The AP reports on an increase in efforts to decriminalize marijuana possession or use at the state level.
Legalization bills were introduced in California and Massachusetts earlier this year, and this month, New Hampshire and Washington state prefiled bills in advance of their legislative sessions that begin in January. Marijuana is illegal under federal law, but guidelines have been loosened on federal prosecution of medical marijuana under the Obama administration.
Drug legalization proponent Ethan Nadelman’s thinks this shows “we are close to the tipping point” for marijuana legalization. That seems like an overly optimistic assessment to me. States cannot truly decriminalize marijuana so long as federal prohibition remains in place, and politicians are sufficiently risk averse that I doubt we will see any significant moves on the federal front in the near future.
I still think there are two exogenous factors that work in legalization’s favor. First, the polling data I’ve seen suggests younger voters are much less supportive of marijuana prohibition than older voters. Insofar as this represents a generational difference, this would suggest that opposition to marijuana prohibition would rise over time. Second, as the story notes, many states are in dire need of new revenue sources. This could make the legalization, and taxation, of marijuana more attractive to politicians.
anon says:
How many consecutive U.S. Presidents have to admit to having smoked marijuana before it becomes legal for us little people?
December 28, 2009, 4:57 pmbasher20 says:
One thing I don’t understand about the taxation argument: Over the past 50 years, there have been many entrepenurial efforts to create production and distribution networks outside the law. What makes those who cite legalization as a revenue source think that these networks will be dismantled and only “legal” weed will be sold through regulated outlets?
December 28, 2009, 5:01 pmhattio says:
basher20
December 28, 2009, 5:08 pmThe drop in prices that comes from legalization. The networks support themselves basically through the fact that prohibition drives up the prices. If you legalize, the price falls, and the distribution networks have to either get a lot smaller, or just go the legal route, which means they are open to taxation.
ShelbyC says:
Well, assuming the law has any effect at all, production and distribution outside the law would be more expensive, both in terms of actual cost and of risk of procecution. All you have to do is set the level of taxation slightly below that additional cost level.
December 28, 2009, 5:10 pmSoronel Haetir says:
Also legal distributors are able to take advantage of police and courts when they get into disputes with customers, suppliers, landlords etc. instead of having to take the added risk of extrajudicial enforcement.
Look at how quickly alcohol returned to being a legal market once it was possible. It just doesn’t pay enough to use such methods when you don’t have a criminal markup penalty added to the price.
December 28, 2009, 5:13 pmKent Scheidegger says:
How about a “public option”? Instead of settling for a tax on the profit, make the government the sole legal retailer and keep all the profit.
“Hard liquor” is sold this way in some places in the US to this day, and it used to be in a lot more.
Legal private sellers would have a First Amendment right to promote their product. A government seller could plow part of the profit into public service advertising warning against excessive consumption (which is not harmless, notwithstanding what the pot lobby says).
December 28, 2009, 5:19 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
basher20 indirectly raises a point I’ve wondered about: given that the drug importers have the same power as the government – by which I mean they can also use violence with (more or less) impunity – what’s to prevent them from refusing to allow drug legalization?
December 28, 2009, 5:21 pmJay says:
Somewhat re: Kent’s comment: From a law nerd perspective, it’s interesting to contemplate that legalized marijuana, absent a constitutional amendment, would actually be even more freely available than alcohol is. That’s because alcohol is, via the 21st amendment, subject to heightened regulation by the states, albeit with the law currently in some flux over just how much play in the joints there is between the 21st amendment and the dormant Commerce Clause. But, for example, the three-tier system for alcohol sales (producer, wholesaler, retailer) is more structure than is imposed on any other product of which I’m aware. And it’s pretty much accepted (despite some pending lawsuits) that it’s ok to require the wholesalers and retailers to be in-state businesses. I wonder if the same system could be imposed by a state for weed, or if that would be thought to pretty clearly run afoul of DCC principles?
December 28, 2009, 5:34 pmBT says:
2.basher20 says:
“…What makes those who cite legalization as a revenue source think that these networks will be dismantled and only “legal” weed will be sold through regulated outlets?”
Let’s say you have two choices, one buy your Muggles legally through the government or a government sanctioned private seller and face no legal hazzards or two, buy it through the guy down the street and if caught face similar penalties that you would today. What would you rather do? Even if there is a 20% premium I would think most folks would gladly pay that to avoid any legal hassels and have peace of mind. As Root Boy Slim once sang “Set the herb man free!!!!!”
December 28, 2009, 5:44 pmRbaron321 says:
@basher20 & PersonFromPorlock
Don’t neglect the consumer from this thought experiment. I imagine that most consumers would prefer to purchase from legal dealers, with all of the implicit safety and quality benefits, rather than the black market. I bet that black market dealers would have trouble securing sufficient revenue to cover cost with the introduction of a legal network.
December 28, 2009, 5:46 pmtoker says:
Don’t bogart that joint my friend… pass it over to me.
So much BS about a simple weed. So much BS legislation and heat about a God-given shrub. Weird that conservatives who rant on and on about Obama and the alleged commiefication of the US don’t see that criminalizing nature’s bounty is just as controlling, just as centralist in its mentality (moral majority HQ) as any paranoid fantasy spun about the Obama White House.
December 28, 2009, 5:47 pmThorley Winston says:
I suspect that it isn’t so much a “generational difference” as it is that younger voters tend to be more libertine and a lot of things that many people thought were a “good idea” when they were younger and relatively free of responsibility may look a lot differently when they’re older.
Perhaps but I also think those same States which are being affected by high unemployment and health care costs are going to be pretty cautions about encouraging an activity that might provide a new revenue source on the one hand but might lead to higher “social costs” on the other. I’m not saying that if someone did an objective cost-benefit analysis that it wouldn’t come down on the side of “legalize and tax” but only that it’s going to be a harder sell than the proponents of legalization might think.
December 28, 2009, 5:47 pmMike says:
Obama laughed at a student who asked about drug decriminalization. Freedom…How cute, quaint, and creative!
December 28, 2009, 5:48 pmAnon21 says:
Maybe. You see both sorts of patterns: an issue where a younger generation progresses beyond an older one, and the previously radical view becomes the mainstream view through cohort replacement, and an issue in which there’s consistently a similar-sized cohort gap. I would hazard a guess that marijuana legalization is following more of the latter pattern, but I don’t know of any data to support that.
I seriously doubt it. Marijuana has demonstrably fewer short-term health consequences and propensity for inducing violence than does alcohol, so if there’s even a mild substitution effect created by legalization, the social side of the ledger is going only going to add more benefits to the tax revenue which is the most obvious rationale for legalization.
It’s also worth noting that legalization would not merely add a new revenue source; it would also likely also significantly cut expenditures on law enforcement and incarceration. (Although such cuts could have a negative, counter-cyclical effect in the midst of a recession.)
December 28, 2009, 5:57 pmwlpeak says:
I know this is the common tangent for topics like this, sorry, but how is it that we needed a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol but need merely a law to outlaw marijuana? Is our modern ‘understanding’ of the commerce clause so much ‘better’ than those who came before us? Are we that arrogant? Or has our myopic semi-dedication to Stare decisis elevated legal process over logic, clarity, and political history.
Really, I find this difficult to understand.
December 28, 2009, 6:01 pmAllan Walstad says:
Libertarians see the parallel, Toker. Do you? Too bad that concerns about Obama are not just paranoid fantasies.
December 28, 2009, 6:04 pmAnon21 says:
I don’t think it’s clear that we “needed” a constitutional amendment to do Prohibition; I think the fact that we got one is probably testament to the moral weight which its proponents attached to the issue. They truly thought it deserved a place in our fundamental charter alongside protections for freedom of speech, etc.
But assuming that the amendment was considered legally necessary, that’s just a reflection of the Lochner Court’s benighted and irrational quest to propound a constitutional distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. Our current jurisprudence, which accords Congress more-or-less police powers, is both more workable and better-suited to our Constitution and institutions as they have evolved.
December 28, 2009, 6:07 pmAllan Walstad says:
The pols and bureaucrats certainly are, wlpeak.
December 28, 2009, 6:08 pmAllan Walstad says:
wlpeak–I forgot to mention, besides the pols and bureaucrats, their shyster-lawyer enablers.
December 28, 2009, 6:10 pmJoe Kowalski says:
If a state did get in the business of producing and retailing cannabis, wouldn’t that make for an awfully awkward situation, such that a state governor could have federal CSA drug charges leveled against him (or her in WA state)?
December 28, 2009, 6:11 pmKent Scheidegger says:
Obviously, the state law would have to be made contingent on congressional authorization, which would also take care of the “Dormant Commerce Clause” issue noted in an earlier comment.
December 28, 2009, 6:19 pmwlpeak says:
Ok, that’s possible if odd. But weren’t there a lot of supporting federal laws passed to setup enforcement? What happened to those laws when prohibition was repealed? If an amendment was unnecessary to outlaw alcohol, wouldn’t they have still been enforceable? What was the thinking at the time?
December 28, 2009, 6:31 pmMike says:
Nah, man. In addition to sales and other high-stress professions like finance, doctors, lawyers, professors in their 40s are lighting up. They are good parents, too, and “adults” in every socially-constructed definition of the word.
People realized that smoking weed just isn’t a big deal when done responsibly. Like drinking and other vices, it’s something you do every once in a while. Just don’t treat drugs or alcohol like they do in “Mad Men.”
In fact, one of the more shocking things about “growing up” or “getting older” was seeing so many adults smoking weed. Adults have been smoking up for decades. It was just an underground subculture. When you’re young, you’re not plugged in.
Now-a-days, it’s less underground.
In fact, even if you don’t smoke up, talking trash about it gets you viewed as a douche.
December 28, 2009, 6:33 pmDG says:
The funny thing is that almost all of the organized opposition to legalization these days is coming from those with a financial interest in keeping pot illegal – namely anti-drug organizations and various police agencies. But, of course, they are only acting as devoted public servants, not as folks nervous about losing their jobs…
December 28, 2009, 6:39 pmAnon21 says:
That’s complicated. The primary federal enforcement mechanism, the Volstead Act, was explicitly based on Congress’s authority under Section 2 of the Eighteenth Amendment, which was plainly sufficient in itself. When the Twenty-First Amendment was enacted, it repealed the source of constitutional authority cited for the Volstead Act, and of course there were also no further attempts to enforce it. The creation of the Federal Alcohol Administration two years after the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified suggests that contemporary opinion considered existing Congressional authority sufficient to sustain federal regulation of alcohol.
December 28, 2009, 6:45 pmwlpeak says:
OK, Thanks.
December 28, 2009, 6:54 pmBut of course that points to a contemporary belief in the legitimacy of federal alcohol regulation, not prohibition. Am I to understand that you are implying that the current law vis marijuana is similar and merely regulates but does not prohibit outright?
ChrisTS says:
He did not laugh at the student at all!
Everyone else was laughing, good-naturedly, but the Prez actually congratulated the student on thinking outside the box. He then went on in a rather boring way about economic change.
Why make up a story about something so silly when it is easily seen as false?
December 28, 2009, 7:08 pmShelbyC says:
Interesting. But modern constitutional doctrine gives Congress the power to ban alchohol, so it potentially could be enforced. So alchohol’s technically still illegal, eh?
December 28, 2009, 7:14 pmChrisTS says:
Thorley Winston:
While there is some truth to the claim that we all become more cautious as we age, this does not necessarily entail our becoming more politically conservative. (By the latter term I mean more inclined to have the law used to prohibit others from engaging in conduct in which we do not wish to engage.)
I suspect the government’s anti-marijuana campaign convinced older people in the 60′s that it really is more dangerous than alcohol. The failure of that campaign to convince younger folks is more likely what accounts for the generational difference than the ‘libertinism’ of the young.
December 28, 2009, 7:19 pmChrisTS says:
Right. If I wanted to buy anything consumable and had a choice between some guy on a corner selling who knows what and a licensed product, complete with content info on the side, I would certainly prefer the latter.
December 28, 2009, 7:25 pmwlpeak says:
So back to my original question, if Congress didn’t have the power to make alcohol illegal then, how does it have the power now?
December 28, 2009, 7:33 pmwolfwalker says:
On the alcohol question, wlpeak, it strikes me that the 18th Amendment was ratified in 1919. That’s well before the development of the modern Incorporation Doctrine, which enormously expanded Congress’s effective power. As I understand it, in 1919 Congress could ban interstate transport of alcoholic beverages under the Commerce Clause, but it could not (yet) ban all manufacture of alcoholic drinks, even for personal consumption. Only states could do that. Thus, the broad language of the 18th Amendment was in fact necessary. Today, under the expanded interpretation of the Commerce Clause, it wouldn’t be.
In the original post, Professor Adler wrote: “States cannot truly decriminalize marijuana so long as federal prohibition remains in place, and politicians are sufficiently risk averse that I doubt we will see any significant moves on the federal front in the near future.”
I admit I can’t understand why anyone would think this. At this moment, Barry Lackwit, the Bitch Princess, and Filthy Harry are ready to take on the risk of passing a bill that 60% of voters hate — and they have a majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate in favor. Why would anyone think they’d shrink away from so relatively tiny a thing as legalizing pot?
December 28, 2009, 7:49 pmChrisTS says:
wlpeak:
Congress always had [or could claim to have had] the power to prohibit any substance on its own. But, as I understand the prohibition movement, the anti-alcohol lobby wanted more than a law: they/it wanted an amendment so that a less sympathetic/upright Congress of the future could not easily repeal the prohibition.
There was, as well, some rhetoric around the amnedment movement to the effect that all citizens have a right to be free of the scourge of alcohol [its use by others]. Much of this focused on children as subject to the violence and irresponsibility of drunken parents and on women who might be victims of abuse by drunken husbands/fathers/etc.
Re the latter: I once read a pamphlet that attributed excessive sexual demands [more genteely put, of course] on wives and the whole institution of prostitution to men’s use of alcohol. It was …interesting.
December 28, 2009, 7:50 pmChrisTS says:
I’m sorry. Are these Baum or Rowling references?
December 28, 2009, 7:54 pmChris Travers says:
Competition by cheaper legally legit suppliers?
December 28, 2009, 7:55 pmwlpeak says:
Ah, that is a better explanation, Thanks.
Here is a followup, what was the first material thing that Congress made possession of illegal?
December 28, 2009, 7:57 pmOren says:
Yup, that’s a great plan for winning over the paranoid.
December 28, 2009, 8:02 pmMike says:
Even under your false characterization of Obama’s reaction, and your excessive spin: You’re forced to admit that Obama viewed drug legalization as “thinking outside the box.” Because drug legalization is way outside of the box? Hardly.
December 28, 2009, 8:04 pmKent Scheidegger says:
So a person who wants to prohibit others from driving a gas-guzzler, using “hate speech,” or using non-recycled paper is “politically conservative”? That’s news to me. I always thought such folks were “liberals” in the modern sense of that term.
December 28, 2009, 8:08 pmJay says:
Kent: “Obviously, the state law would have to be made contingent on congressional authorization, which would also take care of the “Dormant Commerce Clause” issue noted in an earlier comment.”
Well, no. The DCC isn’t about areas where state and federal law directly conflict, it’s about areas where federal law is silent. I was assuming that marijuana had become legal at both the state (or at least, in the states I was thinking about) and federal level. Then, asking if states could regulate it to the same degree and in the same manner that they regulate alcohol, given the authority they’re granted by the 21st Amendment. Since there’s no 21st amendment for MJ, the answer seems pretty clearly “no,” which seems sort of ironic/interesting to me.
One response to this is that the 19th & 21st Amendments (and much of the earlier legislation regarding Prohibition) were passed in response to a super-robust version of the DCC that existed in the late-19th/early-20th centuries; the SC had created such things as the “original package doctrine,” holding that states could not ban liquor being shipped into their borders and sold in stores, so long as it remained in its original package. Arguably, the 21st amendment was only meant to clarify that a state could entirely ban booze if it wanted to, and since DCC doctrine has changed significantly, to focus on discrimination, since that era, it’s not really necessary to achieve that purpose anymore.
December 28, 2009, 8:09 pmChris Travers says:
We will see. I am married and have two kids, and still think legalization is a good idea.
I was recently reading a book that was given to me, “Sin, Sex, and Self-Responsibility” by Norman Vincent Peale and had some interesting thoughts about how society has changed in the last 30 years based on his observations around the time I was born and my experiences growing up. In particular, the issues he saw associated with sexual morality in the 1970′s seemed to have a lot to do with guilt about turning away from parents views. Now we live in a society where the sexual revolution is not only fully naturalized, but also has been the basis for what young adults today were told by their parents about sexuality. So many of his points about guilt simply don’t hold up.
The same may be the case with marijuana legalization. The DEA has fought tooth and nail against medical marijuana allowances for research and other uses and quite frankly they have lost a lot of credibility. The rise of medical marijuana views suggests that keeping the plant as a schedule I narcotic is politically minded and not substantive. I think a lot of people see that. But medical marijuana will eventually lead to questions of whether we legalize or not. Simply suggesting that it is a matter of folks growing up probably won’t address it any more than Peale’s assumptions (and advocacy) that parents would abandon the sexual revolution in favor of discussing older concepts of sexual morality. The avalanche has begun, and it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
December 28, 2009, 8:12 pmKent Scheidegger says:
Jay, if your comment is based on an assumption that Congress would merely repeal its own laws without saying anything about state regulation, you may be correct, but I don’t think it would come out that way politically. Congress can abrogate the Dormant Commerce Clause for a particular product or service. It has done so for insurance. It did so for alcohol before Prohibition. I expect that any repeal of the federal marijuana prohibition would include language to free the states from any DCC limitation.
December 28, 2009, 8:22 pmAnon21 says:
No, but the argument that the power to regulate does not encompass the power to prohibit was rejected by the Supreme Court as far back as Champion v. Ames, 188 U.S. 321 (1903), during a period of considerably greater restrictions on the federal commerce power than have prevailed at any time since 1937. It did enjoy a brief resurgence in Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 151 (1918), but Hammer was overruled in United States v. Darby Lumber Co., 312 U.S. 100 (1941). Nor does the rule implicitly adopted in Hammer have logic on its side; if Congress has the power to regulate the manner in which articles of commerce may flow, it makes little sense to say it is powerless to prohibit particularly dangerous articles from entering commerice in the first place.
December 28, 2009, 8:28 pmChrisTS says:
Yikes. I have no idea.
The whiskey tax was not a prohibition… hmm. I think one could buy dynamite pretty easily up until the 1900′s.
Well, we have lots of lawyers and law profs here; perhaps they can enlighten us!
December 28, 2009, 8:43 pmrmd says:
It may be time to freshen up those stereotypes. I doubt many would question William F. Buckley’s conservative credentials and he was pro-legalization.
And speaking of stereotypes… Not related to your comment specifically, but I can’t help but think that one obstacle standing in the way of marijuana legalization is that many of its loudest proponents come across like characters in a Cheech and Chong skit.
December 28, 2009, 8:47 pmOren says:
Of course, “loudest” means “most media time” these days and media time goes to the most entertaining. This is true on both sides of the aisle (witness TDS’ repeated clips of Inhofe re: Copenhagen — surely he might qualify as the loudest in the anti-AGW crowd).
December 28, 2009, 9:04 pmJack Jones says:
Many years ago (1956 if memory serves) I wrote a term paper at Fresno State College plumping for the legalization of marijuana. I received one of very few “A”‘s in my college career. At that time I was concerned that continued criminalization could only benefit the producers and enforcers. Little did I know.
You could buy a lid for $10. Now $450. Of course a dime from that era sells now for around $1.50
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it” Upton Sinclair
December 28, 2009, 9:10 pmChrisTS says:
I’m not aware of any move to prohibit the use of non-recycled paper or gas-guzzlers. Nor am I a supporter of ‘hate speech’ laws. I suppose one might see these matters as implicating harm to others. Of course, what constitutes ‘harm to others’ is up for discussion.
Perhaps I should have framed my definition in terms of ‘enforcing [ traditional] morality.’
It was certainly not my intention to insult those who think of themselves as ‘conservative.’
It is a theoretical conservative view that what offends or seems immoral to the man on the Clapham bus or the mainstream folk is fair game for legal proscription. That was my meaning.
Of course, there are those on the so-called ‘left’ who share the conservative view that the group and its interests are paramount. Liberals give priority to the individual. They differ from, e.g., libertarians in their conception of what ‘individual freedom’ means and what the state ought to do to ensure/promote such freedom.
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December 28, 2009, 9:40 pmArthurKirkland says:
When marijuana leaves the criminal law, the libertarian-liberal alliance will be responsible for the change, and, I expect, will effect that change over the loud objections of most Republicans. (Why this is likely to occur, I am not sure I understand.)
At least three generations of Americans consider the criminalization of marijuana — and the people who favor imprisoning (some) recreational drug users — silly. That, coupled with the traditional tendency of Americans to choose liberty and decency when provided enough time, should be enough to overcome the liberty- and fun-hating forces.
The sooner, the better.
December 28, 2009, 10:29 pmwlpeak says:
Of course if it is a question of power then I agree, it makes little sense to differentiate between regulation and prohibition, dangerous or otherwise. But if the question is about authority and where in the constitution outside of the oversized commerce clause such authority might originate, then I suspect the answer is a bit different.
As far as the commerce clause itself, I am one of those old fashioned people who believes the court cannot interpret more power into that one clause than the rest of the constitution combined.
December 28, 2009, 11:07 pmAnother guy named Dan says:
Forgive my ignorance; I’ve never touched the stuff for reasons having little to do with legality. However, given some of my high school classmates and early workmates who claimed to be growing their own, I am challenging the assumption that a commercial, regulated and taxed producer is going to be the lowest priced player in the market.
I think that alcohol after prohibition is not a very good model for legalized pot, since there was already a legal and national market for distilled spirits and at least large regional markets for beer prior to prohibition. After repeal, it was simply a matter of cranking up the stills and breweries that were idled but not dismantled. The brands and distribution networks already existed and were controlled by businessmen who were used to working within the boundaries of what was then the most highly regulated industry in the country.
Even so, the battles between the moonshiners and “revenuers” ran hot and heavy into the 1960s in parts of the country, and still go on in a few places. This occurred because even after legalization, the shiners could produce an acceptable product at a lower cost to the consumer than the taxed legal alternative.
Since a small-scale pot operation would need even less capital investment than a similar moonshine still or tobacco producer, the drug wars will likely continue even after legalization. Anyone who believes that no one will be jailed for drug offenses after pot is legalized really must be smoking something.
December 28, 2009, 11:29 pmShelbyC says:
I think farmers were allowed to buy it up until much more recently.
December 28, 2009, 11:37 pmGuy says:
Are you sure they can’t? Because I’m almost positive that they have.
Oh! you meant “shouldn’t”…
December 29, 2009, 12:51 amI Callahan says:
I find it rather amusing that people can talk about legalizing MJ without any irony when we live in an almost complete nanny state. States are signing anti-smoking laws, New York outlawed trans fat, we have scolds telling us how to exercise, what to eat, drink, etc. And just wait until health care is taken over by the government nannies.
The idea that marijuana is going to be legalized, when a whole bunch of substances and actions arguably not as bad for you are being slowly criminalized, is laughable. It’s never going to be legal in this country.
Disclaimer – I state this not as an advocate for the above; I’m probably on board with most of the commenters here.
December 29, 2009, 1:17 amGuy says:
I Callahan,
To be fair, there does not exist a massive concerted effort to carry out a “war on tobacco”. At least, not to the extent the war on drugs targets marijuana. Time and place smoking restrictions, enforced through public etiquette plus fines directed at establishments which don’t enforce the rules, coupled with a hefty sin tax doesn’t quite compare to buyers and sellers of a product facing serious felony or misdemeanor charges.
December 29, 2009, 1:37 amTatil says:
I know you just want to harp about him, but if it is not “outside the box” at all, could you please point out the names of current members of US Congress who has publicly called for legalization? Why do you think people around laughed at the question? Because it was such an everyday political discussion?
December 29, 2009, 1:49 amMike says:
Brilliant point. We are being regulated by liberals. Indoor smoking bans. I am mostly an ex-cigar smoker since it’s too hard to find a place to smoke. Even fewer cigar shops are legally allowed indoor smoking.
Liberals want us to be less free…except when marijuana is concerned. It probably is evidence that liberalism is more about being counter-cultural than about actually being liberal - as in liberty enhancing.
Once marijuana is legalized and mainstream, liberals will want to ban it – for our own good, of course.
December 29, 2009, 2:00 amJames N. Gibson says:
Spoken like a true user. Quick question though, are the generations true generations or cultural.
Another guy named Dan has the more pertinent point. When Alcohol was de-criminalized it didn’t put an end to moonshiners or smugglers. The tax on the purchases made a market for the illegal sales, just as the proposed Tax on cannabis will do the same here. And like Alcohol, where people grow there own grapes and make there own wine (or brew there own beer) how do we tax these actions now. I note this since the whole push for legalization now is based on the story that the taxes on the sales will save California from its financial ruin.
If the tax is high enough to actually effect the California budget, it will automatically breath-life into the underground market (which means more police to regulate the dispensaries and monitor the books). Don’t believe that, look at LA and the added Police now being allocated to monitor the sales at the Dispensaries. Yet legalization was to reduce Police costs. And when the politicians realize that the advocates are also teaching people how to grow and harvest Marijuana, where will they get the tax money then.
No tax money, within five years the politicians will be looking for scapegoats to explain why the budget is still out-of-whack. Particularly since in California the tax money will be already incorporated into the budget three years after legalization. By ten years there will be no one on capital hill friendly to the cannabis growers who promise much and deliver little. And of course, all these advocates (as well as users and profiteers) will be publicly known by that time so one also will know what will happen to them.
December 29, 2009, 2:15 amthe_buff says:
As recently as the 1960′s in Petaluma, California.
What does legalization do before the education is in place.
People have been drilled with “don’t drink and drive,” but how many “don’t smoke and drive” ads has anyone ever seen?
December 29, 2009, 3:13 amKirk Lazarus says:
Quite. I’m sure polling data suggested younger voters were much less supportive of marijuana prohibition than older voters 40 years ago. Those “younger voters” are retiring now and prohibition remains.
December 29, 2009, 3:19 amGuy says:
Another victory for civil debate.
December 29, 2009, 4:13 amAnatid says:
You know the old joke?
A drunk driver and a stoned driver both approach a stop sign. The drunk driver doesn’t notice the sign and sails right through it. The stoned driver stops, and waits for it to turn green.
December 29, 2009, 4:48 amOren says:
Why is this? Commercially produced high-grade MJ should not cost more than $10/oz in the absence of legal restrictions (just a guess) so you can tax it at a combined-rate of 1000% for a total of $110/oz and still be 3-4x cheaper than the black market (whose rate shouldn’t change).
If anything, small home-producers would take up the enthusiast slack left behind without turning to the black market. After all, I am allowed to brew my own beer, tax free per 27USC25(L) and MGL Title XX138§3. Has the market for taxed beer collapsed?
December 29, 2009, 8:45 amAnother guy named Dan says:
Here’s the deal – If the processing plant can sell a product for $10 an ounce and send it out the front door subject to a 1000% tax, or out the side door for $100 an ounce with no tax, the incentive will still be to send some quantity out that side door. That means you will still need law enforcement, and people will still go to jail for smuggling pot.
December 29, 2009, 9:18 amTwirip says:
I strongly suspect that a poll of college age people in the sixties and seventies would have given a very similar result. People change as they age.
December 29, 2009, 10:31 amTwirip says:
Good point. This is what makes the liberaltarian movment so pointless. Liberalism is only interested in “freedom” to the extent that it can accumulate power to itself. It sees freedom as a means to an unfree end.
December 29, 2009, 10:36 amRbaron321 says:
You are right to point out that newly introduced legal pot markets will have deep and obvious failures for a whole host of reasons. Maybe we should look to the online music industry in the 00s as a model for a possible future pot market. At the start of the decade, an under-regulated “gray” market. By the mid decade, the industry tried (and failed) to use the power of the state to suppress a “black” market. By late decade, regulated structure was introduced (itunes, amazon, etc.) and now we have a mix of legal and state suppressed (Pirate Bay) black markets. Not perfect, but everyone seems to agree this arrangement is preferable to a Napster universe.
December 29, 2009, 10:40 amPubliusFL says:
And if you carry an umbrella in a rainstorm, some water will probably get on you anyways. That doesn’t make the umbrella a bad idea.
Sure there would still be a need for law enforcement and some people going to jail for pot-related crimes. Is there any reason to think the magnitude of the problem will be anywhere near what it is now? The word “alcohol” is still in the title of a federal law enforcement agency (BATFE) and there are still people going to jail for alcohol-related crimes, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t make a difference if we reinstated alcohol prohibition.
December 29, 2009, 10:40 amTwirip says:
The Obama administration contains a number of communists and has already nationalized the banking and auto industries. It wants to nationalize the healthcare industry. These are not paranoid fantasies, they are things which have already been done or which everybody agrees is in the process of being done. And they are far, far, far more dangerous to our freedoms than any laws about pot.
Incidentally, the American “liberal” movement hates MacDonalds and “Big Tobacco”. Only a fool would believe that they really support the establishment of a legitimate “Big Marijuana” industry.
December 29, 2009, 10:47 amTwirip says:
What is the magnitude of the problem now? It’s a myth that people are going to jail for getting high.
December 29, 2009, 10:49 amslimslowslider says:
As a somewhat liberal person, I would like to state that I quite enjoy McDonald’s, I haaaate anti tobacco legislation and I don’t care about your SUV unless you cut me off or take up more than one parking space. I would enjoy legal marijuana.
December 29, 2009, 10:51 amAnother guy named Dan says:
@PubliusFL – I think you’ve lost the track of my argument. I’m pretty agnostic as to whether or not pot should be legal. What I’m saying is that the arguments that legalization would immediately eliminate drug related crime, and that legalization/regulation/taxation would be a boon to government incomes are unconvincing at best. We could further reduce crime by legalizing homicide, rape, and theft; that would not mean that these things would have less of a detrimental effect on society. Secondly, the infrastructure for evading any taxes on pot already exists, so any enhanced income would come as a result of more regulation, more law enforcement, and more draconian penalties rather than less.
Rbaron321 has suggested that the digital distribution of music would be a better model for a legalized pot market than alcohol post prohibition. Remember the legal market only came about after a draconian law enforcement effort was made. Remember the $750000 per song lawsuits from the RIAA?
December 29, 2009, 11:05 amAdam J says:
Mike – I’m not sure one could describe indoor smoking bans as a liberal movement. I know quite a few very liberal friends who are pissed by it and a few conservative friends that love it. One’s side in this seems to be by and large based on whether one smokes or not. That said, you have to realize that freedom as we know it is actually a system of tradeoffs- one has to balance a person’s freedom to act in a certain way against the harm that freedom can do to others. True freedom is simply anarchy. We often gain greater freedom even though we lose some of our freedom to do a number of risky and criminal behaviors. Indoor smoking has resulted in alot of nonsmokers being discomforted and suffering medical problems due to second hand smoke- who’s to say that that is any less an infringment of their freedom then your “right” to smoke indoors.
December 29, 2009, 11:09 amPubliusFL says:
I’m pretty agnostic on this issue too. But:
1) I don’t think I’ve seen anyone argue that legalizing marijuana would end drug-related crime or the need for law enforcement, especially considering that many other drugs would remain illegal (cocaine, heroin, meth, etc.).
2) The infrastructure for evading taxes on alcohol existed before Prohibition ended, too. Nevertheless, most people just pay the taxes and get their alcohol through safe, convenient, legal channels. Deriving tax revenue from the alcohol industry did not require more law enforcement and more draconian penalties than before Prohibition ended. You still haven’t explained what makes pot different from alcohol in this respect.
December 29, 2009, 11:32 amMike McDougal says:
Yeah, it almost entirely eliminated them but left one or two hiding out. Great point. Amazing, really.
December 29, 2009, 11:39 amDavid Sucher says:
Follow the money.
December 29, 2009, 12:01 pmAnother guy named Dan says:
Alcohol, at least in drinkable form is a manufactured product. To make moonshine, you need a still and identifiable feedstocks, such as cracked corn and firewood. Other forms of liquor require other feedstocks, such as sugar for rum or gin. Beer is the most identifiable of all, since there are no other real uses for hops in this country. Then there’s the old revenuer’s trick of simply watching who is buying large quantities of canning jars on a regular basis.
Pot requires at most an empty field, and is a salable product as soon as it is harvested. there is no intermediary processing site that can be located and eliminated or regulated.
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December 29, 2009, 12:47 pmTwirip says:
Of course the people running around loose are running around loose because, unlike those charged with “possession only”, they have not committed other crimes. As with Al Capone and tax evasion, drug possession is a quick and easy way to convict known criminals. In fact they frequently plea down to possession in return for dropping charges of robbery or assault.
December 29, 2009, 1:12 pmTwirip says:
Then you should examine the reasons why you consider yourself to be a somewhat liberal person, because liberalisms view of the ideal world is not yours.
December 29, 2009, 1:20 pmGuy says:
I’d love to see statistics that no one is ever arrested for possession alone. Even if that’s true, it’s a good argument that the law is void for overbroadness. Courts look skeptically at selective prosecution designed to punish people for unrelated crimes. At least in the case of Al Capone the reason for his tax evasion was intimately linked to his criminal activities.
If occasionally eating at McDonald’s, not hating SUV’s, and being a smoker disqualifies you from being a liberal, I have to say I’m pretty surprised to learn that I’m a conservative. Thanks, Twirip, for explaining to me why my own views aren’t what I thought they were.
December 29, 2009, 1:45 pmChris Travers says:
How much capital do you think it requires to build and run a small still, out of curiosity?
December 29, 2009, 1:52 pmPubliusFL says:
Hops are a crop, just like marijuana. If growing a crop of hops is a tell-tale sign of beer production, seems like growing a crop of marijuana is a darn sure sign of marijuana production. It is possible to make beer without hops. And, of course, you can make wine or hard cider without hops or a still. Brewer’s yeast or wine yeast is another sign, but you can use baking yeast in a pinch, and if yeast is hard to come by (or buying in large quantities would attract too much attention) you just save a bit of the last batch to get the next batch going.
December 29, 2009, 2:15 pmTwirip says:
You live in a fantasy world if you believe that. Plea barginning is a staple of the criminal justice system. I take it that you’re not one of the lawyers who post here.
I’m merely pointing out your logical incoherence. Don’t blame the messenger. If you’re unaware that “liberalism” is not compatible with the freedoms you value, then you have a problem which you should try to resolve.
December 29, 2009, 2:37 pmslimslowslider says:
I am the somewhat liberal who likes McDonald’s on occasion, doesn’t hate SUVs and hates anti smoking legislation. But I also like p*rn, violent video games, free speech, freedom of religion, minimum wage, gay marriage and other things. If that makes me not a somewhat liberal person to you, so be it. All things considered, I side with the libs. Blame the religious right, not the messenger.
December 29, 2009, 3:15 pmAdam J says:
Twirip – Wow, I thought one typically needed to use logic to point a logical incoherence. Maybe you could explain the logical coherence of how morality legislation like anti-smoking is liberal and morality legislation like anti-porn and anti-homosexual is conservative. You might even be able to make a half way compelling distinction there, but you’d be far more hard-pressed to explain how one’s food and vehicle preferences identify one as liberal or conservative.
December 29, 2009, 3:29 pmChrisTS says:
And they needed it because of gigantic carnivorous rabbits?
December 29, 2009, 5:49 pmChrisTS says:
Furthermore, one would expect a secondhand smoking ban to extend to mj as well as to tobacco products, on harm to others grounds. And, ‘liberals’ are not trying to send people to jail for eating fatty foods, nor to outlaw someone’s dumb Hummer – despite possible other-regarding effects.
Is it really necessary to turn every discussion into a ‘liberals’ vs ‘whomever’ catfight?
December 29, 2009, 5:58 pmChrisTS says:
Adam J:
You must not understand that one’s political views have nothing to do with one’s political beliefs.
Really. It’s all about what you drive, smoke, drink, and eat. Liberals drive hybrids (or bike), smoke pot, drink wine, and eat tofu. Conservatives drive SUVs, smoke cigarettes, drink beer, and eat beef.
It’s really very simple once you move past all that silly political theory stuff.
December 29, 2009, 6:06 pmAnatid says:
Token young person here.
On the generational thing, I suspect that my generation’s acceptance of marijuana is different from my parents’ generation in a number of ways. They were exposed to the drug going through college as a component of a cultural revolution. When other aspects of that revolution subsided back to moderacy (such as the notion of free love in the face of HIV and other STDs), so did their views on marijuana.
But us? We’ve grown up being fed scare stories by DARE and other worthless programs, and we’ve seen that they’re flat-out not true. We watch successful businessmen, scientists, artisans, and parents relaxing with marijuana the same way they might with a beer after a long day, with about the same detriment (none). While we share everyone else’s disdain for the stereotypical dumb, lazy stoner, we also know that it’s not the drug, it’s that these kids are already dumb and lazy. Meanwhile, intelligent and ambitious students who like to spark up do just as well as their peers.
Spend an entire lifetime watching marijuana commonly-used without harmful effects, and it’s pretty hard to believe that the DEA was right when it classified the drug as more harmful than speed or coke.
This isn’t the sort of thing that you grow out of.
December 29, 2009, 6:46 pmBerlKaufman says:
A lot of talk about marijuana, but not much about the dozens of other substances that our governments deems as potentially injurious: cocaine, heroin, LSD, etc. All of these contribute to a vast criminal network and help to sustain terrorism throughout the world. We need to focus on getting these higher leveraged items legalized so we can start to return our world to a safer place in which to live. Pot is small potatoes.
Regarding the comments about legalized pot sales competing with the underground: pot is ridiculously easy to grow. As a result of illegality of cannabis, the THC concentrations have gone through the roof. If pot were legalized, everyone and their uncle will grow some on their window sills…for a while anyway. Then the novelty will wear off (but the social stigma will remain).
December 29, 2009, 10:04 pmArthurKirkland says:
I have not used marijuana for many years because an arrest, let alone a conviction, could hurt many people who depend on me in various ways.
Plenty of people have been punished severely, in several ways, for possession or sale of marijuana. (Others escape punishment because of connections, a disparity that is independently offensive.)
These points are not problems, though, unless one cares about liberty and decency.
December 30, 2009, 1:10 amArthurKirkland says:
I hope this isn’t the sort of thing that you grow out of, but I believe you will be surprised when some of your peers morph into sanctimonious, no-fun-allowed, close-minded (and usually Bible-thumping) prudes.
Your surprise will be compounded when you recognize that some of these folks were the most promiscuous drunks you’ve ever encountered, and that their moralizing will make them no less likely to get divorced, fall off the wagon, get arrested or be revealed as a scandalous hypocrite.
And just wait until you see people who smoked dope, were promiscuous, cheated, were abusive drunks and/or stole become judges and legislators who imprison people for drug offenses and build campaigns on holier-than-thou platforms.
December 30, 2009, 1:24 amAnatid says:
Not LSD. Until 2000, 90% of the country’s LSD was produced by William Leonard Pickard. Today, it still isn’t connected with international crime syndicates the way cocaine and heroin are, nor does it have the destructive social potential.
Although cocaine is a Schedule II drug and LSD is Schedule I. Sad.
But isn’t this a case of people with personal and interpersonal problems using drugs, rather than drugs causing the problems?
Cognitive dissonance is awesome stuff, though.
December 30, 2009, 2:51 amchiMaxx says:
You can get all meta about whether attitudes about marijuana are likely to carry forward with a cohort or change over time as people age, or you can look at the actual numbers. Once you do, it’s clear that public attitudes have changed.
Gallup polls show that those in favor of marijuana legalization have grown from 12% to 44% of the population from 1970 to 2009, and those for continued prohibition of marijuana have dropped 84% to 54% of the population.
Between 2005 and 2009, support for legalization grew from 39% to 50% for 18-49-year-olds and from 37% to 45% among 50-64-year-olds, and just one percent–from 27% to 28%–among those over 65. So support for legalization grew among all three age groups, meaning that even if a few people do grow less approving of the drug as they age, they are more than offset by the number of people who carry their approval of legalization forward with them as they age.
Gallup’s Bottom Line:
“Public mores on legalization of marijuana have been changing this decade, and are now at their most tolerant in at least 40 years. If public support were to continue growing at a rate of 1% to 2% per year, as it has since 2000, the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years.”
Mr. Adler: Does four years qualify as “close?”
December 31, 2009, 4:12 amchiMaxx says:
It’s interesting to look at the changes over time in the Gallup poll I cite above.
Support for legalization grew dramatically between 1970 and 1976 (as the baby boomers came of age)
Support for legalization then dropped precipitously during the Carter administration, dropped very slightly during the Reagan “Just Say No” years, and held steady from 1985 though 1996 (though the Bush and most of the Clinton years)
Support for legalization started to grow slowly between 1996 and 2000, and grew abruptly once again after the 2000 election.
Support for legalization then leveled off again briefly in the wake of the post 9/11 ads attempting to tie the drug to terrorism, but started growing steadily again in 2004
December 31, 2009, 4:28 am