MARIJUANA LAWS HAVE TO CHANGE

The insanity continues.

Last week, law-enforcement officials busted two local
marijuana-growing operations. They arrested two men growing more than
80 plants in the Apalachicola National Forest and one man growing
more than 730 in Gadsden County.

The cops were just doing their job, enforcing the law. But that's the
problem: We continue to ban marijuana even as people continue to smoke it.

Surveys show that 28 million Americans smoked pot last year - and as
many as 47 percent of all Americans have smoked it at some point.

Yet 800,000 people were arrested last year on marijuana offenses,
almost 90 percent of them for simple possession.

The marijuana laws have to change.

"We've got to deal with the issue that we do not want to treat
otherwise law-abiding citizens as criminals," said Keith Stroup. "We
need to regulate, tax and control marijuana just as we've done with alcohol."

Stroup, 63, is the founder of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). He founded the Washington, D.C.,
organization in 1970, was its longtime executive director and now is
its general counsel.

NORML has chapters in almost every state, including seven in Florida.
It has been joined in its national lobbying efforts by the
12-year-old Marijuana Policy Project. This fall, NORML and the
project expect to get a bill introduced to decriminalize pot. Stroup
said it will be the first one introduced in Congress since 1984.

It's a bill that needs to be passed. Marijuana prohibition hasn't
worked. And it's blatantly unfair in a nation that allows adults
legal access to alcohol and tobacco.

Studies repeatedly show marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol or
tobacco. Only 10 percent of marijuana smokers develop a dependency on
their drug of choice, compared with 15 percent of alcohol users and
32 percent of cigarette users. No one dies of a marijuana overdose.
But 50,000 people die of alcohol poisoning and 400,000 people die
from the effects of cigarettes every year.

Just as damning is the cost of enforcing marijuana laws. Local law
enforcement spent more than two months on last week's busts. A
Harvard University economist has calculated the national cost of law
enforcement and lost tax revenue on marijuana at $14 billion a year.

"Simply put, it is a misallocation of resources," said Tallahassee
attorney Allen Turnage, legal director of Florida NORML. "We are
taking a genuinely harmless activity and throwing thousands of police
hours at it. In the meantime, robbers and burglars are less likely to
get caught because the cops are distracted by this high headline activity."

The public agrees marijuana prohibition is misdirected. Recent polls
show 80 percent of people support medical marijuana use and 76
percent support the decriminalization of recreational use.

"When we started, no more than 25 percent of Americans supported the
belief that we ought to stop arresting people (for pot)," Stroup
said. "Now three out of four Americans believe a pot smoker should
not be treated like a criminal. That's a heck of a step forward."

The problem has been translating that public support into public
policy. Twelve states have decriminalized possession of pot. Eleven
of them levy a $100 fine; Alaska charges no fine at all. Yet 38
states - including Florida - and the federal government still make
possession of marijuana a criminal offense.

The ultimate goal, Stroup said, remains legalization, including the
right to grow marijuana just as Americans are allowed to brew their
own beer. But persuading Congress to decriminalize possession is a good start.

"Politicians tend to run scared; they're afraid to appear soft on
drugs, which they think will get them defeated," Stroup said. "Yet
what the polls show is if they speak out, the public is going to be
behind them."

In some ways, Stroup said, medical marijuana has been a distraction.
Twelve states allow marijuana to be prescribed by a doctor to treat
the pain of several diseases and conditions (though the federal
government has tried to thwart those efforts by continuing to
prosecute providers and users of medical marijuana).

But medical marijuana users account for only 1 million of the current
28 million marijuana smokers. Stroup said pro-marijuana forces have
to shift the debate off medical marijuana.

"Until the mid-1990s, we didn't win a single political fight. Then
the medical marijuana issue surfaced and gave us something positive
to rally around," Stroup said. "But now, let's get back to the big
picture: those 800,000 arrests every year."

It falls on those of us who oppose the marijuana prohibition to take
an active role.

Money is good. NORML and Marijuana Policy Project budgets depend on
donations, often of the $10 and $20 variety. Writing letters to
Congress is good (go online to NORML.org for more information).

But the most powerful tool is the ballot box. Stroup said voters have
to demand that candidates support marijuana reform - and vote against
those who don't.

"Those of us who smoke have to take the pledge to never vote again
for anyone who treats us like criminals," Stroup said. "There won't
be many (pro-reform) candidates in the first cycle of elections. But
in a couple of cycles, that 47 percent and 28 million will be one
powerful voting bloc."

Of course, that was the optimism that Stroup had when he founded
NORML in 1970 - and thought it would take only 10 or 12 years to
effect national legalization. Yet he and others remain optimistic.

"We're seeing changes all the time; medical marijuana is an example
of that," said Dan Bernath, the Marijuana Policy Project's assistant
director of communications. "People are starting to see the nonsense
we have been told about these laws is not true. The more education we
get, the more we have truthful conversations and the better our
chances become."