POT BACKERS SHOULD POSE SECURITY CASE

When choosing between frugality and security, history shows that
America almost always selects the latter. To paraphrase President John
F. Kennedy, we'll pay any price and bear any burden to protect ourselves.

No doubt this was why the economic case against the Iraq invasion
failed. To many, the war debate seemed to pose a binary question: debt
or mushroom clouds? And when it's a scuffle between money arguments
and security arguments (even dishonest security arguments), security
wins every time.

Call this the Pay-Any-Price Principle - an axiom that has impacted all
of America's wars and now, most poignantly, its War on Drugs.

Fortunately, these numbers are seeping into the public
consciousness.

Gallup's latest survey shows record support for marijuana
legalization, as more Americans see the Drug War for what it really
is: an ideological and profit-making crusade by the
Arrest-and-Incarceration Complex against a substance that is,
according to most physicians, less toxic than alcohol.

Considering both the public opinion shift and the facts about
marijuana, this should be the moment drug policy reformers drop their
budget attacks and flip the security argument on their opponents -
specifically, by pointing out how safety is actually compromised by
the status quo.

The good news is that some activists are making this very
case.

Last week, students at 80 colleges asked their schools to reduce
penalties for marijuana possession so they are no greater than
penalties for alcohol possession. It's a request with safety in mind:

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,
alcohol use by college kids contributes to roughly 1,700 deaths,
600,000 injuries and 97,000 sexual assaults every year. By contrast,
"The use of marijuana itself has not been found to contribute to any
deaths, there has never been a single fatal marijuana overdose in
history (and) all objective research on marijuana has also concluded
that it does not contribute to injuries, assaults, sexual abuse, or
violent or aggressive behavior," as the group Safer Alternative For
Enjoyable Recreation notes.

Now the bad news: Not every reformer is on message.

In California, where polls show most citizens support cannabis
legalization, The New York Times reports that backers of a
legalization ballot measure "will not dwell on assertions of
marijuana's harmlessness" but "rather on (the) cold cash" pot can
generate for depleted state coffers.

The problem is not these advocates' facts - California officials
confirm legal marijuana could generate more than $1 billion in tax
revenue. The problem goes back to the Pay-Any-Price Principle.

By downplaying the argument about giving society a safer alternative
to alcohol, California's legalization advocates are letting drug
warriors reclaim the language of security, to the point where even
liberal Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer's campaign now trumpets her
opposition to the initiative on the grounds that "she shares the
(safety) concerns of police chiefs, sheriffs and other law enforcement
officials."

A career politician, Boxer understands that if this battle reverts to
the old tax-revenue-versus-safety fight, voters will choose safety. In
other words, she gets the Pay-Any-Price Principle.

To maximize this opportune moment for drug policy changes, every
reformer must appreciate that principle, too - and finally confront it
head on.