In West Hollywood, city officials say, it’s been more than two years since a resident has complained about a dispensary. Neighborhood watch leaders say their streets are safer because the dispensary guards are required to walk nearby blocks. School officials welcome dispensaries as neighbors. And the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, which patrols the city, says there have been no recent crimes at dispensaries and no calls from agitated neighbors.

As the article goes on to explain, this positive model provides a stark contrast to cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego that do not have regulations, and consequently have witnessed more tension between community members and existing dispensaries.

In Maine, an estimated 58 percent of voters approved Question 5, making Maine the third state in the nation (along with Rhode Island and New Mexico) to establish state-licensed non-profit dispensaries that will provide medical marijuana to qualified patients. This is also significant because it is the first time such a system was enacted by voters. (The other two were approved by state legislatures.)

And in Colorado, more than 70 percent of voters in the tiny ski town of Breckenridge voted to remove city-level criminal penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana for adults over 21. While possession of any amount is still illegal under state law, the citizens of Breckenridge have undoubtedly sent a message to lawmakers in Colorado—and around the country—by taking this first and necessary step toward the end of marijuana prohibition.

In California, where marijuana possession was “decriminalized” in 1976 and medical marijuana legalized 20 years later, the state Department of Justice reports that law enforcement conducted a record 78,492 marijuana arrests in 2008. About 80% of these (61,366) were for mere possession – not sale or cultivation.

The California-based Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ) took a long look at trends for marijuana arrests in the state and revealed some disturbing information. In its recent report to the California Legislature, CJCJ showed that the arrest rate for marijuana possession has skyrocketed in California – up 127% – between 1990 and 2008. But during the same period, arrests for all other offenses in California decreased by 40% – including other drug possession, which sank by nearly 30%. The arrest rate for marijuana sales and manufacturing even decreased 21% during this period.

You can’t help but conclude from this data that California’s police agencies have developed an almost singular focus on marijuana possession as their top law enforcement priority. This is shocking, not only because most Californians now say they want marijuana legal, but because it’s a dangerous and irresponsible use of limited public safety resources.

Last year, while California’s law enforcement officers were rounding up a record number of marijuana consumers, almost 60,000 reported violent crimes never resulted in an arrest.* Thanks to decriminalization in California, these arrests usually don’t result in jail or lengthy detainment, but they do take real police time and other criminal justice resources.

Anyone unfortunate enough to have been a victim of an unsolved crime should support repealing marijuana prohibition and freeing up police to focus on public safety rather than consensual adult activity that’s no more harmful than drinking beer or wine.

*Source: FBI, Crime in the U.S., 2008

Witnesses advocating for reform included retired superior court judge James P. Gray and former San Francisco district attorney Terence Hallinan – both of whom have seen the futility of marijuana prohibition firsthand from inside the criminal justice system.

Some law enforcement organizations, who make a living arresting people for marijuana, also participated in the hearing. I’m sure readers of this blog won’t be surprised to know that these entrenched interests employed their usual tactic of hyperbole and flat-out lies to scare legislators from supporting reform.

One thing is for sure, and it’s that yesterday’s hearing was another step forward in the march toward marijuana sanity. The more lawmakers and the voting public are exposed to the truth about marijuana and the effects of marijuana policy, the more likely they are call for an alternative to prohibition.

This informational hearing set the stage for another hearing and a vote on A.B. 390 — legislation to tax and regulation marijuana — that the Public Safety Committee is expected to hold in January.

Here is one of the news reports covering this historic hearing and both sides of the debate:

The story quotes John Lovell, lobbyist for several California police groups and the major voice for maintaining prohibition: “We get revenue from alcohol,” he said. “But there’s way more in social costs than we retain in revenues.”

If that’s the best they can do, the debate is over. The main social cost of alcohol comes from its tendency to promote violent and aggressive behavior, something marijuana simply doesn’t do, as explained in this article from the journal Addictive Behaviors. Not long ago, an independent panel of experts rated alcohol as significantly more dangerous than marijuana, in an article published in the prestigious journal The Lancet (unfortunately, the summary of the article you can read online for free doesn’t include the chart ranking various drugs).

If we want to reduce the social costs associated with booze, evidence suggests giving adults a safer, legal alternative makes sense. Mr. Lovell, meet reality.

“The best gardeners of my generation are not hybridizing roses, are not working with orchids. They are working with this incredibly valuable and incredibly interesting plant called cannabis.”
–Michael Pollan

Before Michael Pollan’s best-selling books about food and the food industry, he wrote a fascinating volume about humanity’s symbiotic relationship with plants, called “The Botany of Desire.” That book is now a PBS special, airing for the first time this week, on October 28 at 8 p.m. If you have friends, family, coworkers, etc., who’ve never thought about our relationship with marijuana beyond the latest hysterical news story, this is the show they need to see.

The program traces the evolution of our relationship with four plants: the apple, the tulip, the potato, and cannabis.  And they aren’t as different as you might think. For example, both the apple and cannabis (now, of course, generally called marijuana in this country) have alternated between being treasured and being reviled.

The segment on marijuana (you didn’t really think we’d be focusing on tulips, did you?) is not a brief for ending prohibition. What it is, though, is a remarkably insightful and thoughtful look at how humans have related to this plant, what it’s taught us about our own physiology, and how we have helped it spread throughout the world. Though the marijuana segment is just one quarter of a two-hour program, it may be the best exploration of marijuana ever shown on U.S. television.

And yes, the segments on tulips, apples, and potatoes are pretty good too.

After 53% of voters in the Centennial State approved a medical marijuana amendment in November 2000, Colorado has quietly emerged as a potential model for how states can responsibly and competently oversee the establishment of a medical marijuana industry.

There are currently more than 100 dispensing collectives statewide, an estimated 13,000 residents with valid medical marijuana cards, and 800 different physicians who have recommended them, according to recent figures. New dispensaries are being opened and considered in municipalities all over the state with little reported opposition.

When protests have been raised, municipalities have, by and large, purposely avoided the type of reactionary backlash seen in California and instead tried to strike a balance among the collectives, patients and critics through discussions and regulations—not orders to shut down. For example, several skeptical municipalities have decided to place temporary moratoriums on new dispensaries until they decide how best to regulate the establishments.

This difference between California and Colorado might best be seen when comparing some of their top lawmen. In California, L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley said all collectives are illegal and “are going to be prosecuted.” In Colorado, by stark contrast, Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett has said he wants to be the country’s most progressive D.A. when it comes to medical marijuana. He has even said he’s willing to consider full marijuana legalization.

And if these signs aren’t encouraging enough, the Denver Post is reporting that the tiny valley town of Ophir (population 163) will decide on Tuesday whether to consider becoming the state’s first municipality to grow medical marijuana as a way to make up for lost tax revenues.

Says planning and zoning chairwoman Sue Beresford, “A town can dream, can’t it?”

The challenge, announced by MPP-NV manager Dave Schwartz with a large mock check for $10,000,  kicks off a long-term public education campaign regarding the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol, and the harm caused by marijuana prohibition.

MPP-NV is challenging Nevadans to disprove the following three statements:

1. Alcohol is significantly more toxic than marijuana, making death by overdose far more likely with alcohol.

2. The health effects from long-term alcohol consumption cause tens of thousands of more deaths in the U.S. annually than the health effects from the long-term consumption of marijuana.

3. Violent crime committed by individuals intoxicated by alcohol is far more prevalent in the U.S. than violent crime committed by individuals intoxicated by marijuana only.

To receive the $10,000 award, Nevada residents must provide peer-reviewed studies or government statistics that contradict all three of these statements. In a statement issued today, Schwartz said, “We are confident that we won’t need to pay out this $10,000.” That’s putting it mildly. Not only is marijuana safer than alcohol, there’s evidence that it may even protect against some of the damage caused by binge drinking.

It is encouraging that high-level pols like Gov. Schwarzenegger and President Obama are turning to the Web for new, out-of-the-box ideas but it’s a shame that they have yet to embrace the one proposal which is consistently the most popular.

Nevertheless, those of us yearning for an effective and just marijuana policy will continue to speak truth to power – and it’s only a matter of time before our elected leaders will be forced to listen.

The World Health Organization’s 2008 report on drug use found that more Americans use marijuana than people in any of the other 16 countries studied (which included Mexico). The report, along with many other sources, concludes that America is the largest illicit drug market in the world. The cartels in Mexico cater almost exclusively to customers in the U.S., pulling in huge profits every year (70% of which are from marijuana sales). If Mexico were to legalize marijuana, the cartels’ business would continue as usual. They would still smuggle marijuana into the U.S. and continue to profit from doing so.

No, the answer to the cartel problem does not lie in Mexico; it lies here in the U.S.

The U.S. alone has the power to wipe out the cartels, and it can do so with a simple change in policy. Were we to abolish marijuana prohibition and replace it with a system of taxation and regulation based on alcohol laws, a new, legal marijuana industry would put the criminal competition out of business overnight. We did it once before. In the 1930s, following our failed experiment with alcohol prohibition, the fledgling alcohol industry took over, producing a safer product and putting money into the economy rather than taking it out. And it happened without the moral degradation prohibitionists predicted.

This is precisely why the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy released a report in January calling on the U.S. to change its marijuana laws. Drug producing countries in Latin America have first-hand experience with the devastating effects of America’s war on drugs. The violence and organized crime feeding the U.S. market have been rooted there for decades, with disastrous results. The U.S., on the other hand, has never faced these realities on its own soil – not to the same scale and severity as our neighbors in Mexico or those who lived through the reign of Pablo Escobar in Columbia.

But that is beginning to change. Violence in Mexico is spilling over into Texas, Arizona, and southern California. The cartels now operate in 230 American cities – think about what that means. 230 means more than New York, Los Angeles, and other large metropolitan areas, it means Bismark, N.D., Wichita, Kan., and even Kalamazoo, Mich., small towns where Americans are feeling the impact of bad drug policy. More directly, it means that the U.S. government can no longer ignore the failures of its war on marijuana.

The sensible solution is right in front of us. We just need the political will to see it through.

If you’d like to help make a change, write your member of Congress and ask him or her to support marijuana policy reform. More information on how to do so can be found at mpp.org/federal-action.