Pubdate: Sun, 17 Mar 2013
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2013 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Author: Steve Sebelius
Page: 1D

TIME TO END PROHIBITION

Assemblyman Joe Hogan, DLas Vegas, will certainly get grief for 
introducing a bill to legalize marijuana in Nevada. That's regular 
marijuana, not medical marijuana or synthetic marijuana. Hogan's 
bill, which will be introduced in Carson City on Monday, would allow 
adults 21 years old and older to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana 
for any and all uses, including recreation.

"Certainly, it will be a bit controversial," says Hogan, in one of 
the understatements of the year. But he says the revenue from 
marijuana taxes - which he wants to use for education - and freeing 
up police from marijuana enforcement is more than worth it. "Our 
current fascination with the version of prohibition we have now is 
very unfortunate," Hogan said.

Hogan is a brave soul for taking up this issue, and he deserves 
respect for doing so. He'll undoubtedly be criticized as out of the 
mainstream, although that argument is getting harder and harder to 
make. Voters in Colorado and Washington state have legalized the drug 
outright. Medical marijuana is legal in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile, drug-connected violence in Mexico has claimed tens of 
thousands of lives. Millions of dollars are being spent on a drug war 
that can never be won. The federal government continues to pretend 
marijuana has no medical value and to list it alongside much more 
dangerous substances such as LSD, heroin and Ecstasy. People whose 
only crime was to have purchased marijuana are arrested, saddled with 
a criminal record or locked up.

The reality is, alcohol and tobacco are far more dangerous, and, 
unlike marijuana, they're addictive. Yet society has found a way to 
live with the legalization of those drugs, regulating their use and 
even profiting from their taxation. The same could easily be done for 
marijuana.

So, with plenty of arguments in favor, why is Hogan's bill considered 
a long shot before it's even drafted?

First, politics. A politician can hardly ever go wrong by coming out 
as tough on drugs, while one who favors legalization can easily be 
pilloried as pro-drug use in an election. At a hearing on an 
unrelated bill to guarantee sick patients a supply of medical 
marijuana, former U.S. attorney-turned-state Sen. Greg Brower, 
R-Reno, blurted out, "marijuana use is harmful."

Really? As harmful as downing half a bottle of Scotch? As harmful as 
smoking two packs a day for 20 years?

Second, the federal government. We've yet to see how Washington, 
D.C., deals with the states' rights rebellion in Colorado and 
Washington, but federal agents have not relented in busting medical 
marijuana operations in states that have legalized medical pot. An 
argument could be made that Nevada would simply be setting residents 
up for arrest by agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, who 
could still enforce federal law, at least until the U.S. Supreme 
Court rules on statebased legalization.

Third, the details. Hogan said in an interview last month that his 
bill doesn't yet address an appropriate DUI standard for marijuana. 
Currently, state law holds that a person cannot have more than two 
nanograms of marijuana in the blood, a ridiculously low threshold. 
(For cocaine or heroin, it's 50 nanograms.) That law was used to send 
Jessica Williams to prison for decades in 2000, even after a jury 
found she was not impaired in an asleep-at-the-wheel accident that killed six.

But those details could be worked out if Nevada lawmakers had the 
will to do it. Whether they do it to increase state revenue, or 
because the war on marijuana is a silly and failed exercise, or just 
because it's the right thing, it's long past time to take this 
simple, common-sense step.

Someday, we'll look back and wonder what took so long, and maybe then 
Hogan will get the respect he deserves for acting on the issue now.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom