By Gerald Clift Santa Monica
Reasons why Santa Monica should tax and regulate marijuana. 1) Regulation of marijuana would reduce organized crime and access to adolescents just as the regulation of alcohol has.
Teens report they have easier access to marijuana than they have to either alcohol or tobacco, according to a national survey released on Aug. 20, 2002, by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. The results marked the first in the survey’s history that adolescents said it was easier to buy cannabis than cigarettes or alcohol. Similarly to the failed prohibition of alcohol, marijuana prohibition creates organized crime to respond to the substances’demand instead of allowing law-abiding businesses to create revenue. 2) Marijuana is safer to both the user and the community than alcohol. According to the U.S. Department of Justice-Bureau of Justice and Statistics, 40 percent of those convicted of homicide had been under the influence of alcohol at the time of their offense. Furthermore, the national highway traffic administration has concluded that 47.4 percent of all highway deaths involved a driver intoxicated by alcohol. Marijuana users, however, have “the same or lower incidence of murders, highway deaths, and accidents than the general non-smoking population as a whole,” according to a cancer study at UCLA. Even more interesting is that despite the thousands of deaths from alcohol overdose annually, there has not been a single reported case of anyone dying from marijuana use. 3) California is behind other states on marijuana reform. Several states have issued a tax on marijuana for $3.50 per gram, including Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Nevada and Nebraska tax at different rates, while Denver has legalized marijuana with a statewide legalization to be voted on Nov. 7. Similar to Alaska’s policy, it would allow up to an ounce of marijuana in a citizen’s (over 21) home. 4) Otherwise law-abiding adults in Santa Monica are more likely to be targeted for non-violent marijuana offenses than in states that have taxed and regulated it.
Marijuana arrests and funding for those arrests are steadily increasing, with 785,545 people arrested in 2005 (more than twice the arrests of 1993), according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Annual Uniform Crime Report. Even worse, the report stated that 42.6 percent of all U.S. drug arrests were for marijuana, refuting previous claims that minor marijuana offenses aren’t targeted in the drug war. If the arrests aren’t taking place in states regulating it, they’re arresting citizens in the states without regulation like the residents of California. 5) Marijuana is not addictive. Unlike tobacco and heroin, which both have a 75 percent chance of relapse after quitting, complete with withdrawal symptoms, as stated in Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,”marijuana creates no physical dependency. Furthermore, it is no more habit-forming than playing video games or drinking tea. Herer cites this information from the American Lung Association, University of Massachusetts and several other sources. 6) Legalization would generate needed money to our budget. Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron estimates in his report “Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition” (signed by over 500 economists) that $96.3 million would be generated annually from tax revenue in California alone if marijuana were legalized.
The alcohol prohibition didn’t work and marijuana’s prohibition isn’t working. The current laws mislead people into believing marijuana is worse than alcohol. People will always drink and people will always use marijuana, so why is it that those choosing to leisure with a safer substance are the ones being thrown behind bars?
Other counties are doing it and Santa Monica can too. Simply get out and vote “yes” on Measure Y this Nov. 7 and take the first step to legalizing marijuana — decriminalizing it.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 1, 2006. Read the original PDF.