'REEFER MADNESS' MENTALITY PERSISTS

"Future generations will look back at us as idiots for this war on
drugs, the same way we mocked the Roaring Twenties prohibitionists,"
said retired Sutter County Deputy Sheriff Nate Bradley in response to
my May 15 column, "Time to put medical pot issue behind us."

While the thrust of that column was to shine a light on the failure of
lawmakers to reconcile Proposition 215 ---- California's 1996
Compassionate Use Act, which legalized the use of medical marijuana
- with the official state's "Reefer Madness" attitude towards law
enforcement, reader feedback has firmly come down on the side of
outright legalization of marijuana, never mind medicinal use. The
arguments in favor are compelling.

"Reefer Madness," the 1936 cult classic about the evils of weed, is
available on DVD and remains the definitive joke against America's War
on Drugs. Its cover proclaims, "With just a little toke, average
teenagers become addicts turning into psycho killers and brazen hussies."

It is this false premise that defeated Proposition 19, a voter
initiative to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana in California, in
last November's election, and it is the fundamental inability of
lawmakers to reconcile Prop. 215 with the Controlled Substances Act of
1970 that creates ongoing conflicts between legal dispensaries of
medical marijuana and local police.

And yet, the larger issue speaks directly to the de facto futility of
America's war on marijuana. As I suggested last week, the only winners
of this war are the drug cartels who manage supply and the justice
system that prosecutes it.

Retired Superior Court Judge James Gray is just one of hundreds of
advocates in law enforcement who admit the war on marijuana has been a
total failure.

On the web site, "Law Enforcement Against Prohibition," Gray writes,
"Drug Prohibition has resulted in a greater loss of civil liberties
than anything else in the history of our country ... The USA leads the
world in the incarceration of its people, mostly for non-violent drug
offenses. ... The War on Drugs has contributed substantially to the
increasing power, bureaucracy, and intrusiveness of
government."

Or, as retired Deputy Bradley put it, "the war on drugs provides job
security" to those in law enforcement.

Regardless, "Reefer Madness" mentality persists despite research to
the contrary.

In a 2010 study of crime taking place within 1,000 feet of Denver
Colorado's 258 licensed marijuana dispensaries, statistics revealed a
3.7 percent drop in crime in areas where dispensaries had an
open/commence date between December 2008 and December 2009. Outside
this parameter, crime increased on average 1 percent.

Readers ideologically opposed to legalizing marijuana ---- either
outright, or at least by allowing Prop. 215 to operate unfettered ----
need to research just how damaging the war on marijuana has been to
our society.

"Reefer Madness" has nothing to do with smoking a joint and everything
to do with the way in which we prosecute, incarcerate and stigmatize
users of this plant.