Rhode Island to study the failure of marijuana prohibition

(Providence Journal) PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Backers of the successful drive to legalize the sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes have now won Senate support for a study of what, if anything, is being accomplished by criminalizing use of the plant for any other purpose?

The sponsors of the eleventh-hour legislation include Sens. Joshua Miller, D-Cranston; Leo Blais, R-Coventry; Rhoda Perry, D-Providence; Charles Levesque, D-Portsmouth, and Susan Sosnowski, D-South Kingstown.

The resolution would create a Special Senate Commission to study the prohibition of marijuana “made up of “elected members of the Rhode Island Senate, local law enforcement officials, physicians, nurses, social workers, academic leaders in the field of addiction studies, advocates or patients in the state’s medical marijuana program, advocates working in the field of prisoner re-entry, economists, and members of the general public.”

The bill poses a number of specific questions for study, among them:

“Whether and to what extent Rhode Island youth have access to marijuana despite current laws prohibiting its use…Whether adults’ use of marijuana has decreased since marijuana became illegal in Rhode Island in 1918…Whether the current system of marijuana prohibition has created violence in the state of Rhode Island against users or among those who sell marijuana…Whether the proceeds from the sales of marijuana are funding organized crime, including drug cartels…Whether those who sell marijuana on the criminal market may also sell other drugs, thus increasing the chances that youth will use other illegal substances?”

The legislation also questions the “dangers associated with marijuana resulting from it being sold on the criminal market, including if it is ever contaminated or laced with other drugs.”

The panel has until January 31, 2010 to report its findings and recommendations to the Senate, though it would stay alive through January 31, 2014.

What a nice 42nd birthday present for me in 2010, yet another report from yet another study on marijuana.  Since every other study and report from every other government, from the 1894 British East India Hemp Commission to the 1942 Laguardia Commission to the 1972 Shaffer Commission to the 1999 Institute of Medicine Report, has reported virtually the same thing, let me answer Rhode Island’s questions in advance:

• About 17 of 20 Rhode Island youth will tell you it is “easy” or “fairly easy” to obtain marijuana despite prohibition;
• Adults’ use of marijuana in Rhode Island has most certainly increased since 1918, when few outside of Mexican migrants and black jazz musicians used it;
• The very definition of prohibition means violence is the only way to solve disputes in the market;
• If selling marijuana is a criminal act, of course marijuana sales fund criminal enterprises;
• Most weed transactions involve sellers who sell only weed, but nothing stops some of them from selling other drugs to youth;
• Marijuana is sometimes contaminated with other drugs or with glass to increase weight.