It’s A Gray Area: Let’s make pot boring

It is time for us to be realistic and manage the trade and usage of marijuana instead of simply moralizing about it. The honest facts are that today marijuana is the largest cash crop in California (No. 2 is grapes); with illegal dealers there are no controls whatsoever on quality, quantity, age restrictions, price or place of sale; and most of the big money goes to groups like the Mexican drug cartels, juvenile gangs and other thugs, and they don’t pay taxes on any of it.

It is also a fact that the voters are ahead of the politicians on these issues. Yes, most of the vocal politicians and current law enforcement officials have taken a position against Proposition 19, but many retired law enforcement officials, who are much less subject to political considerations, are speaking out in its support.

For example, I belong to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (https://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com). My fellow members are people like former Los Angeles Police Department Chief Deputy Steve Downing, former San Jose Police Chief Joe McNamara, former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, and thousands of other former narcotics officers, prison guards, prosecutors and others, all of whom are stating the obvious that our nation’s policy of marijuana prohibition is not working.

Holland’s and Portugal’s experience will shed light on what will happen when Proposition 19 passes. Holland decriminalized marijuana possession and use for those 16 and older in the early 1970s, and several years ago, the minister of health was quoted as saying that they have only half the marijuana usage, per capita, as we do in our country — both for adults and teenagers! “We have succeeded in making pot boring,” he said.

Of course, our country glamorizes marijuana by making it illegal, and also by having such obscene profit motives in getting others to sell it to you, your neighbors and your children. And you will also note that today young adults are not selling Jim Beam bourbon or Marlboro cigarettes to each other on their high school campuses. But they are selling marijuana to each other all the time.

Proposition 19 will reduce those problems, just like it did in Portugal when they decriminalized all drugs in 2001. What were the results? The CATO Institute found that even though the drugs were legal in Portugal, usage of them did not increase. In fact it actually went down about half a percentage point. And problem drug usage was reduced by half! Why? The problem users were no longer afraid of their own government because now if they came forward, they would receive drug treatment instead of being punished.

Those findings make the alarmists in our country who say we would become a “nation of marijuana zombies” look pretty silly. In fact just ask yourself, if Proposition 19 were to pass, would you use marijuana? From my standpoint, you could give it away on street corners and bless it by every religious leader in town, and I am still not going to use marijuana (unless my medical doctor recommends it to me for some illness or disease). And most everyone else feels the same way. In fact as a practical matter, anyone who would use marijuana if Proposition 19 were to pass is probably using it already!

What do the other opponents of Proposition 19 say? Some say that we would still have an illicit market for selling marijuana to young adults if Proposition 19 were to pass, and that would be true. But when alcohol prohibition was repealed, it was no longer moonshine alcohol that was being sold to minors by people like Al Capone, it was alcohol that was mostly bought legally and then illegally transferred. The same would be true with marijuana. So that would still undercut the illegal dealers.

There are basically three other groups of opponents. The first is people who say that the cities would not be able to handle the administrative responsibilities of setting up programs for the sale of marijuana, the second is some employers who are concerned that marijuana users would be able to run rampant over the workplace, and the third is some of those who make money at medical marijuana dispensaries.

Regarding the cities not being able to set up their own systems, that really is a non-issue — they do it all of the time. And besides, one of the beauties of Proposition 19 is that it will still be illegal to sell marijuana within a city’s borders (except under Proposition 215 for medical marijuana) unless that particular city expressly opts into the program. In reality what will happen is that the cities will learn from each other. So if one city tries something that is successful, others will tend to use that system, and the opposite is also true.

As to the workplace issues, Proposition 19 expressly states that it would not affect any of the current regulations of the workplace. Employers still can require drug testing as a condition of being hired, and still, just like alcohol, can test employees if they have some cause to believe the employees are impaired in the workplace.

Finally, it is true that people supplying marijuana within Proposition 19 will probably be more organized. That will very likely reduce the price of the marijuana, even after the payment of applicable taxes, which will, in turn, take the market away from both illegal sellers and also some of the medical marijuana dispensaries. That is an understandable reason for people presently operating dispensaries, but it is not a reason for the rest of us to oppose Proposition 19.

On Nov. 2 you can help us repeal the failed policy of marijuana prohibition, and bring our state’s largest cash crop back under the law. This is probably one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I hope you will further look into and support Proposition 19.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of “Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed” (Temple University Press), and can be contacted at [email protected] or https://www.JudgeJimGray.com.