... or something else?, an even better solution.
During one of my regular visits to the NORML website, I followed this link to an article on B. Hussein O.'s ever-evolving views on marijuana ( a nice way of saying that he constantly flip flops on this issue so he can tell the audience what they want to hear) .
In the comments section I read this individual's profound and well written proposal. It's a solution that seems to make a world of sense and I felt obliged to post it here ( I took the liberty of linking some of his text for clarification).
"There's another position that's mid-way between decriminalization and legalization- continuing to forbid the commercial trade in marijuana, while allowing adults to cultivate small quantities for personal use. This policy has a precedent in present laws that allow home brewing of beer and wine.
From the Wikipedia entry on Homebrewing:
"...most states permit homebrewing, allowing 100 gallons of beer per person over the age of 21 per household, up to a maximum of 200 gallons per year. Because alcohol is taxed by the federal governments via excise taxes, homebrewers are restricted from selling any beer they brew."
The problem with mere decriminalization is that it doesn't addresss the fact that the decriminalized personal possessors must still obtain their marijuana from illegal sources. That isn't a satisfactory answer, because the most negative impact of using cannabis- both to the individual and to society- is continual contact with the world of career criminals and their associated behaviors. That factor that has only increased over time under Zero Tolerance, through a sort of Gresham's Law of Drug Dealing- the conditions of prohibition advantage career criminals with propensities toward violence and antisocial behavior at the expense of those who aren't willing to compete with violence and antisociality in return, or to risk ruinous legal penalties- people like amateur home growers of small quantities of cannabis. The drug dealers who most adopt the behaviors of career criminals are able and willing to adapt to threats like incarceration- that's part of the key to success in such a field, after all. And as a criminal vocation, the opportunities arising from profiteering through dealing in "substances presently declared illegal" is unmatched. The way to strike at the root of that societal problem is to remove as much of the customer base from the drug dealers as possible- which could be easily achieved in the case of marijuana, simply by allowing the cultivation of a few plants by a household.
As for the other alternative, legalization- it's unnecessary, overly complicated to enact as law, and a political loser. Inevitably, working out the policy would involve a complex and fractious snarl of government bureaucracies, agencies, and lobbies- the FDA, the IRS, the insurance companies, various medical lobbies and their lawyers, and, of course, the private interests of corporate profiteers seeking to take over from the illegal dealers. And assuming that it could be worked out, the legal market could always be undercut by home cultivation- which I cynically suspect would remain illegal under any "legalization" program promulgated by the Federal government. Entirely possible that "legalization" would be a net loss, given that fact. If fact, I'm frankly sympathetic to some of the objections raised by opponents of the legalization of marijuana as an item of interstate commerce. I'm frankly worried that the legal "commercialization" of marijuana would probably look awfully foul in the hands of a government-licensed corporate oligopoly- especially if it simply followed along with the disingenuous propaganda campaigns presently pursued by the alcohol industry, and the psycho-pharmaceutical industry. What's needed is a way to allow adults to have access to this relatively non-toxic natural plant substance if they want it, while removing the money factor out of the equation as much as possible. That money is healthier as a windfall return of surplus income to individuals than as "tax money", anyway- healthier for the individual, the economy, and for a government that shouldn't be encouraged to become reliant on peoples drug consumption habits for its funding. And the way to do that is to allow home growers to cultivate a few plants to provide themselves and their adult friends with a reasonable amount of marijuana for their own use, while continuing to prohibit their ability to stockpile huge quantities, or to sell it. Marijuana can be grown easily and cheaply all over the country- preferably in small garden plots or window boxes, outdoors in the sunshine, where it belongs.
[ note: I'm roughly as sick of high-dollar profiteering "compassionate caregivers" as the DEA is, at this point- opportunists taking advantage of medical marijuana laws to grow and deal in huge quantities of herb at $400/oz. They threaten to ruin it for the people who obtain the most benefit from it. ]
The personal-use cultivation reform won't solve every problem associated with cannabis use, but it will solve the big ones. To name one important consequence: while teenagers will undoubtedly sneak marijuana from their pot-using parents and share it with their friends just as many have traditionally done with beer and alcohol, they will no longer be recruited as foot soldiers in the retail end of the Underground Empire of the illegal drug trade inspired by Zero Tolerance, which is how matters have been playing out for around the last 40+ years.Finally, this sage advice isn't original with me- support for legalized possession and private cultivation of small amounts of marijuana by adults was endorsed as far back as the Shafer Commission, a blue-ribbon panel picked in the early 1970s by then-President Richard Nixon- who thereupon tore up the report; and the same policy reform was also supported by an expert panel of the National Academy of Sciences in 1982, who delivered their findings to President Ronald Reagan- who thereupon tore up the report." ~cabdriver
Bless you 'cabdriver', whoever you are.
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