END THE PROHIBITION OF MARIJUANA

After a deadly shootout by sheriff's deputies in a marijuana raid
last week, Howard Miller, co-owner of the Junction Bar and Grill,
talked about the many pot farms in the rugged hills of northeast
Santa Clara County.

"The marijuana doesn't bother me," said the 69-year-old Miller, whose
bar advertises itself as being as close to the Old West as you can
get. "The shootouts do."

Count me in Howard Miller's corner. After a lot of thought, I've
decided to vote for Proposition 19, the measure on the November
ballot that would legalize and tax marijuana.

The shooting still has its mysteries. We don't know the name of the
dead man - likely the low guy on the totem pole - or what led cops to
this particular growth or whether it was run by a Mexican cartel.

But in the end, it makes less sense to parse the details of the
shooting than to talk about its underlying causes.

For now, marijuana growing is against the law. If you patrol a rural
pot farm with a gun, you're engaged in dangerous and illegal activity.

That's why we need to legalize pot, regulate its production and take
the business away from the cartels. We did this once before, when
Prohibition ended in 1933.

Begin with a few facts. The war on marijuana has been a colossal
failure. It's wasted law enforcement time and resulted in the
needless arrests of hundreds of thousands of people.
Each year around now, law enforcement trumpets new seizures, saying
they break previous records. If the raids were really having an
impact, you'd expect seizures to go down.

Fears of Pot

All this is in pursuit of a substance that's less dangerous than
booze, one that was outlawed more than 70 years ago without any clear
understanding of its effects.

I know the arguments against Proposition 19: Mothers Against Drunk
Driving has contended that it gives police no standards for arresting
marijuana users driving under the influence.

Other adversaries, like U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein - often a
disappointment to me - have argued that it would imperil billions in
federal funds for schools seeking to be drug-free.

All these arguments, however, strike me as fears masquerading as
facts. Proposition 19 advocates like Joe McNamara, San Jose's former
chief of police, say cops would actually have more time to enforce
the law against driving under the influence.

And the threat of a federal freeze relies on a reading of the Obama
administration being far more forceful in pursuing marijuana than
it's been so far. Right now, the feds have a few other things on their plate.

Saving Costs

I'm not quite as hopeful as the Proposition 19 advocates about
raising huge new sums in taxes. But we will save the jail and prison
costs of people who don't need to be behind bars.

And we would end the need for shootouts and confrontations like the
one last week. Let's not forget that when the prohibition of alcohol
ended, so did most of the business of the rum-runners.

We know the status quo doesn't work. And it hasn't for a long time.
We need change.