Pubdate: Wed, 19 Aug 2009
Source: Dallas Observer (TX)
Copyright: 2009 Village Voice Media
Contact:  http://www.dallasobserver.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/884
Author: Patrick Williams

Smokey Dare:

MAYBE IT'S TIME TO REGULATE MARIJUANA LIKE CIGARETTES

Smoke 'em if you got 'em: Craig Johnson, executive director of 
ProtectYouth.org, a Dallas-based nonprofit and lobbying group, 
doesn't smoke marijuana himself, he says. He doesn't think your kids 
should be smoking it either. No drug dealings in the neighborhood; 
none in the schoolyard either. But he and his group have a thought 
about how to protect children from the demon weed: legalize, regulate 
and tax the marijuana market, the way we do tobacco.

OK, so what? Lots of people think the same thing. But not many 
supporters of regulated marijuana have undertaken the work completed 
recently by Johnson's 3-year-old group, which has spent the past year 
or so compiling reams of government and law enforcement data to 
support a fairly straightforward, reasonable case: Since 1997, when 
the government started cracking down on cigarette retailers who sell 
to minors, the percentage of high school students who smoke 
cigarettes has dropped dramatically, while the percentage of kids who 
smoke grass has held pretty steady. In fact, in Dallas ISD, the 
percentage of kids who admitted "current" marijuana use in surveys by 
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outstripped tobacco 
smokers around 2000, and today the potheads lead the nicotine fiends 
by more than 5 percentage points.

The gist of the catchy-titled Tobacco and Marijuana Market Impact 
Index Volume I: Texas Trends, which is available online, is this: In 
1996, 56 percent of Texas retailers who sold tobacco reported they 
sold to minors. Thanks to stricter enforcement since then, that 
number has fallen to 11.3 percent. In the meantime, despite thousands 
of arrests for marijuana possession among youths, the typical price 
of marijuana has fallen or held steady and kids are still toking away.

"We're more able to efficiently regulate the tobacco market than the 
marijuana market," Johnson tells Buzz, so why not adapt some of the 
same regulation to both weeds? Effective regulation beats our current 
system of ineffective criminalization any day.

Like we said, it's a straightforward, reasonable argument for a 
change that could have beneficial affects on government budgets, not 
to mention kids. So, of course, Buzz figures it's all just pissing in 
the wind (see: health care reform). Johnson, though, is a little more 
sanguine. Demographics are changing, old people are giving up seats 
of power and a younger, more reform-minded generation (you know, 
stoners) is taking the reins.

So there's hope. All we need is for some more old people to die off. 
Hmm, say, here's a thought. Suppose we create these government-funded 
death panels...
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