CHANGES ON MARIJUANA

Here is why Solano County should tax and regulate marijuana:

Regulation of marijuana would reduce organized crime and access to
adolescents, just as the regulation of alcohol has. Teens report they
have easier access to marijuana than they have to either alcohol or
tobacco, according to a national survey released in 2002 by the
national Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University. The results marked the first in the survey's history that
adolescents said it was easier to buy cannabis than cigarettes or alcohol.

Marijuana is safer to both the user and the community than alcohol.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice-Bureau of Justice and
Statistics, 40 percent of those convicted of homicide had been under
the influence of alcohol at the time of their offense. The national
highway traffic administration has concluded that 47.4 percent of all
highway deaths involved a driver intoxicated by alcohol. Marijuana
users, however, have "the same or lower incidence of murders, highway
deaths, and accidents than the general non-smoking population as a
whole," according to a study at UCLA. Even more interesting is that
despite the thousands of deaths from alcohol overdose annually, there
has not been a single reported case of anyone dying from marijuana use.

Solano County is behind other counties and California is behind other
states on marijuana reform. Several states have issued a tax on
marijuana for $3.50/gram, including Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia,
Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts,
Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. California counties, including Santa
Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Santa Monica, currently have initiatives to
be voted on in November that require no money be spent prosecuting
marijuana offenses similar to Oakland's Measure Z.

Otherwise law-abiding adults in Solano County are more likely to be
targeted for non-violent marijuana offenses than counties in states
that have taxed and regulated it. Marijuana arrests and funding for
those arrests are steadily increasing, with 785,545 people arrested
in 2005 (more than twice the arrests of 1993), according to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation's Annual Uniform Crime Report. Even
worse, the report stated that 42.6 percent of all U.S. drug arrests
were for marijuana, refuting previous claims that minor marijuana
offenses aren't targeted in the drug war.

Marijuana is not addictive. Unlike tobacco and heroin, which
reportedly both have a 75 percent chance of relapse after quitting,
complete with withdrawal symptoms, marijuana creates no physical
dependency. It is no more habit-forming than playing video games or
drinking tea.

Legalization would generate needed money to our budget. Harvard
Economist Jeffery Miron estimates in his report "Budgetary
Implications of Marijuana Prohibition" (signed by more than 500
economists) that $96.3 million would be generated annually from tax
revenue in California alone if marijuana were legalized.

The alcohol prohibition didn't work and marijuana's prohibition isn't
working. The current laws mislead people into believing marijuana is
worse than alcohol. People will always drink and people will always
use marijuana, so why is it that those choosing to leisure with a
safer substance are the ones being thrown behind bars? Other counties
are doing it and we can do it too by informing our district
representatives and telling them it's time for Solano's laws to make sense.

Gerald Clift, Vacaville