Pubdate: Tue, 29 Apr 2014
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2014 The Baltimore Sun Company
Contact:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Author: Thomas F. Schaller

THE FUTURE GOES TO POT

With public sentiment favoring marijuana legalization, politicians will
eventually have to bring the law in line

Had somebody told me seven years ago when I started writing for The
Sun that one day I would pen a column jointly praising Allan Kittleman
and John Paul Stephens, I would have told her she was high.

But that's the funny thing about weed, isn't it? It has the power to
bring together otherwise different-minded people, including the
55-year-old Maryland Republican state senator and the 94-year-old
retired Supreme Court associate justice, each of whom this month
helped advance the long-overdue cause of marijuana
legalization.

Talking to NPR last week, Mr. Stevens said it's time for America to
legalize marijuana use. He compared today's marijuana laws to the
Prohibition Era of the 1920s and early 1930s. "[T]here's a general
consensus that [Prohibition] was not worth the cost," he said, adding
that he also believes "in time that will be the general consensus with
respect to" marijuana.

The alcohol-marijuana analogy is imperfect. Booze was proscribed by
national amendment, thereby making its re-legalization far more
difficult. Conversely, marijuana consumption is presently illegal in
most states, which could make de novo legalization difficult for the
public to embrace.

Still, the analogy generally holds: A popular, regulated and taxed
substance is banned, to the detriment of the citizenry which enriches
criminals instead of funneling monies into public treasuries, while
communities lose friends and family members to prison terms who might
otherwise be contributing (and yes: taxpaying) members of society.

A bill co-sponsored by Senator Kittleman and later signed into law on
April 14 by Gov. Martin O'Malley re-classified possession or use of
less than 10 grams of marijuana from a criminal offense to a civil
offense. This is an important advance that made Maryland the 15th
state to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Recently, two other states - Colorado and Washington - legalized the
use and sale of marijuana by adults.

More than two dozen Maryland-based organizations joined forces to
support passage of the new law. This polyglot alliance, known as the
Marijuana Policy Coalition of Maryland, fused together state chapters
of organizations with specific interest in drug policy (Marijuana
Policy Project, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws) with general civil liberties groups (American Civil Liberties
Union, Libertarian Party) and race-based organizations particularly
interested in the adverse sentencing impacts of drug laws on their
communities (CASA, National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People).

Their shared victory was not the triumph of a persistent, fringe
element over the public will. In fact, a poll last conducted last fall
by Public Policy Polling found that 68 percent of Marylanders support
decriminalizing possession of marijuana in small amounts.

Marylanders' attitudes are consistent with changing attitudes across
the country. According to the national Marijuana Policy Project, "the
public is far ahead of most public officials on support for marijuana
policy reform." For the first time in four decades, a majority of
Americans polled by Pew Research support legalizing recreational
marijuana use; larger majorities support medicinal
consumption.

In theory, significant lags between political actions of public
preferences should be rare in a democracy. But on issues including
marriage equality and marijuana legalization, generational differences
between citizens and their elected officials often cause
generation-based lags.

Older Americans are far less supportive than middle-age or younger
voters of reforming drug use and possession laws. Although support for
legalizing marijuana is trending upward across all age groups, 64
percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 support it - almost twice the rate
(33 percent) of those 65 and older. Support among Americans aged 30 to
64 falls in the middle at 54 percent.

These age differences wouldn't matter if our national and state
legislatures looked more like the overall population. But the elected
officials are older, on average, than the citizens they purport to
represent.

According to the National Conference of State Legislators, 71 percent
of state legislators nationwide are 50 or over. In the U.S. Congress,
the mean age is 57 in the House and 62 in the Senate. But less than a
third of the U.S. population is 50 or over.

So cheers to baby boomer Allan Kittleman and nonagenarian John Paul
Stevens for siding with the future over the past.

Thomas F. Schaller teaches political science at UMBC. His column appears
every other Wednesday.
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MAP posted-by: Matt