LOCAL OFFICIALS: WHAT'S GOVERNOR SMOKING?

Suggestion To Study Legalizing Marijuana Criticized

Reaction to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's suggestion that California
should study legalizing marijuana had a familiar refrain locally: Just say no.

Local elected officials and law enforcement see little benefit to the
idea, and even a local advocate for pot legalization acknowledges
there are a lot of questions that would need answers before the idea
was viable.

Sutter County Supervisor Jim Whiteaker had a response that could
speak for many: "The governor's idea would explain a lot of the
decisions made at the state level lately."

Whiteaker, who opposes the idea, said the effects of drug addiction
on families and communities would be worsened if someone could pick
up marijuana at the corner store legally.

"Marijuana itself does impede judgments," Whiteaker said, adding he'd
worry that people responsible for public safety, such as bus drivers,
might partake of marijuana if it was legal.

Schwarzenegger last week suggested a marijuana legalization study,
saying state leaders should consider the merits of a state Assembly
bill by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, that would legalize
and heavily tax marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.

He made the remark in response to a question about new Field Poll
findings that show 56 percent of the state's registered voters
favored legalizing and taxing marijuana. Nationally, legalizing
marijuana is roughly split 50-50 between those in favor and those opposed.

Opposition to marijuana legalization peaked during the late 1960s and
'70s, but has abated in recent years, particularly as voters in more
states, including California in 1996, have passed medical marijuana
initiatives that allow people with a specified medical condition to
legally buy, grow and smoke or consume a defined amount of marijuana.

Fourteen states now have such programs, with New Jersey and Michigan
the most recent to allow medical marijuana.

Since 215 passed, however, local governments have struggled with how
to handle the issue.

Last April, Yuba County supervisors voted to create an ID card for
medicinal marijuana users to make their use less likely to result in arrest.

In Sutter County, however, the planning commission and the cities of
Yuba City and Live Oak have banned medical marijuana dispensaries
from opening. No dispensaries are openly operating in either Yuba or
Sutter counties.

Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Linda) said now is not the time to discuss
full legalization, especially when the state has larger problems.

"My take is that the governor ought to explore ways to grow our
economy, and concentrate on bringing jobs back to California," said
Logue, who added he wouldn't support marijuana legalization even in a
more prosperous time.

Though proponents of Ammiano's bill have touted the economic benefit
for California in the form of marijuana taxes, Logue said that
reasoning is flawed.

"You're not creating new wealth, you're just moving it around," he said.

Sutter County District Attorney Carl Adams said that medical
marijuana already creates an uncomfortable position for law
enforcement that legalizing marijuana would make worse.

Because marijuana is still considered illegal by the federal
government, Adams said, officers are obligated to arrest those who
possess marijuana. If they then claim the marijuana is for medicinal
purposes, the charges can be dropped and the pot returned.

But because the marijuana is still considered contraband at the
federal level, Adams said, officers and prosecutors who return it to
medicinal users could conceivably be considered accessories.

"If the California law was the same as federal law, that would solve
the problem," he said. Legalizing it in California, with no change at
the federal level, he said, just widens the gaps between the laws.

Adams would find partial agreement with a Yuba County resident who's
on the opposite side of the legalize-it fence.

Steve King, a member of the medicinal marijuana advocacy group Yuba
County Compassionate Use Co-op, said legalizing marijuana brings up a
host of burning questions.

Among them, he said, is how to dismantle the prohibition system in
place, how to create a distribution system for legal pot, and how to
keep the federal government from going after that system.

"With anything legal for sale, you have a manufacturer who produces
something that goes to wholesale and then goes to retail and the
consumer," King said. "That all has to be set up if you legalize pot."

King said marijuana prohibition has failed, so legalizing it makes
sense. But doing so is not a flip-the-switch proposition, he cautioned.

"I'd love to see it happen," he said. "But I don't think it'll happen
as quickly as the governor thinks."