Just Say Yes

Last week, President Obama held a "virtual" town hall meeting in which people were asked to submit questions online or vote on questions asked by others in a number of categories, such as "green jobs," "financial stability," "jobs," and "budget." Do you know which topic got the most votes by far in just about every category? The legalization of marijuana (specifically, whether legalizing marijuana could spawn job creation by allowing the government to regulate and tax the drug). 

Although Obama (a former pot smoker and the third president in a row who has admitted smoking it) dismissed the question and does not support legalization (in 2004 he did come out in favor of decriminalization, however), there are signs that the government's attitude towards marijuana may be changing. For example, Attorney General Eric Holder signaled that federal agents will only target medical marijuana dispensaries (medical marijuana is legal in California and a dozen other states) that violate both federal and state law, a departure from the Bush administration which targeted dispensaries, even if they complied with that state's law. 

Additionally, Senators Jim Webb (D-VA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have proposed a major prison-reform package, which would directly address drug-sentencing policy (although the United States has only 5% of the world's population, it has 25% of its prison population, a higher percentage than any other nation), and possibly, legalization, as part of the criminal justice overhaul. Considering that these guys rarely agree on anything, it's refreshing that this measure has support from both Democrats and Republicans.

Some think the economic crisis will help the legalization cause. California state legislator Tom Ammiano argues that marijuana, by far the most lucrative crop with an estimated $14 billion in sales, could provide over a billion dollars of tax revenue in California alone. And this doesn't include the hundreds of billions of tax dollars we spend on policing and incarceration. 

As everyone knows, pot is legal in Holland. But did you know that Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001? Neither country has become a drug-infested wasteland. 

But wait, isn't marijuana a "gateway" drug? Nope. Several scientific studies have discredited this idea. Most recently, a 12-year study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry reported that marijuana is not a gateway drug that predicts or eventually leads to substance abuse. Also, the study noted that if it’s easier for a teen to get his hands on marijuana than beer (which makes sense since you need an ID to get beer), he’ll be more likely to smoke pot. Thus, if marijuana were legalized and regulated similar to alcohol, it would be much more difficult for kids to get their hands on it.

In his Time column entitled "Why Legalization Makes Sense" yesterday, Joe Klein broke it down:

We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public.

So why not do it? There are serious moral arguments, both secular and religious. There are those who believe — with some good reason — that the accretion of legalized vices is debilitating, that we are a less virtuous society since gambling spilled out from Las Vegas to "riverboats" and state lotteries across the country. There is a medical argument, though not a very convincing one: alcohol is more dangerous in a variety of ways, including the tendency of some drunks to get violent. One could argue that the abuse of McDonald's has a greater potential health-care cost than the abuse of marijuana. Obviously, marijuana can be abused. But the costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable. Would legalization be any worse?

I don't see any good reason why we shouldn't legalize or at least decriminalize marijuana in America. By the way, we already have the perfect poster boy for the campaign: 14-time Olympic gold medal winner, Michael Phelps. And Carlos Santana can write the jingle.