Tag Archives: marijuana arrests

How to Legalize Marijuana

aaIt is a myth, that laws get changed by politely petitioning representatives, thinking that the representatives will champion a cause if they can see that it is the right thing to do. Marijuana laws are kept on the books because the proponents of prohibition work outside of the formal system. The proponents are organized crime, the pharmaceutical industry, lawyers, private prisons and others who benefit  from the laws. The laws do absolutely nothing to reduce usage. The laws do maintain profit margins of the proponents as well as create business for them. The public gains nothing. It is less than helpful that groups like NORML waste so much time and effort focusing on ineffective representation based efforts.

I have studied arrest records in Texas and have discovered that far more than half of arrests for cannabis are what I call add on charges. Some kid gets a DWI for beer or gets arrested for shop lifting. The drug charges are applied because offenders commit other crimes and are dumb enough to have marijuana on them at the time. Getting busted at home is a complete rarity. Stoners are the biggest advocates of legalization but they are doing the most to keep it illegal. They get caught far more than necessary. Stoners are an unsympathetic lot and they need to stay out of the back seat of police cars. By smoking away from home and getting busted, they keep law enforcement focused on the issue. Make no mistake, fines for marijuana create a lot of revenue for municipalities and create fees for lawyers. The more crime there is the more reasons there are to put more funds into  law enforcement. Drug arrests create a lot of revenue for proponents of prohibition. If there was a way to keep stoners out of sight, legalization would come a lot quicker. Taxpayers and medical users suffer from prohibition just as much as stoners do.

Human beings mostly copy one another and only deal in packaged ideas. That doesn’t get folks very far when trying to get laws repealed. Citizens are told things such as state referendums are not worthwhile and won’t get laws changed.  While a statewide referendum might not work, certain types of referendums at the local would have a very high impact. City councils cannot repeal state laws. They can dictate which laws get priority for enforcement. Citizens at the municipal and county levels can pass referendums insisting that the police force give low priority to marijuana arrests and that resources be focused more on other crimes. There are countless laws all across the United States that never get enforced. Some of them are completely forgotten. Cannabis laws could become this type of law.

Another way is to make prosecution of the laws too expensive. Most marijuana charges are resolved with a plea bargain. Local pro-legalization groups could start picking a poster child case every month, provide free defense and take the case as far up the legal chain as possible, while publicizing the effort to the max the whole way. Instead of politely begging for help from from elected representatives, groups like NORML could educate the general public on jury nullification and encourage the practice. Despite what one might be told, there is absolutely nothing a judge can do to force a juror to vote to convict. Otherwise there would be no point in having a trial in front of a jury.

Citizens often complain about expensive laws that have no purpose but will never think outside the box to try to get anything changed. I am particularly offended by laws that stay on the books as social statements. For a law to be successful, a minimum of a plurality must be offended by the behavior a law is meant to prevent. Otherwise the law is impossible to enforce. This is the case with marijuana laws. The expense is staggering. Most who are waiting for these and other bad laws to repealed may be dead before that happens, unless they get more aggressive in fighting the laws.

There are those who will say, “We can’t legalize marijuana because children will have access to it?” As a retired teacher I can say with complete confidence, any child can get marijuana anytime he wants it as it is. The marijuana laws prevent nothing but cost communities a fortune.

 

Economics of Marijuana Laws.

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inmdexOne important aspect of any law is how effective the law is in preventing the behavior it is designed to prohibit. When I taught high school I became certain that marijuana use by teens and pre-teens destroys any chance they have of gaining anything by going to school. As a special education teacher, I learned that many of the students who qualified for the special education program were heavy marijuana users, A great number of those qualifying around middle school were actually stoned on the day they were tested. Marijuana was present all over campus and any student who wanted some did not have to look hard to find it. All but the few who take honors classes learn almost nothing from the 9th through the 12th grades. Special education students on marijuana have no chance at all.

Knowing this, should marijuana be legalized? Well, the laws we have now are completely useless in keeping it out of the hands of students. Where students are concerned, it doesn’t matter whether it is legal or not. They get all they want. There is no point in wasting money trying to enforce a law that is so easy to violate, even children can do it.

People are not offended enough by marijuana use to have an effective law that is devoted to eliminating its use. When no less than half of the population is not offended by marijuana use there is no point in trying to make it illegal. This is true of any law. Laws need to have the cooperation of at least 80% of the population. Most compliance has to be voluntary. There are exceptions. But enforcement has to be brutal, like shooting users and dealers on sight, with no trial.

Current drug laws allow supporters to enhance their self esteem by showing their disdain for bad behavior. Organized crime gets a great deal of utility out of drug laws because high profit margins are guaranteed. The pharmaceutical industry, of course is opposed to legalizing marijuana.

I study issues thoroughly before coming up with opinions. The medicinal aspects of cannabis appear to be highly valuable. With the state of health care in disaster mode, it is wrong to deny responsible people access to natural herbs that have strong curative powers. Certainly research into medical uses should be encouraged. There are no reasons to prevent adults from trying to cure themselves with any safe herb where traditional medicine fails. As it turns out traditional medicine is failing miserably these days.

I have made some observations that some might find interesting. The people who want pot legalized the most are also the ones who are doing the most to keep it illegal. These are the stoners. They are not a sympathetic lot and engage constantly in maladaptive behavior. I took the time to study who gets arrested for drugs, where and when.

Almost never is a person arrested in his own home for indulging. This is all a matter of public record. Check the arrest records for any county that makes the information available on line. You might go blind before finding one arrest of a stoner at home. Also, it is rare for an arrest to be made for marijuana alone. The vast majority of marijuana charges are made in addition to other charges. The other charges are almost always for some kind of bad behavior like getting a DWI or committing another crime. Marijuana is almost never the original reason for arrest.

The people who want pot legalized for recreation are the ones who are providing all of the justification for keeping it illegal.

There are hundreds of laws on the books that have no utility to society. Supporting these laws makes certain folks feel morally superior. Marijuana laws fall into this category. As a retired teacher, I would certainly like to see pot kept out of the hands of kids. I would support the current law, if it was effective in doing this. I might support the law if it did any good at all.