Pubdate: Mon, 25 Nov 2013
Source: Monterey County Herald (CA)
Contact:  2013 Monterey County Herald
Website: http://www.montereyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/273
Author: Gary Karnes
Note: Gary Karnes is a local activist and former member of the Alisal 
school board in Salinas.
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n558/a11.html

MARIJUANA PROHIBITION A THREAT TO PUBLIC SAFETY

Neil Shapiro's light-hearted commentary Saturday (The parallels of 
pot and Prohibition) left out much about the mayhem, murder and 
destructiveness associated with alcohol prohibition from 1919 to 1933 
and the prohibition of marijuana since 1937 - made worse after the 
war on drugs was launched in the mid-1980s.

Two similar developments characterized the efforts to stamp out 
alcohol and then marijuana. First, there were well-organized and 
well-armed gangs of suppliers. Second, there were well-organized, 
well-funded and well-armed federal and local police forces trying to 
interdict the supply. As a teenager, one of my favorite TV shows was 
"The Untouchables," which portrayed a stern and morally resolute 
Elliott Ness with hatchet in hand smashing beer kegs in the streets 
of Chicago. The other guys with Tommy guns were mowing down competitors.

It was a lot like today where we see ATF agents burning fields of 
marijuana and drug dealers buying submarines, digging tunnels under 
the border and mowing down competitors. What we get is a large 
underground economy with no controls and no revenues, and an 
ever-growing police force and police powers, both highly expensive 
and pretty much a waste of time. Both threaten public safety.

The drug war has led to mass incarceration of young people, primarily 
people of color. All the tough language and tough laws to round 
people up and throw away the key were used. "Tough on crime" 
mandatory minimum sentencing laws proved successful and soon required 
more and bigger jails and prisons and more militarized police forces.

As a result, half a million people are in jail or prison today for 
drug-related offenses. More than 31 million people have been arrested 
for drug offenses since the drug war began. In the 1990s, arrests for 
marijuana possession accounted for 80 percent of the growth in drug 
arrests. At the start of the drug war in 1988, the surgeon general 
described marijuana as a relatively harmless drug with no known 
deaths attributable to it, unlike alcohol and tobacco.

Ironically, the drug war was launched when drug use was on the 
decline in the United States. But that was not the point. The whole 
prison-industrial complex was becoming the point. Pushing back on 
civil rights and voting rights gains was the point, disguised as 
public safety. Since the mid-'80s, our state has built 23 prisons and 
filled them over capacity with 150,000 inmates. The United States 
leads the world in numbers of people imprisoned per 100,000. And 
that's just the prisons owned by the people. Looking for a good 
investment? Ask your financial adviser about the Correctional 
Corporation of America, the nation's premier private prison business. 
Incarceration trades on the stock exchange.

Then there are the jails, the parolees and those on probation. Five 
million to 6 million people across the country have been 
disenfranchised, can't vote and can't serve on juries. Ex-offenders 
are the most severely disadvantaged applicants in the job market. Few 
employers will hire and few landlords will rent to felons. Back to 
prison we go.

If Attorney General Kamala Harris and Monterey County District 
Attorney Dean Flippo are going to study how to reduce prison 
recidivism rates, they had better figure out how to keep people out 
of jail and prison in the first place.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom