LESSONS LEARNED FROM AL CAPONE

If you support keeping marijuana illegal you are supporting
terrorism. In 1919, the United States Constitution was amended to
outlaw alcohol. The unintended consequence was the rise to power of
organized crime. Today we face the same threat from Mexican
narco-terrorists that control the trafficking of marijuana in the
United States. According to a 2008 Justice Department threat
assessment, "Mexican drug trafficking organizations represent the
greatest organized crime threat to the United States." But a solution
is at hand. The Tax Cannabis 2010 organization has put an initiative
on the ballot for this November that will legalize, tax, and regulate
marijuana in California.

Trying to charge Al Capone for alcohol production, drug smuggling and
distribution proved impossible, and in the end they sent him to jail
on tax evasion. Like the drug dealers of today, Al Capone bribed
elected officials, colluded with bankers and everyone else in the
food chain. No matter how much money we spent to fight organized
crime, the dealers prevailed and grew stronger. Our local police do
not have a chance when the full military power of the United States
is in Afghanistan today, and they are not able to stop the heroin
production from growing to 93 percent of the world's crops. Those
drugs pay for the terrorists to attack us.

Finally Americans decided to pass the 21st Amendment to the
Constitution that repealed the prohibition of alcohol. In one quick
move the dealers were out of business. At the same time the federal,
state and local governments all taxed the production, sales and
distribution of alcohol.

We face the same challenge today. The people that profit from keeping
marijuana illegal have worked hard to keep it illegal. The Mexican
drug cartels do not want legal marijuana in the United States for
obvious reasons. The Mexican narco-terrorists use that money to
destroy the lives of the good people of Mexico and force them to flee
to our country every day. What people don't realize is that the
American Medical Association is on the side of the drug dealers, and
fights hard to keep it illegal as well. The reason is simple, the AMA
and the narco-terrorists together control the entire North American
drug trade. If you don't believe the AMA is in it for the money, ask
yourself why the Food and Drug Administration has done no study to
date on the medical use of marijuana.

Without conducting a study of their own, the FDA's position
contradicts the favorable 1999 study by the Institute of Medicine, a
part of the National Academy of Sciences, our nation's most
prestigious scientific advisory agency. "Unfortunately, this is yet
another example of the FDA making pronouncements that seem to be
driven more by ideology than by science," said Dr. Jerry Avorn, a
medical professor at Harvard Medical School.

A close friend had a fight with cancer and the doctors prescribed
about $9,000 per month of highly addictive pills to manage the pain.
That person tried marijuana and found it worked better and was far
less expensive. Marijuana has many benefits that the AMA really does
not want you to know since they can prescribe you a great number of
expensive, highly addictive alternatives that make them a great deal
of profit. If you think the AMA has your best interests in mind, ask
yourself how many diseases have been cured in the last 20 years? How
many addicts do they create by giving you the only legal way to
"manage" your ailment with a lifetime of profitable drugs? Cures are
not very profitable.

I hear many argue that marijuana is a gateway drug while alcohol is
not. Alcohol can cause people to beat their spouse and drive their
car into a bus full of children. In contrast, Marijuana causes people
to stay home, eat food and sit on the couch. The only gateway to
addictive drugs is created by forcing people to deal with drug
dealers that also sell addictive drugs. The medical marijuana shops
do not sell hard drugs and have proven to be easy to tax, regulate and control.

The proposed law is well written and to the point. The proposed law
states: "Prohibits people from possessing marijuana on school
grounds, using it in public, smoking it while minors are present, or
providing it to anyone under 21 years old. Maintains current
prohibitions against operating a vehicle while impaired." This leaves
marijuana in the hands of the same people that can buy a bottle of
scotch. In the Netherlands, which legalized marijuana, the number is
half that of American users as a percentage of population.

Like any good Republican, I always look to raise revenue from fair
sources and encourage more effective ways to fight crime. The people
of Santa Monica and their neighbors on the Westside have led the
charge to fight the evil narco-terrorists with the medical marijuana
movement. The people of Santa Monica had the sense to pass a law that
made personal marijuana use the police department's lowest priority.
Since we did that, the police were able to focus on real crime and
real criminals. The 21st Amendment method of legalizing a controlled
substance has proven to work. Let's do the smart thing and stop the
Mexican narco-terrorists once and for all by taking away their main
source of revenue and have more money for the schools.