is, assuming that marijuana, like literally everything else sold in this country, should be regulated, who does the regulation? Right now it’s been left to the police. For instance, cops decide if a doctor is prescribing too much pain medication. That’s crazy. Such decisions should be left between a doctor and patient. So how about the doctors? If we give regulatory power to them they are going to want to increase their profession’s power by claiming a drug has medical use only and making it available only by prescription. That too is crazy… what about the drug alcohol? Should it be only available with a doctor’s permission?
I’ll be going back to these difficult questions in future posts…
A Tale of Drugs, Guns, and a Strange Sheriff Down South
Olympic goldmedalist Michael Phelps may have lost his endorsement contract with Kelloggs but he escaped what could have been a worse fate. The sherriff in the South Carolina county in which the now-famous bong-smoking incident occurred was going to attempt to arrest Phelps as a drug offender.
Richland County Sheriff Barney Phyfe Leon Lott suspended his investigation the other day after arresting several of the students who were partying with Phelps and seizing the famous bong. The defense attorney for three of the arrested students said 12 deputies kicked in the door to his client’s home “with guns drawn,” though they seized no more than about 6 grams of marijuana.Sheriff Lott disputed the lawyer’s account, saying only seven deputies were involved in one raid and 10 in the other, and no guns were pointed atsuspects, though they were drawn for the officers’ protection. Lott called a halt to the investigation when he figured out that 1.) there was no hard evidence showing that Phelps was smoking marijuana in the bong, and 2.) It would have been impossible to have Phelps extradited back to South Carolina for a crime that carries less than a year in jail.
”We had no physical evidence; we had a picture,” Lott told reporters. “We didn’t have enough where we could go arrest him. “Lott rejected criticism he was grandstanding and wasting taxpayer dollars on a relatively minor drug case, explaining he has “seen people die” from smoking marijuana. Though it has gone unnoticed in the media this statement would make the Sheriff truly unique as no other human has ever seen someone die from smoking marijuana.
“ I worry about people here in Richland County who elected me to be their sheriff to protect them.” The Sheriff revealed. And on that score at least, it appears he was telling the truth. I’m not sure just what the sheriff sees as a threat to the safety of his community but he received some press last year when he took an interesting step to insure his constituents safety; he bought an armoured personel carrier!
Sheriff Lott and his armed response team with their new toy.
Through a program that makes military surplus equipment available to law enforcement at greatly reduced cost Lott purchased an M113A2 APC complete with .50 caliber machine gun. Lott’s press release at the time said: “The armored personnel carrier (APC) will provide additional assets to the Special Response Team (SRT) as they deal with a wide array of threats to our citizens. The Special Response Team involves two dedicated seven-person teams - SRT members are part time and have regular full-time duties. Sheriff Lott stated that the members of SRT have been trained to address barricaded suspects, hostage scenarios, high risk warrants, engage in active counter measures, crowd control, and hostile environmental situations… The purpose in obtaining this equipment is the protection of life and our protection of our communities - that the mere presence of the APC will prevent loss of life or injury to any and all citizens. Sheriff Lott stated that the name selected from the entries will be “The Peacemaker” because that is the APC’s purpose and the bible refers to law enforcement in Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God”. Sheriff Lott hopes to always bring resolution to all conflict through peaceful means.”
Now a .50 caliber machine gun has a rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute. It fires a bullet as big as a man’s thumb that travels at almost 3000 fps and will carry well over a mile. There is no place for such a weapon in law enforcement; it is a military weapon. Quoting scripture is the only thing he could quote to attempt to justify this purchase. Certainly no police academy text recommends using a .50 caliber equipped APC as standard equipment for civilian police forces.
Perhaps the sheriff is concerned about the safety of his men as they raid student housing with guns drawn to arrest marijuana-crazed college students. In the future he can bring his little tank to the scene and strafe the house with machine gun fire.
A tax-wasting, bible-quoting, tank-driving, machine-gunning, drug warrior sheriff who doesn’t know his state’s laws! How he’ll fare in the next election will be a true test of the sanity of the citizens of Richland County South Carolina.
Three Latin American Presidents call for ending the War on Drugs
Ex-presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil called for the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use and a change in tactics on the war on drugs.
The war against drugs is failing and the U.S. government should break with “prohibition” policies that have achieved little more than cram its prisons and stoke violence, the three former Latin American presidents said.
The three former heads of state are part of an organization called The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy. They, along with members from other Latin American counties worked on the report for a year and will forward it to all Latin American governments as well as the United States and the European Union.
The report urges decriminalization of marijuana, treatment for addicts, and public service campaigns on abuse prevention “The problem is that current policies are based on prejudices and fears and not on results,” fmr. Colombian President Gaviria said.
Cardoso said the group called for only the decriminalization of marijuana and not other illicit drugs because “you have to start somewhere” and it would have been unrealistic to ask the same for all drugs.
A United Nations meeting in Vienna next month will frame international drugs policy for the next 10 years, and the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, said it is time for change. They pointed to falling street prices for cocaine and still high levels of consumption in the United States despite decades of policies focused on punishing users and cutting supplies from Latin American countries such as Colombia.
An impressive and bold statement from an influential group but will it influence Obama? Signals so far have been mixed. The State Department has instructed the negotiating team in Vienna to accept language endorsing needle exchange programs, a big improvement over the last administrations position but it is not yielding on other contentious points.
My sources tell me the US will not accept references to “harm reduction” in the UN document, because of the phrase’s broad meaning. They say “the US opposes - and the UN Conventions do not endorse - injection rooms, heroin distribution, drug legalization, distribution of “safe crack kits,” and other methods to facilitate drug use.”
Although President Obama was largely able to ignore drug policy during his campaign it seems that the issue is no longer under his sole control. With major opium issues to deal with in Afghanistan, Mexico destabilized by drug cartel wars that have caused over 6000 deaths last year alone, over ¼ of American states voting to ignore federal prohibition on marijuana as medicine, and now all these Latin American heavyweights calling for an end to the drug war the President will clearly no longer be able to ignore the issue.
As with the current economic crisis America has created and fueled a problem that started out as a domestic issue and soon spread to wreak havoc across the world. He is a very clever man and I hope he will be able to move the country toward a sane drug policy. We shall see.
Kellogg’s image and Michael Phelps.
So Olympic gold-medalist extraodinaire Michael Phelps got caught taking a hit of marijuana at a party in a South Carolina college. Missing a wonderful opportunity to pursue the obvious questions: ” How is it that Phelps did not become a slacker/stoner? How did someone whose marijuana use, the government says, should have destined him for a life as a couch potato, win so many Gold Medals? ” the media have been focussing on his product endorsments and the money he stands to lose.
So far the only company to cancel Phelp’s contract has been Kelloggs, the giant breakfast cereal producer that has been pumping our children with sugar for generations. Citing concerns with their child-friendly image they dropped Phelp’s endorsment deal. So what about that child-friendly image? How does it stand up to examination?
The company’s founder Henry Kellogg was a health fanatic in the early part of the 20th century. He advocated eating lots of grains and little meat. He believed frequent enemas, with both water and yogurt were vital for good digestion. He also had a problem with masturbation which he believed caused cancer of the womb, urinary diseases, nocturnal emissions, impotence, epilepsy, insanity, and mental and physical debility. OK, maybe he was wrong on some of the details. Science wasn’t as advanced as it is today. Nothing to harm the company’s image though… right?
Kellogg warned that sexual activity, in particular many “excesses” that couples could be guilty of within marriage, were “against nature” and so, extremely unhealthy. He campaigned vigourously against masturbation, a habit which was generally frowned upon at the time. He felt that masturbation destroyed not only physical and mental health, but the moral health of individuals as well. Still, such a blend of Christianity’s condemnation of Onanism mixed with the accepted medical information of the time made his pronouncements on masturbation pretty mainstream. Certainly more mainstream than his calls for yogurt enemas, anyway.
Now how about this as an image you’d want associated with your company? In an effort to rehabilitate masturbating children Kellogg wrote a book entitled Plain Facts for Old and Young, in it he wrote “A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision ,…. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.”
And let’s not forget the girls who might indulge in this life-destroying practice. Again, from Plain Facts for Old and Young: ”In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid [phenol] to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.” And, to prevent children from this “solitary vice” he also recommended, , bandaging or tying their hands, covering their genitals with patented cages, sewing the foreskin shut, and electrical shock. Now there are some real image enhancers that should appeal to today’s soccer moms who buy breakfast cereal.
In case Kellogg’s image hasn’t suffered enough from the above genital torture methods let me also point out that he was also a believer in and promoter of eugenics. Eugenicists believed in the identification and classification of individuals and their families into catagories such as the poor, mentally ill, blind, ‘promiscuous women’, homosexuals and entire “racial” groups (such as the Gypsys and Jews) as “degenerate” or “unfit”. Then they urged the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, and even their “euthanasia”. This was considered a science at the time, even taught in some universities. It fell from favor after WWII when the extreme eugenics practised by the Nazis came to light.
What a guy ol’ Henry Kellogg. Now I’m sure you understand why Michael Phelps smoking a little marijuana at a party could hurt their image.
Rockefeller Drug Law Reform… Will It Be Enough?
A long-awaited report from the NYS Commission on Sentencing Reform has finally been released and it’s a step in the right direction. The report calls for giving judges more discretion in sentencing drug offenders and recommends increased money for treatment for drug offenders. With Democrats controlling both bodies of the Legislative branch and the governorship in Albany there is real hope for some change.
Of course the change will almost certainly be modest. Shorter sentences and judges forcing drug offenders into treatment is better than long mandatory prison sentences for all violators but won’t have much effect on crime. It’ll save the state some money, which is a good thing these days, and it’ll be an improvement for some of those caught up in the system but it won’t solve the root causes of our drug-business related crime. None of those debating these reforms points out that there is a way to put the drug dealers out-of-business overnight. Perhaps this is the politically expedient course… a little at a time… but I think the public needs to hear about ending prohibition even if they’re not ready to vote for it yet. How are they ever going to be ready if they’ve never heard the arguments?
Since Albany is not about to legalize and regulate drugs for fear of political backlash some tinkering is all we can expect. How much tinkering we’ll see in the months ahead. The last set of “reforms” the legislature cobbled together created something called “determinate sentencing” which actually made things worse. The devil is in the details.
The head of the commission, Denise O’Donnell, who has heretofore been a pretty hard-liner on criminal justice issues came under some criticism about the report… but not the kind she would have gotten a year or two ago when Republicans blocked all efforts at reform. Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, who strongly backs an overhaul of drug sentencing laws, called the report a ”missed opportunity.” In a letter to Ms. O’Donnell, Mr. Silver said any plan the Assembly adopted would go further toward a complete revision of the laws by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for low-level, nonviolent offenders and expanding the authority of judges to impose sentences. ”The commission held in its hands a unique opportunity to help undo 35 years of failed drug policy,” Mr. Silver wrote in his letter. ”I am saddened that it failed to do so.”
The two legislators who served on the 11 person commission, Senator Eric T. Schneiderman of Manhattan and Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol of Brooklyn, endorsed a plan that goes a bit further than the commission’s. Both men head the committees in their respective chambers that will hear debate on drug sentencing changes. Their plan would, among other things, double the existing weight requirements for most major felony drug sale and possession crimes, make many lesser first-time felony drug offenders eligible for probation or a jail term rather than mandatory prison, and expand parole as an option for convicted offenders.
How successful they will be depends partly on whether the press and the public listen to prosecutors and other law & order types who credit New York’s recent drop in crime to the tough drug laws and play on the public’s fears of crime. Of course crime dropped similarly in states without the super-harsh drug laws of New York but they don’t mention that.
There is considerable support for serious change - the governor himself was arrested at a demonstration some years ago protesting the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Hip-Hop impresario and businessman Russell Simmons has been active working for change highlighting the large numbers of Blacks that go to prison for drug offenses. He’s just released a documentary film about the problem. Bar Associations across the state have called for serious change.
So time will tell just how far Albany will go in this latest effort at “reforming” these disastrous laws. The commission report might be just a starting point for truly serious change or, the politician’s usual timidity will surface and not much will happen.
