Pubdate: Thu, 15 Sep 2005
Source: Georgetown Record (MA)
Copyright: 2005 Community Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www2.townonline.com/georgetown/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3519
Author: Steven S.  Epstein, Guest Columnist
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

A CALL FOR CANNABIS REFORM

This Saturday the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition hosts its 16th 
Annual Freedom Rally on the Boston Common. It coincidentally is the 218th 
anniversary of the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, with the 
promise that the constitution it drafted would "secure the blessings of 
liberty" to the American People. I am proud to say I have been involved in 
this annual event since the first in 1990 at the U.S.S. Constitution and 
will continue to be until cannabis is either legal, I am 84, or dead.

Why would a  34-year-old middle class lawyer with a wife and two children - 
we since added a  third - help organize a protest against marijuana 
prohibition? Well, I have  consumed marijuana, as have most of you reading 
this essay according to  government surveys, and like Michael Bloomberg, 
now mayor of New York, I liked  it. My teachers taught me to question 
authority and growing up during the Nixon Administration reinforced their 
lessons of mistrust of government. My experience  with marijuana and my 
reading of the vast literature on the plant taught me that  the government 
was and continues to lie about the risk it poses to its users and  to society.

The vast  majority of former and current users are productive, responsible 
citizens, who  have not used other illicit drugs.

Except for their use of marijuana they are as  otherwise law-abiding as the 
rest of the citizenry. Massachusetts is the U.S.  leader in monthly use and 
only a third of us perceive great risk in occasional marijuana use. This 
attitude is reflected in the success marijuana policy  questions have had 
with Massachusetts voters since 2000. The results show a  solid majority do 
not want possession of marijuana to be a crime. Voter approved  questions 
have proposed it be a civil violation, like a speeding ticket and for  the 
police to hold a person under 18 cited for possession until the child 
is  released to a parent, legal guardian or brought before a judge.

They also  approved questions proposing possession of less than one ounce 
of marijuana  should be a civil violation, subject to a maximum fine of 
$100 and not subject  to any criminal penalties.

As a  student of the Constitution of the United States and Massachusetts it 
is  apparent to me the founders understood that you cannot legislate utopia 
into  existence.

Marijuana prohibition as part of the utopian war on drugs purports as its 
goal to establish a "drug free America." Years of prohibition have 
by  experience taught that what is really accomplished is a price support 
for producers and distributors of these substances. In the case of 
marijuana an ounce of dried flowers is boosted to the remarkably high 
retail price of $240 to  over $400 depending on the quality.

Since  enforcement efforts cannot accomplish the utopian goal of 
eradicating marijuana,  enforcement is arbitrary and contrary to republican 
principles. Realizing it is  arbitrary, the prohibitionists need it to be 
too punitive to enhance the  "message" the arrest and prosecution of Tom, 
but not Dick and Harry sends to the  community.

It is arbitrary because the law grants the arbitrary power to the police to 
arrest, summons, or verbally warn the offender.

All too often race,  age and financial status are implicated not only in 
whether or not charges are  brought, but also with the outcome of those 
charges.

It is too punitive because  a conviction for possessing marijuana may 
result not only in incarceration in  jail in Massachusetts, but a loss of 
the privilege to drive a car for up to five  years, denial of federally 
guaranteed student loans, and permanent loss of not  only a permit to carry 
firearms, but the ability to use a rifle to hunt. These  consequences are 
compounded by the fact that under Massachusetts law the  defendant's right 
to challenge the constitutionality of her arrest and seizure  requires she 
go to trial, thus giving the government a great advantage in  inducing a 
plea, rather than an appeal after trail. Prohibition  fails to keep 
marijuana away from children more effectively than regulation of alcohol 
and tobacco keeps alcohol away from children it appears the wiser 
course  for Congress and the state legislature to tax and regulate this 
agricultural  commodity while prohibiting it to children as we do tobacco 
and alcohol.

Such a  policy is the only policy consistent with securing the 
Constitution's promised  Blessings of Liberty. It would free our plant 
scientists to work with cannabis,  not as the black market breeders have 
done to maximize the potency of the  flowers, but to maximize seed, fiber 
and biomass production, as well as research  of the medicinal potential. 
For much of  human history the seed and fiber of this plant with many names 
was a source of  medicine, food and textiles.

The English called it hemp. The seed is among the  most nutritious on the 
planet and when pressed produces large quantities of  vegetable oil. The 
fiber is among the most durable found in nature. Tens of thousands of 
products produced from trees, petroleum and coal can be made from  hemp. 
Freed from the prohibition it may be that hemp will prove an 
invaluable  source of medicines, food, fuel, and textiles again fulfilling 
John Adams' 1763  prophecy that, "We shall by and by want a world of hemp 
more for our own  consumption."
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman