“The most amazing thing about marijuana is its ability to addle the minds of those who don’t use it.” That’s a quote I picked up somewhere on the net and promptly stole to use in my e-mail signature.  As California gets set to vote on Prop 19 – an initiative to legalize marijuana statewide – some people’s minds are being completely blown, man.  But it’s not the people smoking the stuff, it’s the people trying to keep it banned.

I’ve collected the eight craziest claims about a post-legalization state of California predicted by opponents of Prop 19.  Stunningly, three of these crazy predictions come from people who do use marijuana, proving once again that with enough repetition and scaremongering, you can convince a certain percentage of any group to vote against their own best interests.

8. The federal government will pull all its contracts with California businesses because they won’t be able to drug test employees!

This is a favorite of the California Chamber of Commerce.  The idea is that since the federal government has a Drug Free Workplace Act, when California law no longer allows employers to discriminate based on pee, all these California companies wouldn’t be able to comply and the feds would pull all their contracts and grants.

Never mind that these same opponents predicted the same dire consequence when California was considering Prop 215, the initiative that legalized medical marijuana fourteen years ago, and we haven’t seen any contracts or grants pulled since.  The plain fact is that the Drug Free Workplace Act doesn’t actually require workplace pee tests.  This from “HRHero.com: Your Employment Law Resource” (emphasis mine)…

…employers must certify that they will provide a drug-free workplace. The law doesn’t require alcohol or drug testing, but testing is implicitly authorized as a means to maintain a drug-free workplace.

So what does it mean to provide a “drug-free workplace”?  Certainly that must mean that even if they don’t have to drug-test, they couldn’t comply because Prop 19 would allow employees to possess marijuana, right?  Wrong.

Employers whose companies fall under this category must have a policy prohibiting the unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, possession, or use of a controlled substance in the workplace and specifying what actions will be taken in the event of violations.

When Prop 19 passes, possession of marijuana, up to an ounce, is no longer unlawful.  There is no basis to claim a California company was allowing “unlawful possession”, so they could still maintain an “(illegal) drug-free workplace” and therefore, give no reason for the federal government to pull any contracts or grants.

7. Legalizing marijuana for healthy people will end medical marijuana for sick people!

Try to wrap your mind around the idea that allowing everyone to grow a 25 square foot garden means sick people will not get their medicine.  Then imagine that a court will decide that a public that voted for legal marijuana for healthy people really meant to end medical marijuana for sick people.  If you can manage that, you’ve entered the mind of J. Craig Canada.

Canada’s analysis rests on this bit of Prop 19′s language:

Provide easier, safer access for patients who need cannabis for medical purposes.

The courts will determine that this means Prop. 19 is intended to amend and supersede California’s medical marijuana laws; Proposition 215 (H&S 11362.5) and SB 420 (H&S 11362.7-H&S 11362.9).

Then Canada goes on to criticize the next two paragraphs in the initiative, which provides cities the right to tax and regulate marijuana for adults, “except as permitted under Health and Safety Sections 11362.5 and 11362.7 through 11362.9.”

Got it?  Canada says the first paragraph will supersede – that is, eliminate – California’s Prop 215, and then moves on to the next two paragraphs that specifically provide exceptions under Prop 215.  So I guess Prop 19 makes Prop 215 moot… except when it doesn’t.

6. Legalizing marijuana will never raise any money because the social costs would outweigh any fiscal benefits… look at alcohol and tobacco!

Forget for a moment that in this country, we don’t determine people’s rights based on whether it makes a buck or not.  (I mean, we shouldn’t.) It doesn’t matter whether legalizing marijuana will make a dime; it is simply wrong to lock up adults for smoking pot.  Proponents of Prop 19 have floated the idea that legalizing pot would raise tax revenues for the state and the opponents, like San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer, who is acting president of the California Police Chiefs Association, deny that advantage of the proposition by pointing out that alcohol and tobacco taxes bring in less than what alcohol and tobacco cause in health and safety costs

This is one of the instances where figures don’t lie, but liars figure.  Indeed, the taxes we collect from alcohol and tobacco don’t come close to covering the social costs from those substances.  Lung cancer, cirrhosis, emphysema, drunk driving, cigarette breaks, domestic violence, after a while the costs of smoking and drinking add up… because smoking and drinking are toxic and addictive.

Marijuana is neither toxic nor addictive.  A Canadian study found that a tobacco smoker cost the country $800 per year, each drinker cost $165, and each toker cost $20, and half of that was laundry costs for Cheetos stains (I kid!).  Also, it is not as if nobody is smoking pot now and post Prop-19 we’ll be overrun with tokers.  People are smoking pot now and we’re taking in zero dollars in taxes and we’re spending a billion dollars in California failing to stop it.

5. Big Tobacco will buy up great huge tracts of land in Northern California and mass produce lousy joints pumped full of toxic addictive chemicals!

This is one of the complaints by the people making money growing marijuana now, mostly in Northern California, who have long claimed that “Philip Morris is buying up 400 acres of land in Humboldt County in case legalization passes” and “RJ Reynolds already has the trademark on such names as ‘Acapulco Gold’, ‘Maui Wowie’, and ‘Panama Red’ for their joints once legalization passes”.

These urban legends have been around as long as there have been hippies.  Any in-depth search of news archives from Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity, and Del Norte counties in California will fail to find the great Philip Morris land buy – you can imagine that would make for an above-the-fold headline in a local “Emerald Triangle” newspaper.  Another search on the US Patent & Trademark Office finds all sorts of interesting trademarks for pot names, but none owned by a cigarette company.

But let’s suppose Big Tobacco wants to get into cannabis production.  Prop 19 gives individuals the right to grow their own marijuana and share it with friends.  This isn’t tobacco, where cigarette companies have a captive audience for an addictive substance with proven toxic results from repeated use.  If Big Tobacco makes a bunch of toxic schwaggy joints, who’s buying them?  They’ll have to produce a product that’s a better deal than growing and rolling your own.

4. Today’s pot is fourteen times more powerful than Sixties weed and will lead to more crack babies!

Credit Los Angeles Bishop Ron Allen for this bit of reefer madness.  “It’s going to cause crime to go up. There will be more drug babies,” he warned the LA Times.  The New York Times reported on Allen describing marijuana as “the most sinister drug,” and asking that “the demonic spirits be cast back into hell.” The good Bishop should know, because he was a former crack addict and the first illegal drug he used was marijuana.

The logical problem with Bishop Allen’s gateway theory is that while nearly all crack addicts have smoked pot, very few pot smokers have ever smoked crack.  The only commonality between marijuana and crack is that they are both illegal drugs (even then, marijuana is more illegal; it is in Schedule I while cocaine is in Schedule II).  Marijuana doesn’t make people smoke crack any more than alcohol or tobacco makes people smoke crack, at least according to the US Institute of Medicine.

I’ve been following the US government’s Potency Monitoring Project for years (yes, there is a federal agency using your tax dollars to prove just how diggity dank your chronic is).  The most potent weed seizure I recall was 37.2% THC.  So if Bishop Allen was smoking weed that was 14x weaker than that, he was smoking 2.65% THC weed, or a grade somewhere between ditchweed and feral hemp at best!  Since the average weed seizure tests at 8.52%, Bishop Allen was smoking the equivalent of a hemp t-shirt.

The Project has shown average potency to have doubled, which means nothing since THC is non-toxic, can’t cause overdose, and is self-titrating, which is a fancy way of saying you smoke til you get stoned then you stop, whether it’s one regular joint or one-quarter of a potent joint.

3. People who smoke marijuana in the same apartment building as a child will be arrested!  (Not that your landlord will let you grow pot anyway.)

There are some marijuana smokers who think that an ounce of cannabis and a 25 square foot garden just aren’t enough.  They’ve taken to sifting through the initiative for every possible flaw, misinterpretation, and slippery slope to muddy the conversation.  Take this 2am-stoned-to-the-gills contemplation of “space”.

…consuming cannabis would be illegal in the same “space” as a minor. Police and judges are free to interpret the word “space” to mean the same room, house, or entire apartment complex.

Well, I suppose police and judges are free to interpret the word “space” to mean the Cosmos, and since there are children in the universe, the vote to legalize marijuana means nobody can smoke pot anywhere!

If that wasn’t enough to dissuade you, renters would have to (*gasp*) ask their landlord’s permission to grow marijuana!  I can’t imagine why property owners would be apprehensive about that…

While growing your own supply is fun as hell, it can also be messy, dangerous, and can easily cause damage if done improperly. (Not to mention homeowners insurance is likely to rise and homes containing cannabis could face seizure by the federal government.)

So, to sum up, you should vote no on being able to grow weed and hold an ounce, even if you own your own home, because some renters wouldn’t be able to grow (but could still hold an ounce) and you couldn’t smoke around kids.

2. Legally home-grown marijuana will lead to outbreaks of toxic deadly molds!

It’s fascinating to me the little niches some prohibitionists stake out.  Canada’s Barbara Kay works the “pot causes schizophrenia” angle (it doesn’t).  Calvina Fay likes to put quotes around “medical” marijuana.  But for sheer 50′s sci-fi horror predictions about legalization, nobody can touch Alexandra Datig of NipItInTheBud2010.org and her dire warnings of toxic mold…

Aspergillus & Stachybotrys

Next Health Nightmare If Marijuana Legalization Takes Place?

In 1996, there was a study of 10,000 cases of Aspergillosis with treatment costs of $633 Million. That means on average, just to try and treat (not cure) the problem, each case accrued average costs of roughly $63,300.

If the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 passes, 1/3 of California will be at risk of serious BLACK MOLD CONTAMINATION as well as Aspergillus exposure. And how will anyone be able to control the contamination when anyone can cultivate marijuana in their home or backyard at any time without supervision? …Well? …Anyone?

Aspergillus is a toxic mold and yes, it does grow on marijuana (if you’re a lousy grower).  It grows on carpets, trees, and drywall, too.  It killed 261 people in 2004 for a death rate of 0.88255 deaths per 1 million people.  You are more likely to die from appendicitis (371 deaths) than aspergillus.

Still, it might be scary until you realize that people are growing marijuana indoors now and because it is illegal, do it in ways that are more likely to cause an outbreak of mold.

1. Workplaces would be overrun by workers smoking marijuana on the job!

We opened up with the California Chamber of Commerce, so it is only fitting we end with their most apocalyptic pronouncement to date:

Imagine a workplace where employees show up to work high on marijuana and there is nothing you can do about it. That’s what employers can look forward to if Proposition 19 passes.

Employers would have to permit to employees to smoke marijuana at work.

Prop 19 does nothing of the sort.  It specifically retains “the existing right of an employer to address consumption that actually impairs job performance by an employee shall not be affected.”  Nobody is going to be working blazed with no fear of being fired – California is an “at will” employment state, anyway.

The Chamber’s real fear – and they’re not even shy about saying so publicly – is that management won’t be able to discriminate against workers who might smoke pot off the job:

Employers would be prohibited from discriminating against marijuana users by taking marijuana use into account when deciding whether to hire an applicant.

When it comes to legal analysis, I prefer the non-partisan California Legislative Analysts Office take on Prop 19 and the workplace:

State and local law enforcement agencies could not seize or destroy marijuana from persons in compliance with the measure. In addition, the measure states that no individual could be punished, fined, or discriminated against for engaging in any conduct permitted by the measure. However, it does specify that employers would retain existing rights to address consumption of marijuana that impairs an employee’s job performance.

So that’s it – if you vote to legalize and tax pot in California, the state will lose all federal contracts, end medical marijuana, cost billions, create toxic addictive schwaggy joints, lead to crack babies, eliminate smoking in the Cosmos, overwhelm us with toxic mold, and fill the workplaces with blazed wastoids.

And they say smoking pot will make you crazy.  Seems like legalizing it makes some people crazier.

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Hemp Headlines

1. Canadian officials raid five cannabis clubs
2. Three Montana grade schools send home “Medical Marijuana Crisis!” flyers home with kids to end school year
3. Craig X. Rubin announces new marijuana strain named for Dennis Hopper
4. Nevada patient chooses 30 day jail term over 1 year probation since he’d be denied marijuana either way
5. ABC News 20/20 taking a look at medical marijuana use by juveniles

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Eric Smokesbud

• Special Guest Ian Lloyd from New York City
• Rockin’ Friday: Ian Lloyd – “Hi2Fly”

NORML Newsmakers

• Humboldt County KMUD radio interview of Russ Belville by Liz Davidson

Cannabis Conversations

• Russ, Jon, & Karri roundtable discussions: “The Goonies” 25th Anniversary in Astoria, Oregon; Medical marijuana backlash in Montana; listener questions

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Hemp Headlines

1. Michigan’s zero-tolerance for cannabis metabolites comes into play in trial of man in vehicular manslaughter case
2. NPR study takes a look at the economic changes in Humboldt County following medical marijuana and an impending statewide legalization vote
3. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) re-introduces the Industrial Hemp Farming Act.

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Cannabis Karri and Cannabis Fantastic

• Roots Monday: Uncle Bummer & the Midnight Strummers – “Ballad of Humboldt”

NORML Board of Directors

• Keith Stroup, NORML’s Founder and current Legal Counsel, addresses the future of legalization with California’s initiative.

Radical Rant

• The rise of paramilitary SWAT raids in America

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) – A new KPIX-TV CBS 5 poll released Wednesday showed a majority of Californians now support legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

California was the first state to approve medical marijuana, in 1996, and has been the hub of the so-called “Green Rush” to legalize marijuana — a decision California voters will make in the November election.

In the poll, conducted for CBS 5 by SurveyUSA, it found that 56 percent of Californians support legalization and just 42 percent oppose it. Only three percent were unsure.

Download The Complete CBS 5 Poll Results (.pdf)

Don’t mind if I do!  Because I don’t mean to harsh anyone’s mellow, but I am having my doubts as to whether California will actually pull off legalization.  See, in addition to blogging here for NORML, in my rare spare time I also blog for Pam’s House Blend, an award-winning LGBTQ politics blog, and I remember the giddy anticipation among the gay community and straight allies that accompanied California’s Prop 8, the initiative to recognize marriage equality for all Californians.

“The CBS 5 Polls are showing a five point lead for defeating Prop H8!”

“Well, of course gay marriage won’t be banned… it’s California!”

“As California goes, so goes the nation!”

And then in November of 2008, after opponents poured in tons of ad money to convince people that Adam & Steve’s fabulous wedding reception would mean our kindergarteners would be taught about gay sex, California voted to declare 18,000 already-married gay couples an aberration and to deny the right of marriage to people based solely on the no-similar-naughty-bits principle of matrimony.

Keep in mind that passing Prop 8 wasn’t going to affect the jobs of people and profits of industry, save perhaps cake decorators and IKEA.  It’s just one of those hot-button social wedge issues that has negligible effect on the status quo.

This is your California Cops on Reefer Madness

But passing marijuana legalization?  Not only is that another social issue people are very passionate about, it’s also a huge change to the status quo that will ripple through many industries and kill many jobs, not the least of which are the very powerful California Prison Guards Union and every arm of law enforcement from state cops to local police.  In the wake of the Citizens United v. FEC decision that allows unlimited spending on campaign ads, I foresee California televisions and radios flooded with a full assault of reefer madness ads to frighten and confuse the electorate.

Even more disturbing is a growing movement within the cannabis community to oppose legalization.  Ellen Komp of California NORML attended a meeting in Humboldt County where the people voiced their fears about legalized marijuana killing their entire prohibition-based economy.  There are rumors of “Don’t Legalize Pot” bumper stickers in the Emerald Triangle.  When I arrived at the speakers’ stage at the International Cannabis & Hemp Expo in San Francisco on Sunday, Chris Conrad was railing against Dennis Peron, the author of Prop-215, who had been on stage earlier exhorting people to vote against legalization.  Chris also condemned whoever it was that placed don’t-ruin-215 anti-legalization flyers on cars in the parking lot.  I had numerous people approach me at my table whether I thought they should support the legalization initiative!  At a cannabis expo!

(Reuters) Everyone knows someone who grows pot. In the north county, indoor growing that fetches prices of over $3,000 per pound is popular, while in the south, marijuana is planted outdoors.

The industry has also fueled an itinerant labor force of “trimmers” who make $20 per hour or more snipping the leaves from the more potent dried buds of the plant.

“This vote has become a conflict of interest,” said Deniz Farnell, 31, an Arcata hotel worker, who, like the vast majority of locals, supports decriminalizing pot smoking.

“Do you vote for the good of the state or for the next-door neighbor who’s a mom who’s supplementing her income through trimming? When that law passes, she’ll be on food stamps.”

Because, why, there won’t be any legit jobs for trimmers when marijuana can be grown legally?  No matter who’s growing it for what price, somebody will need to trim it.  When it’s legal, even more people will grow more of it, requiring even more trimming.  It’s just that the trimmers will have to obey the same rules of applying for jobs, getting interviewed, filling out W2′s, paying taxes, managing sick and vacation time, saving for a 401k, just like everybody else does in America and that, more than the price drop, is what I believe Emerald Triangle cannabis workers fear most.  But at least they will be able to drive themselves to their own workplaces and not have to be blindfolded and searched so extensively.

(SF Chronicle) ”Radical” Russ Belville, the outreach coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that if California’s initiative passed, he expected home-growers to enter the market and drive prices down.

But he was unsympathetic to the group from Humboldt County.

“To that end, I would say, ‘Tough,’ ” Belville said. “We should have to put people in prison so you can continue to make a living?”

I can hear people already telling me, “Russ, this is pot legalization, not gay marriage.  And it’s a 14-point margin of support, not five.”  Fair enough.  But before you go thinking “surely California will pass pot legalization”, take a deeper look at that 14-point margin:

• Young people (under 34) support legalization at 74%; older people (65+) only support it at 39%.
• In the last mid-term (non-presidential) election in 2006, only 1 out of 4 young people (18-29) voted; 2 out of 3 older people (60+) voted.  In the previous mid-term in 2002, only a little more than 1 out of 5 young people (18-29) voted.

If we can get the young people out to the polls like 2008, when Obama mobilized the youth vote like never before, then we win.  However, these would be the same young people who I saw at the Cow Palace, standing in a line to get a $99 doctor recommendation for medical marijuana (their condition apparently being the pain of parting with $99, cash only), who then went out to the parking lot to legally toke in the open air, and can now grow their own plants and/or shop at one of many dispensaries for the same price and far better quality and selection than they used to pay their weed dealer.  How exactly do we motivate them to the critical need to take time off work and go out in California traffic on a Tuesday to stand in a line to vote for something they already feel like they have, especially when the guy who got them quasi-legal weed is telling them it will ruin that?

• People of child-raising age (35-49) only support legalization at (46%)
• Men support legalization far more (65%) than women (46%)

This is where our opponents will pour their ad resources – the “What About the Children!?!” angle.  NORML’s polling has shown for years that parents tend to oppose legalization and go back to supporting it once the kids leave the home (49% support in the 50-64 demo in this poll).

The key to winning the women and parents is to scare the hell out of them about what happens if legalization doesn’t pass.  I can imagine folks on our side trying to counter the scare tactics of the opposition with soothing “no it won’t” type of advertising – it won’t increase driving fatalities, it won’t increase high school drop-outs, it won’t lead the kids to heroin, etc.  That will surely lose; you can’t fight emotion with logic.

Show some commercials of teenagers dealing weed in the school halls.  Show some college kid being locked up with the ominous voice over “this could be your child”.  Show Mexican mothers wailing at funerals of their massacred teens.  Explain “This is what happens right now because marijuana is illegal.  Just like alcohol prohibition, it is worse to ban it than to regulate it.  Vote yes on the Tax & Control Cannabis Act of 2010… for the children.”

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Hemp Headlines

1. LA Dispensary owner Virgil Grant sentenced to six years in prison for selling marijuana for profit
2. Secretary of State Clinton in Mexico to help solve the problem of drug gang violence
3. California growers in Humboldt County worried marijuana legalization will reduce the price of cannabis

Daily Toker Tunes

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• Electric Tuesday: CLING – “Deeper Meaning”

California Marijuana Report with Eric Brenner

• Victoria Zavala, city council candidate in Lancaster, California

Reefer Madness!

• Debunking the “joints per plant” nonsense from Illinois prohibitionists fighting a medical marijuana bill

(NPR) Retired Humboldt County Sheriff’s Lt. Steve Cobine says cultivating cannabis is now a big business in state forests and private timberlands.

This year, CAMP hauled in 4.5 million plants from around California. But Cobine admits that’s a tiny percentage of what’s really out there.

“We’re just keeping a lid on it so it doesn’t go crazy,” Cobine says.

Instead of burning the confiscated plants like they used to do, Sheriff’s Sgt. Wayne Hanson says they bury them in undisclosed locations.

“Basically, [a] marijuana plant’s 90 percent water,” he says. “So we dig a hole 10 feet down, throw a bunch of soil on it, and it’s basically destroyed then, just by the compression of the earth.”

As they haul off a truckload of confiscated plants, Hanson makes a somewhat surprising admission.

“Part of me wants marijuana legalized,” he says, “’cause it would take away the wealth and the greed and the violence.”

But he says it would have to be legalized in all of the U.S., not just California. “Cause if it gets legalized in California, you’d have all the riffraff coming to California to make money to sell to the other 49 states,” he says.

We’re all for that solution, Sheriff Hanson!  However, you and I both know that prohibition of cannabis took over this country state-by-state and was illegal in all 48 states before the feds ever got around to it.  Ending prohibition will have to happen the same way; some state will have to do it first, and California’s part of the way there already.  When California relegalizes cannabis and the nearby states see the windfall, they will relegalize soon after (at least Oregon!)  During that interim period, sure, there are likely to be carpetbaggers rushing in to help fulfill marijuana demand in other states, but that just means American marijuana money going to legal growers in California instead of lining the pockets of mexican drug gangs.

A 19-year-old man from Antioch who survived an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head has been arrested at a Sacramento hospital on charges stemming from an armed marijuana robbery last week that ended with the death of his associate.

Brian Cole Fiore was arrested at 5:15 p.m. Monday and booked into the Sacramento County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder, robbery, negligent discharge of a firearm and evading a peace officer with wanton disregard for safety, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office reported.

After an autopsy over the weekend, investigators say they think David Fields, 21, was shot shortly before the vehicle he was riding in flipped over an embankment along the roadside, and rolled to a stop 130 feet down into the ravine below.

According to Brenda Godsey, spokeswoman for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, Fields and Fiore arranged to meet six people in McKinleyville on May 11 to purchase 14 pounds of marijuana.

When Fields and Fiore met the group at a residential McKinleyville intersection, one of the men produced an assault rifle while the other brought out a handgun, Godsey said. The two men ordered the six people to the ground, took the marijuana and fled in a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

One of the six reported the incident to police, who soon located the Jeep with the aid of other reporting parties, who indicated they could see a Jeep passenger holding an assault weapon through their vehicle’s window.

The Jeep was soon located by police, who followed the two suspects speeding toward Willow Creek on State Route 299. During the pursuit, the Jeep’s passenger fired the assault rifle toward police, but no one was hit.

via Antioch man arrested in wild marijuana holdup, shooting in Ukiah – San Jose Mercury News.

Re-read the story again, except this time, replace all instances of “marijuana” with “a keg of beer”.  Do you think any of this story would’ve transpired if we were talking about a keg of beer?

First of all, the 19-year-old Fiore wouldn’t even be involved, since the liquor store would’ve checked his ID.  The 21-year-old Fields could’ve just walked into the liquor store, showed ID, signed some paperwork, and purchased a keg for 1/1000th the price of 14 pounds of marijuana.  He wouldn’t need an assault rifle and would have very little motivation to steal the keg of beer when he can purchase it cheaply.  Even if money was the motivation and he instead robbed the liquor store with the assault rifle, there’d be alarms and cameras for him to deal with.

Second, six people in McKinleyville would have no motivation to meet two young strangers on a residential corner and try to sell them a keg of beer.  Not enough profit in it.

But because marijuana’s illegal and adults can’t buy it like a keg of beer, it’s profitable enough to rob people over and criminal enough to shoot automatic weapons at cops in residential neighborhoods during high speed pursuits.

It’s no surprise that when Gov. Schwarzenegger called for a discussion on the legalization of marijuana it would be seen as a call to arms for prohibitionists. For Sonoma County, the usual suspects are taking their places.

“I think we need another drug like we need a hole in the head,” Sonoma County Sheriff’s Capt. Matt McCaffrey said.
The societal costs of having more people using drugs would exceed the tax benefits, he said.

“A lot of the money would be going to the ills caused by this drug,” in much the same way alcohol taxes don’t cover the costs of problems caused by alcohol consumption, he said.

It’d help if you remember the “we don’t need another drug” argument. It’s the first new talking point that you will be hearing from the prohibitionists. It stands the prohibitionist argument of “this drug is so bad we HAVE to outlaw it” on it’s head. Since marijuana is so much safer than currently legal drugs, we should legalize it right now. When law enforcement gets a place at the FDA’s approval panel for new drugs, I’ll take what they have to say about the harm of marijuana more seriously. I’m sure that when Purdue Pharma introduced “Oxycontin” the dear Sheriff didn’t say a word.

The second point the good Sheriff makes is that the ills of legalization of marijuana will outstrip the revenue it generates. With 18 million marijuana users per year, the cost of marijuana use is already baked in. Other countries (Gov. Schwarzenegger’s criteria) only saw a slight increase (around 5%) in the use of ADULTS who grew up with prohibition.

Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua said he’d be willing to participate in discussions about legalization. But he questioned whether now is the time.

“I don’t think on an important topic like this it can be done when we’re facing a deficit at our doorsteps,” he said. “At this point it serves as a needless distraction to Sacramento.”

The DA needs money today and removing a source of billable income isn’t the tune he wants to hear. Lightening his workload is a needless distraction, and is outright dangerous to his future as an elected official. When a DA needs to up his conviction rate, or show he’s one tough dude he needs a bus load of pot smokers to incarcerate (for a mandatory long time). He’d spend months or years tracking down robberies before he could get a mere handful of convictions. It’s not time now, and it’s never a good time for the DA to discuss marijuana legalization.

Next up: “What about the children?”

“It would contribute to greater abuse” by children if it’s freely available to adults, said Sonoma County schools Superintendent Carl Wong.

Children living on the marijuana-rich North Coast already use marijuana at a higher rate than elsewhere, said Lynn Garric, the director of Sonoma County’s Safe Schools Program.

A survey conducted by the group ranked Sonoma County fourth in the state in student marijuana use. Marin County students reported the highest use, followed by Mendocino and Humboldt counties, she said.

The survey showed that 30 percent of Sonoma County eleventh-graders had used marijuana in the month preceding the survey. The state average was 16 percent.

“We have to be careful about impacts on children,” she said.

So a survey created, funded, and conducted by Sonoma County’s Safe Schools Program found an alarming usage rate amongst the county’s eleventh graders, forgive me if I’m not shocked. Black market dealers don’t ask for ID and don’t care who’s buying, and that goes for any product, from guns to unpasteurized milk. It’s the black market that feeds drugs to our children, in the free market your drugstore doesn’t sell to minors because it’d get shut down and lose all that wonderful revenue.

When the debate is joined by the prohibitionists, they will trot out every skewed study, every frightening headline, every pot horror story to defeat you. Don’t let them get away with sentencing 800,000 Americans every year to a tour of our incarceration system, get prepared, get motivated, get active.

“We are starting to see a real change,” said Ellen Komp, a Humboldt County-based spokeswoman with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Komp said the price of marijuana from the North Coast likely would remain high, much like premier wines from the region. She envisions “tasting” rooms, which could boost tourism and bring relief to the North Coast’s battered economy.

I think I’ll order an eighth of Mendocino’s finest Sour Diesel and a tumbler of Maker’s Mark…

New to DVD today is Humboldt County, an introspective character piece by novice writer/director duo, Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs (both also act in the film). The film follows disenchanted medical student, Peter (Jeremy Strong), as he spends a summer lost within the confines of a marijuana commune hidden deep in the backwoods of Northern California. via DVD Review: Humboldt County – LAist: Los Angeles News, Food, Arts & Events.

Darren and Danny joined us as interview guests in the Sep 26, 2008 Stash.  I really loved this movie and my wife watched it for the first time last week and loved it, too.  This is not a “crazy dope comedy”, so if you’re looking for that, go rent Pineapple Express or Harold & Kumar.  This is a movie that explores the essence of the cannabis community as Peter exits “Babylon” and experiences the interaction of the Humboldt family – “fish out of water” tale.  This film features some of the most realistic depictions of pot farmer characters I’ve seen in a long time.

And besides, it’s got that lady from Six Feet Under (Frances Conroy) and the doctor from Deadwood (Brad Dourif), two of my all-time favorite HBO shows, so you know the acting is good.

Click here to view the embedded video.

High Life: Medical Marijuana’s Boomtown
It’s estimated that $143 million in medical marijuana sales have netted $11.4 million in state and local taxes annually, based on registered businesses, California State Board of Equalization spokeswoman Anita Gore said. And those estimates are small compared with those in a 2006 report co-written by California NORML state coordinator Dale Gieringer, which said that Californians consumed between $870 million and $2 billion worth of medical marijuana per year.

Of course, marijuana is nothing new to Humboldt County.

Humboldt, part of Northern California’s Emerald Triangle, has long been known for its high-grade marijuana crop, which has been immortalized on merchandise, including “Got Humboldt?” T-shirts, skateboards that feature weed and the words “Humboldt Gold,” and an upcoming movie named — what else? — “Humboldt County.” One recent study by Steven Hackett, an economics professor at Humboldt State University, estimated marijuana brings in as much as a half billion dollars to the county’s economy.

For years, Humboldt County has enjoyed the benefits of a booming underground economy. But changes to state laws — such as the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996, when voters approved the medical use of marijuana — mean that many engaged in cultivation and sales are trying to follow state medical marijuana laws. Or at least some of them are making an effort, and in doing so are pouring money into local and state tax coffers.

The City of Arcata declined to disclose specific taxes paid on medical marijuana sales by local businesses, calling that “proprietary information.” But the city’s finance director, Janet Luzzi, said one dispensary in town is among Arcata’s top 25 producers of sales tax, and has been for several quarters.

“The economy of Humboldt County would have ceased to exist a long time ago without it,” said [medical marijuana advocate Martha] Devine [who's known to some here as "Granny Green Genes,"] glancing around the plaza. “This county was built on marijuana.” … She’s witnessed the decline of the county’s other traditional industries, like timber and fisheries, and believes marijuana is largely responsible for Humboldt’s progressive culture and thriving businesses.

“I think it’s really kept our economy going,” Devine said.

It will be the economic realities that finally overturn adult marijuana prohibition, much more so than any number of statistics or reports we can produce.  It doesn’t matter whether marijuana is harmful or not; we accept very harmful alcohol because it’s financially more lucrative to tax and regulate it than to prohibit it.

Marijuana’s remained illegal because it has fewer users than alcohol, so the profit government makes from prohibition outweighs the profit it could make from taxation and regulation.  But with the housing market collapse, states that rely on property tax revenues will feel the pinch.  With oil prices going through the roof, consumers will demand a cheaper fuel alternative.  Stricter regulations to protect the environment will make hemp farming more attractive as an alternative crop requiring no pesticides, the use of which as a biodiesel fuel will be more carbon-friendly.

Government in general could care less how many lives are ruined by marijuana prohibition, because so many more lives are enhanced through prohibition-related employment.  But government in general cares a great deal about the almighty dollar, and when legal marijuana becomes a bigger cash cow than illegal marijuana, we will finally see an end to adult marijuana prohibition.