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Proposition 19 – Legalizing Marijuana in California

by John McGrane

Tomorrow, November 2 is election day in California. Californians will hit the polls to vote for their favorite candidates for nine different government positions and decide whether to pass Propositions 19-27.  There are many important proposition on this year’s ballot such as Prop. 23 on global warning, prop. 24 about business taxes and Prop. 26 about government taxes (Read about all candidates and propositions here).  However, I would like to focus on perhaps the most talked about proposition on the ballot, Prop. 19 – legalizing marijuana for any person in California 21 years or older.

History & Histeria

Humans have been using marijuana for more than 12,000 years.  Which means it has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that we have marijuana use on record.  Before deciding whether marijuana prohibition should continue, it is important to look at prohibition and drug policy throughout history. Drug policies throughout history rarely aim at minimizing or eradicating drug use.  The criminalization of drugs usually has to do with social control, dealing with what is called the “dangerous classes”.  One sees this again and again throughout history.  For example, in England during the 19th century, there was a short period when gin was illegal but whiskey was not because gin is what poor people drank.  Prohibition of alcohol in the 1930’s targeted poor people outside saloons in New York. It had no effect on the upper class people living in upstate New York.

Prohibition of marijuana followed the same path. The government used marijuana, in part, to demonize Mexicans and black musicians in the south that had migrated from the Caribbean.  The Mexican Revolution in 1910 left thousand of Mexican displaced in the [now] United States and marijuana became a primary reason for deportation.  In 1933, Harry J. Anslinger, director of the newly founded Federal Bureau of Narcotics, eager to keep him job and make a name for himself, waged an all out war on marijuana [prohibition of alcohol had just ended and he was now the head of a heavily-resourced department ].  He was very clear about his reasons to outlaw marijuana:

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

There were almost no credible studies on marijuana prior to the 1970’s.  No one really knew what marijuana was, but one thing was certain: it was something mexicans and blacks did.  Recently, Congressman Steve Cohen eloquently summarizes this history before Congress.

The peak of use came in the 1970’s, the same time that the first comprehensive, scientific study of marijuana was conducted.  The federal government conducted the study, coincidently, through their newly founded, National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse (I talk about the results of the study later).  This was no coincidence.  Marijuana was now mainstream, being consumed by middle and upper class people, so naturally it became time to look at whether marijuana is dangerous.

It’s All About the Money

The biggest argument in favor of proposition 19 is (of course) the money that it will generate.  Legalization could substantially help elevate California’s budget deficit of $19 billion and help jump-start the slumping economy.  The State Board of Equalization, estimates legalizing and taxing marijuana will generate an estimated $1.4 billion in new tax revenue for California. This estimation does not include the number of jobs that the passing of Prop. 19 will create, or the positive effects it will have on the tourism industry.

Money was also a large factor in the implementation of prohibition back in the 1930’s. A prominent figure in the criminalization of marijuana in the 1930’s was tycoon William Randolph Hearst.  He fought strongly for marijuana prohibition, and for good capitalist reasons. He was heavily invested in the timber industry and profited greatly from the country’s massive newspaper distribution. In 1916, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) did a study on the uses of hemp (an illegal byproduct of marijuana).  Their conclusion was:

“USDA Bulletin No. 404, reported that one acre of hemp, in annual rotation over a 20-year period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres (17,000 m²) of trees being cut down over the same 20-year period. This process would use only 1/7 to 1/4 as much polluting sulfur-based acid chemicals to break down the glue-like lignin that binds the fibers of the pulp, or even none at all using soda ash. The problem of dioxin contamination of rivers is avoided in the hemp paper making process, which does not need to use chlorine bleach (as the wood pulp paper making process requires) but instead safely substitutes hydrogen peroxide in the bleaching process. … If the new (1916) hemp pulp paper process were legal today, it would soon replace about 70% of all wood pulp paper, including computer printout paper, corrugated boxes and paper bags.”

This worried Hearst and he immediately became Anslinger’s number one financial investor.  He would also help Anslinger by printing his baseless claims that marijuana drove people insane, causing them to murder and steal, as front page headlines.  Anslinger and Heart’s all out propaganda campaigned became the foundation for the war on drugs to come in future decades.

The War on Drugs

A few years ago, Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderon launched an all out war on drug trafficker.  The results have mirrored that of the United State’s War on Drugs, it has been a complete failure.  Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the last couple of years, money and resources have been exasperated, and the illicit drug industry has increased its profits.  There is no doubt that legalization of marijuana will decrease the level of violence and profit to drug cartels by removing marijuana from the black market.  According to a recently published article in The Economist titled, Marijuana in California: A battle about hypocrisy, money and Mexican cartels, about half of Mexico’s drug cartel’s profits can be attributed to marijuana.  They argue that should California legalize marijuana, drug cartels will seen an estimated 2-4% drop in profits and other states would surely follow.

During the Nixon and Reagan years, marijuana prohibition was part of a much bigger “War on Drugs” which still continues today.  No reasonable person can possibly take the War on Drugs seriously, it is an utter failure.  The War on Drugs is an even more comprehensive attempt to control dangerous classes, and again has nothing to do with minimizing drug use. This becomes clear when you look at the long history of the drug war, which has done nothing to decrease drug distribution and use.  Also, it is allowed to continuously fail in its alleged purposes because it is succeeding in its actual purposes, mainly to incarcerate the dangerous classes.  In California, blacks are arrested a rate 3 times higher than whites for marijuana.

--- Number of drug arrest according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics

A perfect, recent, example of this is Bill Clinton’s “Plan Columbia.”  Columbia became the US’s biggest recipient of military aid in the early 1990’s. Columbia has received roughly $40 billion in military aid.  Columbia has tripled their military forces and begun a fumigation program, similar to the fumigation program during the Vietnam War.  It is argued that fumigation kills coca plants, which is true.  It also kills everything else, plants, animals, insects and people.  Once the peasants clear out the land, what happens?  Huge U.S. mining and pharmaceutical companies, like Monsanto, take their place.  In July 2010, the US hailed Plan Columbia as a huge success.   Hilary Clinton went as far as recommending a similar plan for Mexico. This is despite the facts that, since the Plan Columbia’s implementation,  Columbia has become the largest human rights violator in the world.  It also now has the second largest displaced persons population behind Sudan.   Homicides have increased dramatically, estimated at 21,000 police officers and 14,000 civilians.  In its efforts to combat the “dangerous classes,” Plan Columbia has been a success. Latin America in recent years has experienced unprecedented economic growth. Columbia is one of three countries that have not experienced economic growth.  In fact, they have managed to increase the gap between the rich and the poor. Putting all of this aside, the announced goal of Plan Columbia is to eradicate cocaine production.  However, coca production has significantly increased since the beginning of Plan Columbia.

If the government was truly interested in the health of the public, and decided that “war” is the best way to give that health, perhaps they would wage a war on the most dangerous product known to humans, tobacco.  Tobacco is by far the worst distributed drug known to man.  The American Heart Association (AHA) estimates that cigarettes are responsible for 400,000 (of the 2.5 million) deaths per year, in the United States.  Furthermore, cigarettes are so dangerous that they kill people who do not smoke.  The AHA estimates passive smoking (secondhand smoking) deaths at 69,000 per year in the United States. To put this in to some perspective, the number of death in the US from all other illicit drugs combined is an estimated 17,000 annually.  At the very bottom of the list of death causes in the United States, is marijuana at 0.

It’s Already Legal

Marijuana is already legal on both the state level and the federal level under certain conditions.  Studies have shown that marijuana has several therapeutic properties and helps elevate the suffering of people with devastating diseases like cancer and HIV.  Californian recognized the therapeutic properties found in these studies in 1996, when they passed Proposition 215, making California the first state to legalize “medicinal marijuana”.  The Supreme Court recognized the same when the ruled in favor of Irv Rosenfeld and 12 others in their famous case . Irv Rosenfeld is one of four living people who is allowed to possess and use marijuana under federal law after winning a court cases which ruled that marijuana helped elevate their extreme pain.  In fact, every 25 days, Rosenfeld is sent 300 joints from the federal government.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grows the marijuana at its pot farms in Mississippi and sends it out to each recipient.  That’s right, the federal government has grown, distributed, and profited from marijuana since 1983.

The federal government has also profited from what it calls, the “real, legal, form of marijuana.”  It is a pill called Marinol which is made and distributed by the government.  The FDA deemed Marinol, a synthetic form of THC, as safe “to treat nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy in people who have already taken other medications to treat this type of nausea and vomiting without good results. Dronabinol is also used to treat loss of appetite and weight loss in people who have acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Dronabinol is in a class of medications called cannabinoids. It works by affecting the area of the brain that controls nausea, vomiting, and appetite.” Sound familiar?  Why is not ok to use marijuana unless it is sold to you as a synthetic, at a very high price, and from the government?

Jail System

The jail system in California and the United States is disastrous.  The United States has the highest number of incarcerated person by far.  Nationwide, drug arrest have exploded and about 45% of all drug arrest are marijuana related.  Plus the government (local, county and federal) spends about $45 billion annual enforcing drug prohibition.   In California, just last year, 60,000 people were arrested for simple possession of marijuana. And, going back to the dangerous classes, most of the arrest are of blacks and mexicans.  Blacks are 7% of California’s population but make up more than 20% of all arrests. Currently California spends tens of millions of tax payers’ dollars targeting marijuana offenders and even more money housing them in jails and prisons.  If an offender happens to have a child, the child is sent to Child Protective Services which is also extremely costly to tax papers (and harmful to the child). California could easily transform marijuana from a major expenditure to revenue-generating initiative.  The state of California estimates that the taxation of marijuana will generate $1.4 billions in the first year.  And how would that money be used?  According to the language of the proposition itself, the money will be used “…to fund jobs, health care, schools and libraries, and roads. This money would be better used to combat violent crimes and gangs.”

There is a popular argument that if marijuana is made legal, more kids will start using it.  This in fact is not true.  Ask any teenager and they will tell you that marijuana is far easier to get than, say, alcohol, specifically because it is available on the black market and can be sold anywhere. Alcohol requires an adult, and an ID and is heavily regulated.  Also, as Conservative Kathleen Parker explains, there is a lower percentage of marijuana users under the age of 18 in Amsterdam, where marijuana is legal, than in the United States:

In 1970, while the Controlled Substances Act was being drafted, the federal government put together, the National Commission on Marijhuana and Drug Abuse.  On March 22, 1972, the s Chairman, Raymond P. Shafer reported his result to Congress in a report he titled, “Marijuana, a Signal of Misunderstanding.”  The report states:

“The criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use. It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only ‘with the greatest reluctance.”

And how did the federal government respond?  President Richard Nixon’s taped and unambiguous response surprisingly gained no attention when it was leaked.  “You’re enough of a pro,” Nixon tells Shafer, “to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels, and what we’re planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell.”

Pure Hypocrisy

Probably the “least” important reason why California needs to pass Prop. 19 is the fact that marijuana prohibition is complete hypocrisy.  The most obvious hypocrisies are cigarettes and alcohol. But it is also commonly overlooked that a large majority of the brilliant minds in almost every industry admit  to marijuana use.  Musicians, doctors, politicians, engineers, the list is endless.   The last 4 U.S. Presidents admitted they have used marijuana with the exception of George W. Bush who denied marijuana use and then was recorded admitting he used marijuana while studying at Yale.  When asked why he lied, he simply said that he didn’t want kids to think it was “ok.”  This emphasize that marijuana is demonized instead of actively discussed.  If we do not want young people to use marijuana, the answer is not to threaten them with prison sentences that will then affect the rest of their lives (through education, work, etc.).  We should be spending far less money incarcerating people and allocate those resources to education.

The Nobel Peace (and War) Prize

by John McGrane

The most recent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize is United States President Barack Obama. Almost immediately upon the announcement, criticism spouted around the world.  In his acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway, Obama recognized the irony of being ordain with such an award saying, “Perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars.  We are at war, and I’m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed.”  Obama then casually went on, not only justifying the war in Afghanistan but war anywhere saying, “Over time…The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met.”  This was not so shocking to me considering the past recipients of the Nobel Peace (and War) Prize.

Theodore Roosevelt's statue on Mt. Rushmore

The United States, the nation that President George W. Bush called, “the most peaceful country on earth,” has had four Presidents that have received the Nobel Peace Prize. Theodore Roosevelt was the first laureate.  Roosevelt’s thirst for war was no secret.  On January 18, 1909, at a church in Washington D.C., Roosevelt boasted, “One feature in the expansion of the peoples of white, or European, blood during the past four centuries which should never be lost sight of, especially by those who denounces such expansions on moral ground, the movement has been fraught with lasting benefit to most of the peoples already dwelling in the lands over which the expansion took place.  Moreover, mere savages, whose type of life was so primitive as to be absolutely incompatible with the existence of civilization. . .they died out for the simple reason that there were so little advanced that the conditions of life necessary to their existence were incompatible with any form of high and better existence.” In a speech given in Washington D.C., on April 15, 1906, Roosevelt said, “There are in the body politic, economic, and social, many and grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them.  There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil.”  In 1886 he said: “I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the Western view of the Indian.  I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

Roosevelt’s imperialist ideology was executed through his actions.  Roosevelt forced Panama through military force to sign a treaty in 1904, giving the U.S. occupancy of the Panama Canal Zone. Later, Roosevelt self-appointed himself the general of the Navy during the Spanish-American War, a war which ultimately gave the U.S. indefinite control of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam and temporary control over Cuba.   It was during this war that Roosevelt formed the First U.S. Volunteer Calvary Regiment, a group of soldiers which would become known as the ” Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.”  Upon their formation, Roosevelt stated, “I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.”  The expansion killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Woodrow Wilson, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, thirteen years after Roosevelt.  In 1915, Wilson sent U.S. troops to invade Haiti and overthrow the government there in order to “protect American interest.”  Haiti was in debt to the U.S. for a loan that eventually went in to default. The U.S. re-wrote the Haitian constitution to include what it called “progressive legislation” which allowed U.S. corporations to buy up the land. The occupation killed an estimated 20,000 and restored virtual slavery, as Haitians were forced to build new infrastructure.  The U.S. Marine occupation lasted until 1934.  In 1914, prior to the U.S. invasion of Haiti, Wilson sent troops to Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, where Marines conquered the city of Veracruz and declared Marshall Law. Wilson also sent troops to Nicaragua and used military force to take control of Nicaragua’s finances for failure to pay back a large loan to the U.S. The Wilson Administration also appointed a new president then forced the new Nicaraguan president to sign the Brian-Chamorro Treaty, which granted the U.S. exclusive control of the canal routes and established  military bases  in Nicaragua.  In 1916, Wilson ordered the invasion of the Dominican Republic under the pretense of the Monroe Doctrine which, according to the U.S. State, was used to justify “unilateral U.S. broadening in Latin America.”

In 2002, Jimmy Carter became the third U.S. President to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  Carter was probably the least violent of all the American Presidents.  However, his administration was heavily involved in one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century, the East Timorese genocide in the 1970’s. In 1975, Suharto, the Indonesian president, decided to invade East Timor upon Portugal’s decision to leave the area.  On the eve of the Invasion, President Gerald Ford’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger met with Suharto and gave him the green like to invade.  Kissinger originally denied meeting with Suharto, but that ultimately came out as a lie. About 90% of Indonesia military arms used in the invasion came from the United States.  The U.S.-back invasion of East Timor claimed the lives of 200,000 – 300,000 people, roughly one-third of the population. The Jimmy Carter administration continued to support Suharto after Gerald Ford left office, increasing U.S. military aid to Indonesia.  Military aid to Suharto peaked in 1978, the same year that the number of East Timorese casualties peaked. By that point about $1 billion in military aid had given Suharto.  In August of 1977, Carter’s Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke traveled to Indonesia to meet with Suharto and praised him for “the steps that Indonesia had taken to open East Timor to the West.”