Pompo

Community column: Argument in favor of legalizing pot builds potency
7/3/09|Salinas Californian| by Norm Morris - Opinion



A recent article in this space was titled "The price of legalizing pot is too high." Ignoring our past national experience with alcohol prohibition, the author opined as to how an "open market" causes greater harm. We obviously need our government (not the one we formed in Sacramento as an independent California Republic) to mandate what's good for us.

Another article offered the oft-heard sophism that pot along with alcohol is one of the "gateway" drugs to meth and heroin. Actually, not to make light of such an obviously unanalyzed observation, but the real gateway substance to harder drugs is breast milk, or formula, if you prefer. Virtually'100 percent of all drug users were bottle- or breast-fed, so I think we need a new agency to oversee the intravenous feeding of all newborns until they can feed themselves! One non sequitur is just as logical as the other.

Seriously, it seems some truths remain constant but require rediscovery every few generations. One truth is that there is an almost pathological overwhelming urge on the part of some people to regulate the behavior of others. I don't want you smoking pot because, well, just because. I'll feel free to distill, sell, transport, regulate and enjoy alcohol, but if you choose to do the same with a plant that grows naturally in the wild I'm going to pass laws that specify your arrest and the seizure of your property.

After the disastrous'18th Amendment in 1919 that kicked off what amounted to a 14-year crime wave in the United States, you'd think people would remember the bitter lessons learned. But as soon as one substance was again deemed legal to sell and consume, another was suddenly deemed illegal. Could it be that the newly idled army of Treasury agents who had spent years chasing bootleggers needed work?

In an excellent article titled "Marijuana, Prohibition and the Tenth Amendment," Internet columnist Susan Shelley points out that the reason Congress required the 18th Amendment banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol is that the Constitution did not give them the power to do so outright.

She asks, "Why did the country go to all that trouble if Congress could simply have declared alcohol a Úcontrolled substance' and made it legal or illegal with a simple majority vote and a presidential signature? If marijuana is grown, distributed and consumed within state borders, and the state government decides that under some circumstances that is not a crime, by what authority does Congress override that judgment? Why is marijuana [today] different than alcohol in 1919?"

It isn't. Washington is simply doing an end-run around us, something that's become increasingly more common as our policymakers bypass our old "outdated" Constitution, with its many inconvenient proscriptions against their minding our collective state business.

The combined will of 37 million Californians in their united Republic is nothing next to a simple decree of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. We've been told our decisions as a state are to be ignored. Our sick emaciated citizens suffering with chemo-induced nausea can't smoke a joint to ease their misery because, well, just because. Too bad. Pour me a drink, Sam.

If you drink and drive, you should go to jail. If you smoke and drive, you're likewise a fool and a menace to everyone else on the road. However, subsequent to regulations setting sensible restrictions on these substances, shouldn't you be able to indulge in them without fear of arrest? Pay the taxes, show ID, buy a license to sell, don't drive under the influence; how would that differ from alcohol as far as the law is concerned?

The pluses would be many: a $15 billion to $20 billion industry would spring up instantly, an enormous and expensive bureaucracy would be dismantled, prison populations would be reduced as casual users were released, or not arrested in the first place, freeing up more beds for hardened criminals, and drug gangs, especially those butchering thousands at our southern border would be crippled overnight.

Most important, the assaults on our civil liberties would end. Institutionalized theft in the form of asset forfeiture would cease, and our sickest citizens could get the medicine they need.

By the way, anticipating the attacks, I'll state it for the record: I value my lungs so don't inhale anything; Negra Modelo and Cuervo 1800 are my informed choices for adult substances. However. I feel that your choices should be your own.

claygooding

If you build these billion dollar industries,do we continue spending billions fighting the cartels? The reason I ask is that you have to first remove the billions dollar industries already going.
And the only way to do that without fighting them is to under price them,anything else just insures the existence of a black market.