It is a straw man to argue that legalizing marijuana will not reduce cartel violence in Mexico and along its border with California. Of course it wouldn’t, at least not in any significant way. According to the law’s authors, violence and illegal activities surrounding growth and distribution are due to its legal status. Establishing regulated sales outlets would, it is reasoned, put the street dealers out of business. While there is credence to this logic, the fact is putting the bad guy out of business is neither necessary nor sufficient to passing Prop. 19. Certainly patrons would much prefer to engage in the legal purchase of legal substances. On the other hand there are still illicit transactions regarding prescription drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. Laws are broken regardless of the level of control of the substance because not everyone who uses a drug has permission to do so .
In essence, reducing crime is not the principal argument in favor of legalizing marijuana. By which I mean that illegal activities and violence along the Mexican border (or in Mexico) may or may not go away. What will go down is the number of people made criminals by engaging in otherwise innocuous behavior. To attack consumers of the product with the same fervor as those who cultivate and distribute it is, and always has been, misguided. A college senior who is experimenting for the first time is very different from a hardened cartel criminal. As Prop. 19 stipulates that international marijuana trade remains illegal, millions of dollars spent on consumption enforcement can be at least transferred to trafficking enforcement, at best saved altogether.
Some crime will be reduced, by definition, while violent crime and illegal trafficking may or may not budge. That is the honesty pill we supporters must swallow. The honesty pill that opponents must swallow is that legalizing marijuana may not effect consumption rates as dramatically as they’ve let on, or at all. Marijuana is the most used drug in the U.S. By percentage of population, it is used more in America than in Holland where it is legal and where studies have shown that even modest changes from strict prohibition have no effect on consumption rates. Strict laws do not entail strict obedience. The net effect of the Prohibition Era was that purveyors of illegal alcohol became millionaires; millionaires who paid no taxes on their illegal earnings. Why would anyone pay $3 for a glass of whiskey (at a time when a glass cost twenty cents)? Because no one else around had any whiskey to sell him. And dammit if he was going to give it up! A further result of Prohibition was a terrible decline in quality and safety of the illegal whiskey. Once imported, from Canada say, whiskey was thinned and cut with chemicals to stretch profits, $10,000 worth of Canadian whiskey would be stretched and marked up to $60,000 or much, much more. The same is true, the markup anyway, with marijuana. One kilogram is worth about $80 wholesale, the street value is upwards of $7,000. What legal, regulated good or service can boast an 8,650% retail markup? None, and neither would marijuana once the illicit factor is removed. While pricing itself may or may not go down, we can be assured that at least some of the marijuana revenue will benefit California and not just criminals.
The compelling reasons to legalize marijuana come down to these considerations. First, decriminalization of behavior that is consistent with, yet statistically less harmful and far and away less addictive than alcohol consumption. Second, it takes dollars out of the hands of criminals, if not forcing them into legitimate enterprise or at the very least providing them with legitimate competition. Finally, two words: tax; revenue. In a state as cash strapped as California, we cannot afford to sneer at any potential revenue source when it is nearly impossible to create new tax revenue. All opposition to Prop 19 has been rooted in moralistic, dystopian conjecture; the kind carted out every time the conservative status quo is challenged. It has been funded by special interest. What possible gain can the U.S. Chamber of Commerce expect from continued prohibition? Politicians are trying to protect their jobs. Prohibition of marijuana has not worked. There is no clear path to make prohibition work.
California needs to end the prohibition of recreational marijuana use and lead the country toward a sensible drug policy. Step one is Prop. 19. Next is a review of municipal licensing and tax revenues, leading to further policies to enhance revenues or protect entrepreneurs. No doubt the federal government would focus its attention on medical dispensaries and recreational clubs or weed bars, as the feds are likely not going to waste their resources on a guy growing a couple plants in his back yard. Then the real challenge begins. California must refine it drug policies to provide protections from the government. Other states will begin to pass similar laws. Court cases will be brought against Prop. 19, but cases will also be brought against existing federal laws at the same time. That is the process in this country. That is how we go from moralistic, unreasonable prohibition to a drug policy that makes sense.
