LEGAL POT: ARE HARD TIMES LEADING TO HIGHER TIMES?

The recession is spotlighting the rationale for decriminalizing
marijuana.

NEW YORK -- In 1977, President Jimmy Carter asked Congress to
decriminalize marijuana possession (it never did). The next year, the
Ladies Home Journal described a summer jazz festival on the White
House's South Lawn where "a haze of marijuana smoke hung heavy under
the low-bending branches of a magnolia tree."

The late 1970's may have been the high-water mark for permissiveness
regarding marijuana. But advocates of decriminalized pot believe a
confluence of factors, especially the country's economic malaise, are
leading to another countrywide reappraisal of the drug.

"There is momentum of the sort I haven't seen since I've been involved
in this," says Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New
York-based Drug Policy Alliance, which supports easing marijuana laws.

He says incidents like then-candidate Barack Obama's early admission
of pot use or the flap over Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps's
bong-smoking may lead to initial public hand-wringing, but in the end
they tend to legitimize pot use. So does the growing recognition of
medical marijuana.

But, he adds, "the economic crisis is the single most important
factor" in this new shift in perceptions.

That's because the ailing economy is triggering a scramble for new
government savings or sources of revenue. Nadelmann compares today's
marijuana laws to alcohol prohibition, approved during prosperous
times in 1920 only to become unpopular during the Great Depression.
Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, in part due to the cost of
reining in illegal booze and the need to recoup lost tax revenue in
tough economic times.

As he signed a law easing prohibition, President Franklin Roosevelt
reportedly quipped, "I think this would be a good time for a beer."

Is our recession-plagued present a good time for a joint? Legalizing,
taxing and regulating marijuana, would pull the rug out from under pot
dealers in urban America, and create a crisis for them, but it would
likely prove a boon for state budgets. In an oft-cited 2006 report on
U.S. marijuana production, expert Jon Gettman used "conservative price
estimates" to peg the value of the annual crop at $36 billion--more
valuable than corn and wheat combined.

Three national polls this year showed a surprising number of Americans
think marijuana should be legal. Zogby, CBS News and Rasmussen all
recorded support for legalization hovering at around 40 percent.
Nadelmann of the DPA believes support would have been higher if the
question was whether or not marijuana should be taxed and regulated.

California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has proposed a bill to tax and
regulate legal marijuana, which he says would generate $1 billion in
revenue for the Golden State's anemic budget. Ammiano, who represents
areas of San Francisco, says his proposal, unveiled last month, is
"simply common sense," considering the unprecedented economic
emergency. The measure would also save California an estimated $150
million in enforcement costs.

Rising support for decriminalization has also come from drug
war-ravaged Latin America. Former presidents of Colombia, Mexico and
Brazil headed the 17-person Latin American Commission on Drugs, which
included intellectuals and statesmen. It issued a report last month
calling the drug war failed. It called, among other changes, for the
personal use of marijuana to be decriminalized.

Currently, marijuana is already decriminalized in some form in 13 U.S.
states, including California and New York, according to the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Typically in
these states, marijuana possession in small amounts is reduced to a
minor offense punishable by a low fine. Alaska has a particularly
liberal law, allowing possession of up to an ounce of pot at home
without penalty.

Some eight additional state legislatures are currently considering
decriminalization, or the expansion of already existing allowances,
according to NORML.

No other state has gone as far as the sweeping "tax and regulate" plan
Ammiano proposed for California, but all this talk of legalizing pot
has Eric Voth, M.D., deeply worried. Voth, chairman of the Institute
on Global Drug Policy, believes advocates of legal marijuana are
exploiting the country's economic insecurities to advance their
agenda, despite evident risks.

Pointing to alcohol and tobacco, which are taxed, he argues the
resulting revenue hardly compensates for the social and public health
damage wreaked by both substances, including spillover use among
youth. In the 1970s, when marijuana use was at its peak, some 11
percent of high school seniors used marijuana daily, whereas today
only between two and three percent do so. If marijuana were legal,
more kids would smoke it and face health, addiction and learning
problems, says Voth, who advised the White House under Republican and
Democratic administrations. "I'm not a prohibitionist, I'm a physician
and I've seen those problems face-to-face in the trenches."

But, as Voth himself admits, the lobby to decriminalize marijuana is
increasingly organized, with a strong presence in state capitols and
Washington, D.C. When Ammiano announced his California plan, he
enlisted the DPA and the Marijuana Policy Project to back him up.
"High Times," the popular pot enthusiasts' magazine, has spearheaded
its own "420 campaign" for marijuana legalization. Libertarian
organizations, like the Cato Institute, tend to be skeptical of pot
prohibition, too.

But there are legal questions over states' efforts to decriminalize.
Lenient state laws (not to mention Ammiano's legalization plan) clash
with separate federal laws on marijuana, which are strict, calling for
up to a year imprisonment and a $1,000 fine for possession of any
amount, even if it's a first offense.

Last year, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), sponsored legislation to
decriminalize marijuana federally, earning a handful of co-sponsors,
but the bill quickly stalled in committee.

Ammiano says his plan isn't radical, since pot would simply be taxed
just as tobacco and alcohol are now. But for his opponents that
comparison sets off alarm bells.

Both industries have a bad record of facing up to the adverse health
effects of their products and its availability to underage users. A
legally sanctioned marijuana industry, opponents say, would open the
door to another powerful, cynical, corporate dispenser of legal drugs.