ALCHOHOL LOBBY NOW OPENLY SPENDING AGAINST CA's LEGAL POT INITIATIVE
IN ALLIANCE WITH POLICE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Big Alcohol's Decision to Squash Marijuana Law Reform to Protect Its
Bottom Line Is Simply Politics As Usual.

It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows, but there are
arguably few stranger than the emerging alliance between two of
California's most powerful political players: the police industrial
complex and 'Big Alcohol.' Campaign finance reports from the Golden
State disclose that the California Beer and Beverage Distributors -- a
trade organization that represents over 100 beer distributors
statewide -- is one of the primary backers of the lobby group Public
Safety First, sponsors of the 'No on Prop. 19' campaign.

According to the California Secretary of State's office, the beer
lobby donated $10,000 to Public Safety First on September 7, 2010. The
donation came just days before PSF issued an online mailing alleging
that the passage of Prop. 19 -- which would legalize the private adult
use and cultivation of limited amounts of cannabis, and allow local
governments the option of regulating its commercial production and
retail distribution -- would inevitably lead to stoned school bus
drivers and crossing guards, and will cause California public schools
to "lose as much as $9.4 billion in federal funding." (Needless to
say, passage of the measure would do none of these things.)

While it's hardly astonishing that the corporate beer lobby would
oppose efforts to legalize marijuana, a non-toxic, ostensibly safer
alternative to alcohol, it is surprising to see how quickly the law
enforcement lobby -- to date the largest supporters of PSF -- is
willing to get into bed with big booze.

So far, the Cal Beer and Beverage Distributors $10,000 appropriation
is one of the largest monetary donations received by Public Safety
First, third only to the $30,000 donated by the California Police
Chief's Association and the $20,500 donated by the California
Narcotics Officers Association. (Overall, PSF has had a notoriously
difficult time raising money for their effort.

Last month, the East Bay Express newspaper reported that total
financial contributions to the Prop. 19 campaign were well ahead of
those reported for Public Safety First, which at that time had only
raised $61,000, with just one citizen donor.)

There's no doubt that police officers know first hand the social toll
caused by alcohol.

Federal government estimates indicate that alcohol consumption costs
the nation some $200 billion annually in hospitalizations, criminal
expenditures, and lost productivity. (Ironically, the nation's top
drug cop, Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, has specifically highlighted the
staggering social costs of alcohol abuse in his rhetoric against Prop.
19.) Government figures further indicate that alcohol is a
contributing factor in at least 25 to 30 percent of all violent crime
in America, including between 30 to 60 percent of homicides and
perhaps as many as half of all sexual assaults.

On college campuses alone, an estimated 700,000 students between the
ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by peers who have been drinking, and
close to 100,000 students are reported victims of alcohol-related
sexual assault or date rape. Nationally, some 41,000 people per year
die as a result of drunk driving or other alcohol-related accidents.

Conversely, cannabis use is associated with decreased aggression,
reduced risk of injury, and is assumed to play, at best, only a
nominal role in traffic accidents. (In fact, the total national number
of marijuana-related auto accidents is so small that the federal
government doesn't even compile the statistic.)

Locally in California, the Marin Institute, a self-proclaimed 'alcohol
industry watchdog' group, claims that alcohol abuse costs taxpayers
some $38 billion per year in social costs, which includes more than
109,000 alcohol-related injuries, and over 70,000 alcohol-related
hospitalizations annually.

By contrast, a 2010 report released by the RAND Corporation concluded
that fewer than 200 Californians sought emergency-room treatment for
marijuana-related events, despite more than 400,000 Californians using
it daily.

Nevertheless, it appears that many in law enforcement are willing to
set aside their own first hand experience with the horrors of alcohol
for the sake of the drug war's 'political correctness.' For the
higher-ups at the California Police Chief's Association and the
California Narcotics Officers Association, the old adage rings true,
'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

Of course, Big Alcohol's decision to squash marijuana law reform to
protect their bottom line is simply politics as usual.

Their recent union with Public Safety First isn't the first time that
the California Beer and Beverage Distributors have oppose drug law
reform in the Golden State. In 2008, the booze lobby donated a much
larger amount -- $100,000 -- to defeat Proposition 5, the Nonviolent
Offender Rehabilitation Act, which among other things would have
reduced criminal marijuana possession penalties from a misdemeanor to
a non-criminal infraction. (The measure failed 40 percent to 60
percent.) Given that the alcohol industry now has influence groups in
all 50 states and that its federal lobbying arm, the National Beer
Wholesalers Association, ranks among the top financial donators on
Capitol Hill, it's clear that this latest political salvo won't be the
last time either.