Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Copyright: 2015 The Arizona Republic
Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Authors: Gina Berman and Ryan Hurley

'BIG MARIJUANA' IS ALREADY HERE

Advocates: 'Big marijuana' is already here, and it's not those pushing
for a regulated industry. We call it the cartel.

In Sheila Polk and Merilee Fowler's guest column ("Why 'Big Marijuana'
must be stopped," Viewpoints, Jan. 10), they naively refer to "Big
Marijuana" as a greedy monster that will be created if a regulated
system for marijuana is put in place.

We have news for them. Big Marijuana already exists, and it's called
the cartel.

These are criminals who will rape, murder and steal to sell drugs to
our children, and they were created and enriched by the very
prohibition that Polk and Fowler advocate we maintain.

We tried prohibition in this country once and it didn't work.
Prohibition created gangsters and criminals and did little to stem the
supply of alcohol.

Prohibition won't work for marijuana, a substance, by the way, that is
objectively far less harmful than the legal substances alcohol and
tobacco.

Everyone can agree on one thing: We should do our best to keep
marijuana out of the hands of our young people. Prohibition has been a
spectacular failure in this regard. Ask high-school students and they
will tell you unequivocally that marijuana is prevalent and being sold
at their school every day.

Drug dealers don't check ID.

As a contrast, look at the success we have had convincing young people
not to smoke cigarettes. According to the Centers for Disease Control,
cigarette smoking by high-school students is at its lowest rate in 22
years.

Why? Not because we made cigarettes illegal. Instead, we taxed, we
regulated, we demanded that sellers vigorously check ID, and we used
the tax revenue to provide kids with real information about the
dangers of smoking.

But for marijuana, our policies remain dangerously in the past. It is
time for a more intelligent approach. Polk, Fowler and other
prohibitionists must not have paid much attention on the first day of
high-school history.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat
it.

Dr. Gina Berman and M. Ryan Hurley are president and treasurer,
respectively, of Marijuana Policy Project of Arizona.
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MAP posted-by: Matt