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Lit_Match

Operation Alesia is Another Exercise in Futility
07-27-07|Record Searchlight|By Paul Armentano

Operation Alesia has come and gone, and judging by the public’s divided reaction to this extravagant anti-pot campaign, it appears that many Northern Californians are unconvinced that America is winning the war on weed. They have sound reason to be skeptical.

Despite statistics indicating that Operation Alesia resulted in the elimination of some 280,000 illicit marijuana plants — more than all of the pot confiscated in Shasta County in 2006 — does anyone really believe that this operation will tangibly reduce the demand or availability of marijuana in the local area?

It’s time for a reality check. State and federal law enforcement personnel now arrest approximately 800,000 Americans annually and spend some $10 billion per year enforcing marijuana prohibition. Nevertheless, the U.S. government reports that domestic marijuana production has increased ten-fold in the past 25 years from 2.2 million pounds to 22 million pounds. Is this the sign of a successful public policy?

According to a national report released last winter, nearly a third of America’s domestic pot supply is grown in California, where marijuana ranks as the state’s top cash crop. Does anyone really believe that Operation Alesia or future law enforcement campaigns will do anything to change this fact?

Let’s be frank. The criminal prohibition of cannabis has had no discernible long-term impact on marijuana’s availability or use, especially among young people. According to the latest survey data from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, a majority of teens now say that they can score pot more readily than they can tobacco or alcohol. More than one-third say that they can purchase weed in just a few hours. (By comparison, only 14 percent of respondents say they can readily purchase alcohol.) Annual federal data compiled by the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future project reports that an estimated 86 percent of 12th graders say marijuana is “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get. This percentage is virtually unchanged since the mid-1970s — despite remarkably increased marijuana penalties, enforcement and arrests since that time.

It’s time to end the dog-and-pony shows like Operation Alesia and acknowledge reality. The criminal classification of cannabis is disproportionate to the drug’s relative harmlessness to the user and to the well-acknowledged harmfulness of other substances — particularly alcohol and tobacco.

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that 94 million Americans — 40 percent of the U.S. population age 12 or older — have used cannabis during their lives, and relatively few have suffered deleterious health effects because of their use. Criminalizing these millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans is expensive, engenders disrespect for the law, and alienates large numbers of the population — particularly young people.

A wiser and long-overdue national policy would tax and regulate cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol — with the drug’s sale and use restricted to specific markets and consumers. While such an alternative may not entirely eliminate the black market demand for pot, it would certainly be preferable to today’s blanket, though thoroughly ineffective, expensive and impotent, criminal prohibition — as epitomized by the futility of neverending operations like Alesia.

Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He lives in Pleasant Hill.

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Donation links to NORML (The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) | MPP (Marijuana Policy Project)

 

xxdr_zombiexx

From Fred GardnerHow about THAT, my fellow insurgents?

Operation Phoenix was an assassination program run by the US military against the Vietnamese. The son of the man who managed that program is the Drug Czar.

Feel better?

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.

Buzzby

What, exactly, does one have to do with the other? I don't see the connection.

I thought that the Vietnam war was a lousy idea, but assassinating enemy officers and high-ranking civilian supporters has always been a useful tactic in a war. It disrupts and scares the enemy at minimal cost in personnel and equipment. When the enemy is constantly looking over his shoulder for that bullet out of nowhere, he can't fight as effectively.

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t-1000

+1

I see nothing wrong with assassination of enemy leaders. It keeps us from having to send in a mass of ground troops to take bullets while their leaders find a nice hole to crawl into.

Or a great scare tactic.

xxdr_zombiexx

They want to take out the leaders, sow fear and distrust and utterly disrupt what IS an entirely legal process of reform.

Cannabis reform, as you might be aware, adheres to the [endangered] Constitutional rules of our country, specifically, The First AmendmentCannabis reform is a direct addressing of said government for a redress of grievances and the Drug Czar and the DEA resort to aggressive paramilitary posturing to interfere with an entirely legal, extremely AMERICAN endeavor.

Further, he names the program after a a successful Roman Empire battle that defeated an enemy. The American Empire apparently is threatened by a handful of sick people smoking marijuana and implementing their [endangered] Constitutional rights.

 

xxdr_zombiexx

with the warmongering here?So you are OK with Walters and them declaring you an insurgent?

Here's my "thought" spelled out in greater detail.

Buzzby

How does having dispensaries that violate federal law and fields of cannabis that violate state and federal laws qualify as an "entirely legal process of reform"? Since the original article was about chopping down illicit grows, I thought that was what we were talking about.

I haven't heard of the DEA interfering with protests and campaigns or preventing people from communicating with their representatives. That's how you petition the government for the redress of grievances. People committing acts of civil disobedience (i.e. breaking the law) like running dispensaries or growing pot should expect interference. When I was passing out campaign literature for the Colorado legalization effort last year, no one dragged me off my corner and threw me in jail.

I get your point about the other stuff. A lot more people would probably participate in the movements to legalize medical and recreational marijuana if they weren't worried about attracting unwanted attention from law enforcement agencies. Fortunately, if you feel the need to "keep your head down", you can still participate by anonymously contributing to pro-legalization organizations.

Mostly, the fear is unwarranted. I've been involved with NORML since the 70s and MPP for the last decade and have never been hassled. OTOH, if I was doing anything more serious than possessing small amounts of weed I might try for a higher level of anonymity.

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Marijuana Policy Project (MPP)

Drug Policy Alliance (DPA)

xxdr_zombiexx

You're "the Liberal" here?

Come on.

The DEA could focus on real drugs but they don't. The point is so big perhaps it's hard to grasp.

All they care about in the end is marijuana. That's where the ideology is, that's where the money is.

I am thrilled they are keeping the killing to a minimum but they are still seething fascists who should be totally de-funded, disbanded and absorbed into the TSA or Sky Marshalls or just laid off, period.

More people are arrested each year for pot than all violent crimes combined and that means we have about twice the cops we really need.

And certainly you grasp the 10 amendment and State's right's issues here.

You do, don't you? Please tell me you do.

This "supremacy of Federal Law" bullshit is NOT about anything but exceeding federal power as limited by the Constitution. The 10th is what helps keep federal power in controlled channels and they want nothing more than to eliminate this limiting power and wipe the whole constitution.

Yeah. The PEOPLE PETITIONED THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND PASSED PROP 215.

I am certain you are aware of this. The Federal Government, under the heinously liberal Bill Clinton, immediately began to fuck with it anyway they can.

And they still are.

As far as the fear "not being warranted", either you live out west, where things are better than here in the Reefer Mad South and or you have never had the pleasure of being arrested.

Then there's all that drug testing shit.

There's PLENTY to fear.

Ask Ed Rosenthal.

Yeah, he's free right now but how much did it cost him? Can YOU afford Justice? I can't.

Or Tommy Chong. Nothing to Fear. No jihad against cultural Icons?

I think you're just a tad wrong.

SirSmokaALot

zombie... you're wrong for saying somebody else's wrong. Your argument was interesting till i read that last "so called personal" part.

Mr. Dollar

That is quite a stretch for Walters to say that pot cultivators will knowingly and willingly help terrorists circumvent immigration to cause mass casualties.

Let's think about that logically. A pot dealer needs customers to make business work. A pot cultivator needs a lot of dealers in order for his business to work. So, Walter, you mean to tell me that marijuana cultivators will knowingly facilitate a terrorist to cause mass casualties?

That doesn't seem like sound business sense to me. Killing off the customer is the last thing on the dealer and the cultivators' minds.

sorry Walter, you lose the logic game.