Pubdate: Sat, 17 Nov 2012
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2012 Creators Syndicate
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Jacob Sullum
Note: Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a 
columnist with the Creators Syndicate.

SUCCESSFUL POT INITIATIVES PUT DRUG WARRIORS ON NOTICE

Shortly before the House of Representatives approved a federal ban on 
marijuana in 1937, the Republican minority leader, Bertrand Snell of 
New York, confessed, "I do not know anything about the bill."

The Democratic majority leader, Sam Rayburn of Texas, educated him.

"It has something to do with something that is called marihuana," 
Rayburn said. "I believe it is a narcotic of some kind."

Seventy-five years, millions of arrests and billions of dollars 
later, we are still living with the consequences of that ignorant, 
ill considered decision, which nationalized a policy that punishes 
peaceful people and squanders taxpayer money in a blind vendetta 
against a plant.

Last week, voters in Colorado and Washington opted out of this crazy 
cannabicidal crusade by approving ballot initiatives that will set up 
experiments from which the rest of the country can learn - assuming 
the federal government lets them run.

Both initiatives abolish penalties for adults 21 or older who possess 
up to an ounce of marijuana, and for state-licensed growers and 
sellers who follow regulations that should be adopted during the next 
year or so.

Pot prohibitionists such as Asa Hutchinson, former head of the Drug 
Enforcement Administration (DEA), argue that allowing marijuana sales 
violates the Controlled Substances Act and therefore the 
Constitution, which makes valid acts of Congress "the supreme law of the land."

But the Supremacy Clause applies only to laws that Congress has the 
authority to pass, and the ban on marijuana has never had a solid 
constitutional basis. If alcohol prohibition required a 
constitutional amendment, how could Congress, less than two decades 
later, enact marijuana prohibition by statute?

The initial pretext was the same one the Supreme Court used this year 
to uphold the federal mandate requiring Americans to buy 
government-approved health insurance: The law, dubbed the Marihuana 
Tax Act, was dressed up as a revenue measure. By the time the ban was 
incorporated into the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, Congress had 
a new excuse: It was exercising its authority to "regulate commerce 
. among the several states."

Seven years ago, the Supreme Court concluded, preposterously, that 
Congress is regulating interstate commerce when it authorizes the 
arrest of a cancer patient medicinally using homegrown marijuana in 
compliance with state law.

But states indisputably remain free to say what is and is not a crime 
under their own laws, and that is what Colorado and Washington are doing.

Whether or not it tries to block marijuana legalization in the 
courts, the Obama administration can raid state-legal pot shops, as 
it has done with medical marijuana dispensaries. It can use asset 
forfeiture as an intimidation tactic against landlords and threaten 
banks that accept deposits from pot businesses with money-laundering 
charges. The Internal Revenue Service can make life difficult for pot 
sellers by disallowing their business expenses.

The one thing federal drug warriors cannot do, judging from their 
track record even when they have the full cooperation of state and 
local law enforcement agencies, is suppress the business entirely, 
let alone arrest a significant percentage of people who grow pot for 
themselves and their friends (as Colorado's initiative allows).

According to the FBI, there were 758,000 marijuana arrests nationwide 
last year, the vast majority for possession. The DEA was responsible 
for about 1 percent of them.

Given their limited resources, the feds may yet see the wisdom, if 
not the constitutional imperative, of letting Colorado and Washington 
go their own way.

Last year a Gallup poll put national support for marijuana 
legalization at 50 percent - the highest level ever recorded.

Brian Vicente, co-director of the campaign for Colorado's 
legalization initiative, hopes last week's historic votes "will send 
a message to the federal government that they need to back off 
entirely and let states engage in the responsible regulation of marijuana."

Hard-line drug warriors like Hutchinson are keen to prevent that from 
happening - not because they fear it will be disastrous but because 
they fear it won't be.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom