Decriminalization Bill Advances in Hawaii
In addition to two medical marijuana regulation bills being considered in Hawaii, a separate bill that would remove criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana is moving through the state Senate. Last week, it passed through two Senate committees and is now headed to the full Senate for a vote before advancing further. Considering that 20 of 25 members of the Senate are co-sponsors, it should be a breeze.
The bill would make possession of an ounce or less of marijuana a civil infraction. This would carry a $100 fine, but would not come with a criminal record or jail time. It also removes the mandate for drug treatment for someone possessing the same amount. Teachers and school administrators would no longer be required to notify the police of student possession if they preferred to deal with an incident in-house, which would surely free up many law enforcement resources.
As usual, law enforcement and others opposed to this commonsense measure are complaining that such laws send a mixed message to children. And as usual, they are ignoring the message that is sent when adults tell youth to stay away from alcohol, while openly distributing, using, and advertising it ubiquitously. Yet, no one is calling for a return to alcohol prohibition. Maybe they think kids are stupid. Or maybe they are just afraid to admit they are wrong, and that there is no justification for making criminals out of adults who choose to relax with a substance that is safer than alcohol.
February 8, 2011 24 Comments
Are California’s Cops Donating Money to Keep Targeting Minorities?
A new study released today shows conclusively that in California’s largest cities African-Americans are arrested for marijuana possession at much higher rates that whites. In the 25 cities profiled, African-Americans were arrested at four to 12 times the rate of whites, despite much higher use rates among whites.
This horrifying disparity is one reason Proposition 19 has earned the support of civil rights groups, including the California NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens of California. These numbers make it clear that removing penalties for marijuana possession would eliminate a tool that has been used to institute a system of pervasive racism in the Golden State. Given that even a single possession charge can result in severe economic and social consequences, the fact that arrests are focused so disproportionately on minority communities is an overwhelming argument for reform on November 2nd.
October 22, 2010 14 Comments
For Law Enforcement, Marijuana is ‘Where the Money Is’
People often wonder why local law enforcement agencies will spend so many resources cracking down on marijuana. As this weekend’s superbly reported front-page piece in the Wall Street Journal explains, it really all comes down to money.
IGO, Calif.—Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, his budget under pressure in a weak economy, has laid off staff, reduced patrols and even released jail inmates. But there’s one mission on which he’s spending more than in recent years: pot busts.
The reason is simple: If he steps up his pursuit of marijuana growers, his department is eligible for roughly half a million dollars a year in federal anti-drug funding, helping save some jobs. The majority of the funding would have to be used to fight pot. Marijuana may not be the county’s most pressing crime problem, the sheriff says, but “it’s where the money is.”
[…] To make sure his office gets the federal funds, Sheriff Bosenko since last year has spent about $340,000 of his department’s shrinking resources, more than in past years, on a team that tramps through the woods looking for pot farms.
As we’ve stated many times before, marijuana eradication programs are not only horribly ineffective at reducing the supply of marijuana, but even worse, they force law enforcement to commit massive amounts of resources and manpower to marijuana offenses at the expense of much more serious crimes. That’s why it’s so insane for the federal government to encourage and reward this type of misallocation. As the Journal article points out, California police departments are expected to lose $100 million in state funding this year, presumably leading even more departments to take up the eradication cause.
But if officials want to end illegal grows and see more money in state coffers at the same time, they need stop the madness and tax and regulate marijuana the same way we do alcohol, allowing the state to reap untold millions, possibly billions in new tax revenue while providing law enforcement with sufficient funding and sensible priorities that will allow them to focus on more serious crimes.
Now why can’t the federal government offer incentives with those kinds of results?
July 6, 2010 36 Comments
Do You Feel Safer Yet?
Customs officials seize $2.6 million in bongs and pipes at Los Angeles Harbor. Yes, this is really how they’re spending our tax dollars.
November 19, 2009 54 Comments
Judge OK’s Medical Marijuana Crackdown in Fresno
It seems yet another California official refuses to recognize that state’s medical marijuana law, and instead wants to deny patients the treatment that’s recommended by their doctors and protected under state law. Barely a week after the police chief of Redding, California sent a warning to local dispensing collectives about their defiance of federal law, a superior court judge in Fresno County today issued a two-week restraining order that temporarily shuts down all nine medical marijuana collectives that have opened in Fresno this year.
Judge Alan M. Simpson sided with city officials, who since August have been trying to shut down the collectives through a nonsensical zoning ordinance that requires the businesses to obey both state law (under which they’re legal) and federal law (under which they’re not). Such an ordinance is essentially impossible for the collectives to obey as long as medical marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
Lawyers for the collectives say they will argue at an Oct. 22 hearing that because state laws permit medical marijuana, local governments can’t use zoning ordinances to ban the collectives. Until then, medical marijuana patients in Fresno will be unable to safely or legally obtain their recommended treatment within city limits.
“The real winners in that will be the drug dealers and the drug cartels,” said Sean Dwyer, owner of California Herbal Relief Center, one of the closed collectives, which itself caters to 800 patients. “Because rather than being able to get their medication from us legally, they will be forced to buying it illegally off the street.”
When will California officials understand that their job is to enforce California’s laws, not the federal government’s? Medical marijuana has been legal in California since 1996. Sadly, as attorney William Logan told a local ABC affiliate, “here we are 13 years later, [still] trying to figure out how to get medicine to patients.”
October 8, 2009 29 Comments
