All Things Considered, April 20, 2009 · There’s a surge of public interest in legalizing marijuana as a partial answer to a host of problems. Last week, Mexico’s congress debated legalizing cannabis as a way to undermine cartel income. And when President Obama held his online town hall last month, he was swamped with the question: Why not legalize pot as a way to help the economy?
NPR came up with a hypothetical scenario and asked experts to play along, commenting on their imagined outcomes. The scenario: Marijuana has been legal for two years throughout the U.S. It is treated, in the eyes of the law, similar to alcohol. It is taxed and regulated, and users must be 21 or older. Pot smokers can buy it by the gram at licensed dispensaries. Predictably, the law change would make some people very happy — and others deeply concerned.
Imagine if you turned on the radio and heard this: “From NPR News in Washington, I’m Carl Kasell. After 70 years of prohibition, marijuana becomes legal today for personal consumption throughout the United States for persons 21 and older …”
How would the world change if cannabis finally came out of the closet, if it were fully legal to possess, sell and cultivate?
Willie Nelson, the 76-year-old iconic balladeer and cannabis connoisseur, says there are pros and cons.
“We don’t worry about going to jail anymore for smoking it,” he says. But, “a lot of our old friends who dealt it are out of work.”
No, your old friends who dealt it now just have to work in a legitimate industry, with job applications and business licenses and taxation and regulation and sick days and vacations and social security and 401Ks, just like the rest of us. I know there is a segment of the cannabis community making their living from marijuana growing and dealing. I do not fault any two adults who wish to conduct a consensual business transaction; however, every dollar of profit made in a prohibited market comes at the cost of lives ruined. Keeping marijuana illegal so a few people can make black market income is not a good enough justification for imprisoning 40,000, arresting 872,000, and curtailing the freedom of 22 million.
According to Dr. Dale Gieringer of California NORML, legalized marijuana, where it could be grown in massive industrial fields and harvested with the most efficient technology, would cost $1-$2 per ounce. That is, it would cost as much to produce as any other leafy crops. Currently these old friends are selling it for $200-$450 per ounce. All that markup owes to prohibition, so to profit from that is to profit from the lockup of our own people.
That’s not the fault of the grower/dealer, of course, it’s the fault of the bad law; he’s merely providing the goods people want, and everybody’s willing to take the risk of arrest for themselves, too. In the current illegal environment, there’s not a good moral choice; you either profit from prohibition as a grower/dealer or somebody else does while you starve. But don’t ask me to shed a tear when the grower/dealer will have to compete like any other legitimate farmer growing and selling a legal crop.
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The worst fictional interview in this NPR hypothetical was:
Almonte, director of the Texas Narcotic Officer’s Association, says all cannabis legalization has done is force the drug mafias to improvise.
“As far as marijuana is concerned, they have been selling it less expensive than what it can sell for here in the United States,” Almonte says. “But more importantly, we’re seeing a more potent marijuana. And with that we’re seeing … an increase in the emergency room admissions.”