Pubdate: Thu, 3 Dec 2009
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2009 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559
Author: Robert Speer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

WEED IS WINNING

Why I and Most Californians Think Pot Should Be Legalized

In the war on drugs, weed is winning.

I like that line. I stole it fair and square from Jim Hightower, the 
tough-talking Texan whose commentaries can be heard on KZFR. He used 
it in a piece he wrote recently for the online journal Alternet about 
the failure of the drug war. I think he's right about marijuana, the 
subject of our special issue this week.

For one thing, polls indicate that more and more people--nearly a 
majority nationwide, more than a majority in California--believe 
going after marijuana tokers is a waste of time and money and that 
pot should be legalized.

I'm one of them. It's not that I'm a fan of marijuana, mind you. Like 
President Obama, I used to smoke it, but I quit the stuff years ago 
and now don't recommend it to anyone. Every drug, however mellow, 
produces a hangover of some kind and, at worst, addiction or 
dependence, so why get started?

If there's one thing I've learned over the years, despite my 
pigheadedness, it's that chasing after pleasure and fleeing 
unpleasantness does not create a peaceful life. Better to take things 
as they come and make the most of them.

Still, as Hightower writes, the war on weed is far worse than weed 
itself--in the number of police agents it diverts from solving 
serious crimes, in the $10 billion we spend annually on catching, 
prosecuting and incarcerating marijuana users and sellers, and in the 
fact that some 41,000 Americans are in federal or state prisons on 
marijuana charges.

Think, too, of the illegal car searches, phone taps and door-busting 
night raids that trample on the Bill of Rights, and the fact that 
people who are merely suspected of marijuana violations have had 
their money, cars and other property confiscated by police.

Then remember that 89 percent of all marijuana arrests are for simple 
possession.

The irony is that by criminalizing marijuana the government has made 
it more expensive and thus more profitable to grow and distribute, 
giving rise to the black market and such phenomena as Mexican cartels 
farming pot in the Sierra and the deadly cartel battles along the 
Mexican border.

After 40 years of the war on drugs, you'd think that illicit-drug use 
would be down, but of course it's not. In a 2005 survey, 85 percent 
of high-school seniors said pot was "easy to get"--even easier than 
alcohol, since no ID is needed.

So, if the drug war has been such a failure, why not change course? 
It's simple: money and jobs. For every person in a state prison, 
seven people--cops, judges, parole officers, etc.--are employed to 
put him there, keep him there, or monitor him when he gets out. Drug 
users and dealers are the raw material of the prison-industrial 
complex. Without them it would diminish in size, power and wealth.

Of course, if it did diminish we'd have a whole lot more money to 
spend on health care, social services and education, including 
education about drugs and their effects. In the long run that would 
do more to keep kids off pot than all the police in the world. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake