SOONER OR LATER, MARIJUANA WILL BE LEGAL

Legalization Will Happen. It's Just a Question of How Many Lives and
Tax Dollars Will Be Wasted Before It Does.

It's as predictable as the sun rising and setting. Even though police
made more than 850,000 marijuana arrests last year, a recent
government report shows youth marijuana use increased by about 9 percent.

Supporters of the failed war on drugs will no doubt argue this
increase means policymakers should spend more taxpayer money next year
arresting and incarcerating a greater number of Americans. In other
words, their solution to failure is to do more of the same.
Fortunately, the "reform nothing" club is getting mighty lonely these
days -- 76 percent of Americans recognize the drug war has failed;
millions are demanding change.

In the almost 40 years since President Nixon declared a war on drugs,
tens of millions of Americans have been arrested and hundreds of
billions of dollars have been spent. Yet drugs are just as available
now as they were then.

It is hard to find even an elected official who hasn't used marijuana
or other illegal drugs. President Obama used drugs. Former President
George W. Bush made taped comments that many interpreted as indicating
he did too. Then there's Bill Clinton, who famously said he smoked pot
but didn't inhale. Al Gore, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin admit they
used drugs.

Drug use is so widespread the FBI changed its policy of not hiring
people with a history of illegal drug use because the policy
disqualified so many people that it could not fill its law enforcement
positions.

The war on drugs hasn't just failed; it's created problems of it own.
Laws restricting the availability of sterile syringes have increased
the spread of AIDS and hepatitis C.

Aggressive campaigns to arrest and incarcerate drug users have
increased drug-related deaths by making drug users too afraid to call
911 when a friend is overdosing. The government's misleading and
over-the-top anti-drug messages have made young people mistrust other
anti-drug messages from parents and adults.

Mass incarceration of drug offenders has drained state and federal
resources, distracted police from dealing with violent crime, and
produced a generation of children with one or both parents behind bars
instead of at home.

The racial disparities are appalling. As Michelle Alexander so
eloquently shows in her new book, "The New Jim Crow," a drug
conviction automatically makes a person a second-class citizen who can
be legally discriminated against in housing and employment, denied
school loans, and barred for life from serving on juries, accessing
public benefits and even voting. While African Americans make up only
about 13 percent of the U.S. population and about 15 percent of drug
users, they make up about 38 percent of those arrested for drug law
violations and a mind-boggling 59 percent of those convicted for drug
law violations.

Like Prohibition did for alcohol, drug prohibition is also enriching
organized crime. Instead of regulating marijuana to control who can
access it, policymakers have ceded control of the $400-billion-a-year
global drug market to crime syndicates and thugs.

In Mexico, where parts of the country are like Chicago under Al Capone
on steroids, 28,000 people have died since President Calderon launched
a war three years ago against well-armed, well-funded drug trafficking
organizations. The U.S. government doesn't report its
prohibition-related deaths, but law enforcement officers, drug
offenders and civilians die every day in our country's war on drugs,
too.

It is long past time to abandon the silly notion that America can be a
drug-free nation. The inconvenient truth in drug policy is that
Americans love drugs -- alcohol, caffeine, marijuana, cocaine, and
prescription drugs for everything from anxiety to fatigue. Although
some people develop problems with their drug use, most do not. This
holds true for both legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco, and illegal
drugs like marijuana and cocaine. Decades of evidence shows that the
average user of any drug doesn't get addicted and doesn't create
problems for anyone else. Obviously, some do.

We recognize these facts when it comes to legal drugs. It's why we
don't arrest the tens of millions of Americans who drink responsibly,
but do arrest people who drive while drunk or get belligerent and
start fights. Yet we waste tens of billions of dollars every year
arresting Americans for marijuana or other drugs, even when they're
not harming anyone. Then we either jam them into overcrowded jails
where they take up space that could hold someone who committed a
violent offense, or jam them into a treatment program where they take
up limited spaces for people who really need help.

What matters most is not how many people use marijuana, alcohol or
other drugs, but what's the best way to reduce the problems associated
with substance misuse without creating more harmful social problems.
Drug use rates rise and fall almost independently of what politicians
say and do, but criminalizing drug use makes the situation worse.
Prohibition doesn't stop drug use; it makes drug use more dangerous
while filling prisons with nonviolent offenders and making crime lords
rich. With marijuana use among young people rising despite decades of
punitive drug policies, policymakers should reform U.S. drug policy.
Or maybe voters will reform it for them.

In November, California voters will vote on Proposition 19, which
seeks to control marijuana like alcohol, redirect police resources
toward violent criminals, and end California's embarrassingly racist
marijuana enforcement once and for all. Polling shows support is about
50-50.

Even if Proposition 19 loses, it will only be temporary. Support for
marijuana legalization is growing, and not just in California.
Legalization will happen. It's just a question of how many lives and
tax dollars will be wasted before it does. Some vested interests, of
course, will fight change until the bitter end. Progress has never
been accepted by everyone.