A post by Josh Marshall, editor of the widely-read Talking Points Memo web site, provides a needed reminder that liberals aren't automatically on board for legalization, even of marijuana. In a post that has drug policy bloggers shaking their heads, Marshall reveals to those who'd assumed otherwise that he leans against legalizing marijuana outright, and that he would have probably voted no on Prop 19 if he lived in California.
Reformers' puzzlement comes less from Marshall's viewpoint than from the fact that he holds it despite recognizing the consequences of drug prohibition, and their seriousness:
[L]et me be clear that I think our drug laws are catastrophic. They create endemic violence first in our major cities and now along the borders and it's led to generations of Americans rotting in prison. The whole war on drugs is an unmitigated disaster.
Marshall also has no problem with marijuana use:
Maybe it's that I'm getting into my 40s. And maybe I'm a hypocrite. I of course know people who smoke grass. And I don't have any problem with it. Decriminalized? Yes, I think probably so.
Yet he still finds a way to support keeping the heart of the policy that has caused the catastrophes he's described intact:
I remember, many years ago, talking to my father about the idea of legalization. And bear in mind, my Dad, God bless him, smoked a decent amount of grass in his day, said he didn't like the idea. One reason is that he was already a bit older by that time. But he had this very contradictory and hard to rationalize position which was that he was fine with people smoking pot but keeping it at least nominally illegal kept public usage in some check. Again, how to rationalize that in traditional civic terms? Not really sure. But frankly, I think I kind of agree.
The reason the position is hard to rationalize is that it isn't rational. If public usage of marijuana is an issue, the logical way to address it is by regulating public usage. City or county ordinances dealing with smoking in public places, for example, or disorderly conduct laws, on the books already in most locales, are examples which come to mind. Along with being inherently more reasonable than prohibition laws, such approaches also don't create the drug trade violence Marshall has described -- beheadings being among the recent atrocities. Drug policy reformers find it absurd to prefer expensive prohibition policies that fuel violence, in Mexico or anywhere, over benign and simpler strategies like public smoking ordinances -- for drugs in general, many of us feel, but especially for a substance like marijuana whose use Marshall rightly deems as okay.
Decriminalization is also not a good solution for the long term, though useful as a politically easier interim step compared with legalization. While decrim addresses one aspect of the incarceration problem, as we have seen in states that have decriminalized marijuana (like California), it leaves most of it intact. Decrim has also failed to stem the systemic racial disparities in drug law enforcement that helped motivate civil rights organizations including the California NAACP and California LULAC to support Prop 19. Decrim also does little or nothing to stop drug trade violence.
In a somewhat more arguable point, Marshall also cites the supremacy of federal law as a reason for voting no on 19:
[U]nless I'm missing something, [Prop 19] amounts to nullification. The federal government seems like the competent authority to regulate this question, even if I think our drug policy is a disaster. Federal laws trump state laws, even when you don't like them.
The something Marshall may be missing is that both legally and practically it's not that simple. Under our Constitution, federal laws do not simply trump state laws. Some do and some don't; it depends on the Constitutionally-interpreted reach of federal power. For drug laws, it's a mix: Congress can pass laws banning marijuana, the DEA can send agents to California to bust people for violating those laws, and California can't stop them doing so. But neither can the federal government force California to keep similar drug laws on its own books, nor to "commandeer" state agencies to enforce federal drug laws. Because most law enforcement is state or county or local, the ability of the feds to block the effects of state legalization is limited. And so thousands of medical marijuana dispensaries now stretch across California and other medical marijuana states -- illegal under federal law banning any marijuana use, but consistent with lawfully enacted state policy.
Now a voter may on policy grounds feel that states ought not engage in such a tug of war with the federal government, and decide to vote against measures like Prop 19 on that basis. But the legal right states have to do exactly that should be acknowledged; and a consistent application of that idea would also require rolling back medical marijuana laws as well, re-strengthening a medical prohibition which Marshall himself considers "crazy."
More broadly, with the policy Marshall has described as catastrophic now approaching its centennial (opiate and cocaine prohibition passed in 1914, marijuana 1937), isn't it time for the federal government's competence to regulate questions of drug policy to be called into question? Imagine how tragic it will be if the drug war should continue for another century after this first one. Catastrophic policies should not be rationalized into continuation; they should be replaced with better alternatives.
One thing that can be said for Marshall on this: It was courageous of him to publish that piece, given how wildly popular legalization is among his Democratic reader base.
It could actually be that we've achieved critical mass necessary to pass marijuana legalization and that our critical thinking is slowing down the 'Promintory Point' so that we're sure the ground is solid. This just may be a wonderful maturation of liberals realizing they can fine-tune both outcome and timing. This is something the right(s) have honed to perfection using their jargon/code words dissemination/cheerleader talking heads all cherub-ishly chanting the same mantra. Prop 19 losing just may be a wise choice. I'm ready to sign a better, brighter petition for '12... I say, Great Going, Liberals. I knew you had it in you.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure HOW legal was eventually going to be legal. Was it going to be legal to sit on a park bench and smoke it in the open? What about bus benches where by grandchildren are going to inhale the second-hand smoke? Would people be allowed to smoke it and drive on the freeways? How responsible will people who are smoking it have to be for their own actions (And people DO perform dumb actions when they are stoned.) I personally don’t believe in ANYTHING that dulls the mind or slows reactions - not even alcohol. I don’t smoke pot (not since the 70s) and don’t want MY life or the lives on my loved ones to be affected by a bunch of LEGALLY stoned people wandering the streets. Anyone who says it doesn’t affect people in that way is either smoking so much that they are used to it, or maybe I’M the only one it affects that way. (The latter being doubtful.)
Your husband is right. There is zero reason to believe that the irresponsible behaviors you cited in your first comment would ever be legalized. As for people walking around stoned, one, that already happens, two, who cares? It's an incredibly poor justification for putting people in prison or for creating the illegal market which Marshall rightly described as catastrophic. Your second concern is addressed very simply by regulating public consumption through smoking or disorderly conduct ordinances, as is already done with cigarettes as you pointed out.
1.You cannot get high from second hand smoke.
2.How responsible will they for there actions? As responsible as a drunk driver who hits a kid while Driving under the influence.
2.Dulled senses? XANAX, just 1 of many prescription drugs that dulls your senses & really slows your reactions, so technically there are already LEGALLY "stoned" people wandering the streets.
3.So a public smoking ban should be placed on marijuana.
4.Why should cigarette smokers have to hide away........? simple Because cigarettes are bad for your HEALTH......
5.Marijuana doesnt make you angry/violent/hostile, So im wondering just how you're life or you're loved ones life would be affected by the legalization of marijuana......????
Words just can't explain how i feel....
I was born with a disability, I have deep depression.
Marijuana helps me cope with my disability. Depression pills have many horrific side effects( for example your legs moving by themselves )
It sucks when you have people telling you whats bad for YOU when YOU KNOW its not as half as bad as they MAKE IT OUT TO BE.
Legalizing marijuana has the same potential to become just as harmful to your health as tobacco if it is allowed to become consumed on a regular basis at the discretion of the "over the counter" buyer. Regulation of consumption, deemed suitable by profitable taxation guarantees two things if legalization does pass...more people will feel entitled to use at their own risk (which means a heavier burden on the healthcare system from which our own government officials profit through stock shares in the medical and health industry) and people will consume anyway.
Two things passing such a for goverment profit law will not do...it will not prevent consumption nor will it stop criminilization, as it will only shift the statistics in which people are being criminilized for consumption in very much the same way the lift on the prohibition of alcohol did years ago.
It's simple...the cartels are making money, consumption looks like big business and many factions of our goverment are sizing up the porential of their profitable cut.
I'd LOVE to see where you got your medical information from.
http://www.justice.gov/dea/ongoing/marijuana.html
Then I just read the following (can easily find with google news search)
Colombia has become the nation with the largest number of displaced persons in the world.
"In the last two decades, the main flow of internally displaced persons seeking refuge beyond the borders comes from Colombia, where a long conflict persists with a serious humanitarian and human rights impact that affects neighboring countries and has implications for the entire region,"
The Republicans are against marijuana because they don't understand it but the Liberals should know better.
Just recently Colorado passed medical marijuana legislation & almost immediately US Atty
Gen Eric Holder filed suit and won conviction against a state licensed medical marijuana grower ~ whom was sent to jail.
States pass laws - Fed Gov't strikes down state laws = what do you do?
http://prince.org/msg/105/345495
Not only does the US have the highest rate of incarceration on the planet, but the racial disparity of arrests, convictions and imprisonment have become grossly pronounced. Nationwide Afro-Americans are arrested, convicted and imprisoned disproportionately. Thirty-seven percent of drug-offense arrests are Afro-Americans, 53 percent of convictions are of Afro-Americans, and 67 percent -- two-thirds of all people imprisoned for drug offenses -- are Afro-Americans. This is depute the fact that Afro-Americans do not use drugs at a perceivable higher rate than white Americans. - 8.2% of whites and 10.1% of blacks use illicit drugs.
Much of the voting rights & victories won by the civil rights movement during the 1960s have effectively been eroded. Nearly 5 million people are now barred from voting because of felony disenfranchisement laws. The United States is the only industrial democracy that does this.
Drug prohibition has become a successor system to Jim Crow laws in targeting black citizens, removing them from civil society and then barring them from the right to vote. If harsh sentences deterred illicit drug use, America would be "drug-free" by now. But that is not the case, and never will be.
Again, your argument based on the incarceration rate of African Americans is just funny. The reason for the disparity in arrests of African Americans is racism in application of the laws. That's not going to disappear just because marujuana use is legalized. When the pro-legalization crowd starts marching to end job discrimination against African Americans, I may believe some of this concern for blacks bunk you are peddling, but for right now, I'm not buying. Once marijuana is legalized, the marijuana lobby won't give a crap about the African Americans who are filling our jails for other petty crimes, so fogive me is I don't get all worked up about this argument for legalization of marijuana.
It does not even accomplish what it purports to want - less marijuana consumption. Countries that have reduced or eliminated penalites for marijuana have less use than the U.S. The Netherlands has HALF the consumption we do. Forbidden fruit is a strong attraction.
dbrett480
Marijuana is not addictive.
hey0there
No. We have thousands of marijuana dispensaries operating in California, and the vast majority of the citizens have no problem with them. Why should they, when marijuana is not addictive, FAR less harfmul than alcohol and does not fuel violence and highway carnage as does alcohol?
No, not an inevitable conclusion that there would be cannabis vendors on every corner. Every city and county in California was allowed to choose the level of commercial regulation and taxes that they saw in their better interests. Indeed, Prop 19 did offer the assurance that jurisdictions that were so inclined didn't have to authorize commercial activities at all.
But don't you see that by demanding that you never see it that you are supporting the empowerment and enrichment of organized criminal syndicates? Why in the world would people prefer unregulated thugs over licensed business concerns which would operate within the law or be shut down if they violate regulations.
Re-legalization isn't a binary choice. In between the extremes of draconian criminal penalties and allowing cannabis vendors to pass out free samples at the street corner in order to cultivate new customers, there is a very wide gray area, in which exists the 'sweet spot' for society. We may not be able to say exactly where that sweet spot exists, but we can say without reservation that the current scheme is a proven failure. It makes no sense to choose a guaranteed failure of policy because a new policy might fail.
Regulate
Monsanto
.
The Military: Stoned ppl dont sign up to kill & die
Prison Industry: Free Labor from Inmates
........Just a few thoughts
still some dumb civilians view weed as evil, and I dont know how they fool themselves like that.
If you look on the tv you'll see advertisement for LEGAL drugs like depression pills..... and what's the side effects you hear 100% of the time "If you're having thoughts of hurting others or yourself contact your doctor"
But These drugs are perfectly LEGAL...
I Just Wish more people would wake up