PROP. 19's LEGAL MARIJUANA COULD IMPROVE SAFETY

For most California voters, Proposition 19 is a state initiative that
would make recreational marijuana use legal, but I think the plan has
social benefits that go well beyond legal pot parties.

In the long run, a successful November run at the polls could provide
a public safety payoff in low-income communities where street-drug
dealing qualifies as a thriving commercial enterprise.

The residual effect of drug-dealing is violence, which has decimated
the communities where the drugs are sold. Generations of families
have been lost to the cycle of drugs and violence and profits that,
for some, are worth risking their lives over.

If there is a new law that holds even a chance of cutting drug
profits and gun money from local drug kingpins and foreign suppliers,
it's worth a try.

Last month, Pleasant Hill Police Chief Pete Dunbar told The
Chronicle's editorial board that violence associated with street
sales of marijuana made it "the most violent drug of all."

If that's the case, and there's no reason to doubt Dunbar's
assessment, then why not control and regulate the market? I can't
count how many times I've heard politicians and police officials say
that society cannot "arrest its way out of high crime rates."

Most economists will tell you that as a commodity becomes more
available, its value falls. So why not use government regulation to
distribute and control the price to undercut illegal marijuana sales
right out of existence.

Do you think the speakeasy bars thrived after Prohibition was repealed?

As the argument in favor goes, those reduced costs are passed down
the chain, from the criminal justice system to police investigations
to criminal trial proceedings.

Already there is a growing number of marijuana-related private
businesses preparing to provide the consumer with a litany of
home-grow aids and equipment should the California law pass - and
eventually be adopted in other states.

In such a transformation, the profit to be earned from dealing drugs
on the street may just not be worth risking lives over. And that is a
cost savings that can be calculated in communities regaining control
of parks, neighborhood stores and their front porches in the
evenings. And in the poorest communities, where drug and gang culture
dominate the landscape, it can be calculated in human life.

At least 14 states and the District of Columbia now approve some form
of medical marijuana use, and California has been moving closer to
legalization of recreational use for nearly a decade. While Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger opposes the measure, he signed a bill last
month reducing possession of less than 1 ounce of the drug to an
infraction - the equivalent of a parking ticket.

If possession of less than an ounce is no more serious than a parking
ticket, it seems imprudent for state lawmakers - and law enforcement
agencies - to continue spending billions of dollars annually to halt
illegal sales and use.

There are concerns that teens will have greater access to the drug if
it's legalized - but it strains the imagination to consider how that
would be possible. Teens who want to score some pot have myriad ways
to accomplish the task, including obtaining a medical card and buying
the drug at a locally regulated dispensary. There are hundreds of
them across the Bay Area.

Marijuana is also the state's No. 1 cash crop, and greater local
production reduces the need for smuggling efforts outside the
country. Nearly a dozen cities, including Albany, Oakland and San
Jose, have local measures to tax pot on the November ballot.

In Oakland, medical marijuana sales are already one of the city's
biggest sources of sales tax revenue, and a city-sponsored ballot
measure proposes increasing by nearly 3 times the current tax rate of
18 percent on every $1000 in sales.

California could borrow a page from a few Midwestern states where
purchasing a bottle of liquor still requires a trip to a
state-operated retail store. Every identification card is checked - a
ticket recording the purchase is required - and no children are allowed.

I don't favor Prop 19 for the recreation and leisure it promises, but
for more important reasons.