AN END TO MARIJUANA PROHIBITION

The Drive To Legalize Picks Up

Never before have so many Americans supported decriminalizing and even
legalizing marijuana.

Seventy-two percent say that for simple marijuana possession, people
should not be incarcerated but fined: the generally accepted
definition of "decriminalization." Even more Americans support making
marijuana legal for medical purposes.

Support for broader legalization ranges between 25 and 42 percent,
depending on how one asks the question.

Two of every five Americans-according to a 2003 Zogby poll-say "the
government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats
alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and only make it
illegal for children."

Close to 100 million Americans-including more than half of those
between the ages of 18 and 50-have tried marijuana at least once.
Military and police recruiters often have no choice but to ignore past
marijuana use by job seekers. The public apparently feels the same way
about presidential and other political candidates. Al Gore, Bill
Bradley, and John Kerry all say they smoked pot in days past. So did
Bill Clinton, with his notorious caveat.

George W. Bush won't deny he did. And ever more political, business,
religious, intellectual, and other leaders plead guilty as well.

The debate over ending marijuana prohibition simmers just below the
surface of mainstream politics, crossing ideological and partisan
boundaries. Marijuana is no longer the symbol of Sixties rebellion and
Seventies permissiveness, and it's not just liberals and libertarians
who say it should be legal, as William F. Buckley Jr. has demonstrated
better than anyone.

As director of the country's leading drug policy reform organization,
I've had countless conversations with police and prosecutors, judges
and politicians, and hundreds of others who quietly agree that the
criminalization of marijuana is costly, foolish, and destructive.
What's most needed now is principled conservative leadership. Buckley
has led the way, and New Mexico's former governor, Gary Johnson, spoke
out courageously while in office.

How about others?

A SYSTEMIC OVERREACTION

Marijuana prohibition is unique among American criminal laws. No other
law is both enforced so widely and harshly and yet deemed unnecessary
by such a substantial portion of the populace.

Police make about 700,000 arrests per year for marijuana offenses.
That's almost the same number as are arrested each year for cocaine,
heroin, methamphetamine, Ecstasy, and all other illicit drugs combined. Roughly 600,000, or 87 percent, of marijuana arrests are for nothing more than possession of small amounts.

Millions of Americans have never been arrested or convicted of any
criminal offense except this. Enforcing marijuana laws costs an
estimated $10-15 billion in direct costs alone.

Punishments range widely across the country, from modest fines to a
few days in jail to many years in prison.

Prosecutors often contend that no one goes to prison for simple
possession- but tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people on
probation and parole are locked up each year because their urine
tested positive for marijuana or because they were picked up in
possession of a joint.

Alabama currently locks up people convicted three times of marijuana
possession for 15 years to life. There are probably-no firm estimates
exist-100,000 Americans behind bars tonight for one marijuana offense
or another.

And even for those who don't lose their freedom, simply being arrested
can be traumatic and costly.

A parent's marijuana use can be the basis for taking away her children
and putting them in foster care. Foreign-born residents of the U.S.
can be deported for a marijuana offense no matter how long they have
lived in this country, no matter if their children are U.S. citizens,
and no matter how long they have been legally employed.

More than half the states revoke or suspend driver's licenses of
people arrested for marijuana possession even though they were not
driving at the time of arrest.

The federal Higher Education Act prohibits student loans to young
people convicted of any drug offense; all other criminal offenders
remain eligible.

This is clearly an overreaction on the part of government. No drug is
perfectly safe, and every psychoactive drug can be used in ways that
are problematic. The federal government has spent billions of dollars
on advertisements and anti-drug programs that preach the dangers of
marijuana-that it's a gateway drug, and addictive in its own right,
and dramatically more potent than it used to be, and responsible for
all sorts of physical and social diseases as well as international
terrorism.

But the government has yet to repudiate the 1988 finding of the Drug
Enforcement Administration's own administrative law judge, Francis
Young, who concluded after extensive testimony that "marijuana in its
natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances
known to man."

Is marijuana a gateway drug? Yes, insofar as most Americans try
marijuana before they try other illicit drugs.

But no, insofar as the vast majority of Americans who have tried
marijuana have never gone on to try other illegal drugs, much less get
in trouble with them, and most have never even gone on to become
regular or problem marijuana users.

Trying to reduce heroin addiction by preventing marijuana use, it's
been said, is like trying to reduce motorcycle fatalities by cracking
down on bicycle riding.

If marijuana did not exist, there's little reason to believe that
there would be less drug abuse in the U.S.; indeed, its role would
most likely be filled by a more dangerous substance.

Is marijuana dramatically more potent today?

There's certainly a greater variety of high-quality marijuana
available today than 30 years ago. But anyone who smoked marijuana in
the 1970s and 1980s can recall smoking pot that was just as strong as
anything available today.

What's more, one needs to take only a few puffs of higher-potency pot
to get the desired effect, so there's less wear and tear on the lungs.

Is marijuana addictive?

Yes, it can be, in that some people use it to excess, in ways that are
problematic for themselves and those around them, and find it hard to
stop. But marijuana may well be the least addictive and least damaging
of all commonly used psychoactive drugs, including many that are now
legal.

Most people who smoke marijuana never become dependent.

Withdrawal symptoms pale compared with those from other drugs.

No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose, which cannot be said
of most other drugs.

Marijuana is not associated with violent behavior and only minimally
with reckless sexual behavior. And even heavy marijuana smokers smoke
only a fraction of what cigarette addicts smoke.

Lung cancers involving only marijuana are rare.

The government's most recent claim is that marijuana abuse accounts
for more people entering treatment than any other illegal drug. That
shouldn't be surprising, given that tens of millions of Americans
smoke marijuana while only a few million use all other illicit drugs.

But the claim is spurious nonetheless. Few Americans who enter
"treatment" for marijuana are addicted. Fewer than one in five people
entering drug treatment for marijuana do so voluntarily. More than
half were referred by the criminal justice system. They go because
they got caught with a joint or failed a drug test at school or work
(typically for having smoked marijuana days ago, not for being
impaired), or because they were caught by a law-enforcement
officer-and attending a marijuana "treatment" program is what's
required to avoid expulsion, dismissal, or incarceration. Many
traditional drug treatment programs shamelessly participate in this
charade to preserve a profitable and captive client stream.

Even those who recoil at the "nanny state" telling adults what they
can or cannot sell to one another often make an exception when it
comes to marijuana-to "protect the kids." This is a bad joke, as any
teenager will attest. The criminalization of marijuana for adults has
not prevented young people from having better access to marijuana than
anyone else. Even as marijuana's popularity has waxed and waned since
the 1970s, one statistic has remained constant: More than 80 percent
of high school students report it's easy to get. Meanwhile, the
government's exaggerations and outright dishonesty easily backfire.
For every teen who refrains from trying marijuana because it's illegal
(for adults), another is tempted by its status as "forbidden fruit."
Many respond to the lies about marijuana by disbelieving warnings
about more dangerous drugs.

So much for protecting the kids by criminalizing the adults.

THE MEDICAL DIMENSION

The debate over medical marijuana obviously colors the broader debate
over marijuana prohibition. Marijuana's medical efficacy is no longer
in serious dispute.

Its use as a medicine dates back thousands of years. Pharmaceutical
products containing marijuana's central ingredient, THC, are legally
sold in the U.S., and more are emerging.

Some people find the pill form satisfactory, and others consume it in
teas or baked products.

Most find smoking the easiest and most effective way to consume this
unusual medicine, but non-smoking consumption methods, notably
vaporizers, are emerging.

Federal law still prohibits medical marijuana.

But every state ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana has
been approved, often by wide margins-in California, Washington,
Oregon, Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Maine, and Washington, D.C. State
legislatures in Vermont, Hawaii, and Maryland have followed suit, and
many others are now considering their own medical marijuana
bills-including New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Illinois.
Support is often bipartisan, with Republican governors like Gary
Johnson and Maryland's Bob Ehrlich taking the lead. In New York's 2002
gubernatorial campaign, the conservative candidate of the Independence
party, Tom Golisano, surprised everyone by campaigning heavily on this
issue.

The medical marijuana bill now before the New York legislature is
backed not just by leading Republicans but even by some Conservative
party leaders.

The political battleground increasingly pits the White House-first
under Clinton and now Bush-against everyone else. Majorities in
virtually every state in the country would vote, if given the chance,
to legalize medical marijuana.

Even Congress is beginning to turn; last summer about two-thirds of
House Democrats and a dozen Republicans voted in favor of an amendment
co-sponsored by Republican Dana Rohrabacher to prohibit federal
funding of any Justice Department crackdowns on medical marijuana in
the states that had legalized it. (Many more Republicans privately
expressed support, but were directed to vote against.) And federal
courts have imposed limits on federal aggression: first in Conant v.
Walters, which now protects the First Amendment rights of doctors and
patients to discuss medical marijuana, and more recently in Raich v.
Ashcroft and Santa Cruz v. Ashcroft, which determined that the federal
government's power to regulate interstate commerce does not provide a
basis for prohibiting medical marijuana operations that are entirely
local and non-commercial. (The Supreme Court let the Conant decision
stand, but has yet to consider the others.)

State and local governments are increasingly involved in trying to
regulate medical marijuana, notwithstanding the federal prohibition.
California, Oregon, Hawaii, Alaska, Colorado, and Nevada have created
confidential medical marijuana patient registries, which protect bona
fide patients and caregivers from arrest or prosecution. Some
municipal governments are now trying to figure out how to regulate
production and distribution. In California, where dozens of medical
marijuana programs now operate openly, with tacit approval by local
authorities, some program directors are asking to be licensed and regulated.

Many state and local authorities, including law enforcement, favor
this but are intimidated by federal threats to arrest and prosecute
them for violating federal law.

The drug czar and DEA spokespersons recite the mantra that "there is
no such thing as medical marijuana," but the claim is so specious on
its face that it clearly undermines federal credibility. The federal
government currently provides marijuana-from its own production site
in Mississippi-to a few patients who years ago were recognized by the
courts as bona fide patients. No one wants to debate those who have
used marijuana for medical purposes, be it Santa Cruz
medical-marijuana hospice founder Valerie Corral or NATIONAL REVIEW's
Richard Brookhiser. Even many federal officials quietly regret the
assault on medical marijuana.

When the DEA raided Corral's hospice in September 2002, one agent was
heard to say, "Maybe I'm going to think about getting another job
sometime soon."

THE BROADER MOVEMENT

The bigger battle, of course, concerns whether marijuana prohibition
will ultimately go the way of alcohol Prohibition, replaced by a
variety of state and local tax and regulatory policies with modest
federal involvement. Dedicated prohibitionists see medical marijuana
as the first step down a slippery slope to full legalization. The
voters who approved the medical-marijuana ballot initiatives (as well
as the wealthy men who helped fund the campaigns) were roughly divided
between those who support broader legalization and those who don't,
but united in seeing the criminalization and persecution of medical
marijuana patients as the most distasteful aspect of the war on
marijuana. (This was a point that Buckley made forcefully in his
columns about the plight of Peter McWilliams, who likely died because
federal authorities effectively forbade him to use marijuana as medicine.)

The medical marijuana effort has probably aided the broader
anti-prohibitionist campaign in three ways. It helped transform the
face of marijuana in the media, from the stereotypical rebel with long
hair and tie-dyed shirt to an ordinary middle-aged American struggling
with MS or cancer or AIDS. By winning first Proposition 215, the 1996
medical-marijuana ballot initiative in California, and then a string
of similar victories in other states, the nascent drug policy reform
movement demonstrated that it could win in the big leagues of American
politics.

And the emergence of successful models of medical marijuana control is
likely to boost public confidence in the possibilities and virtue of
regulating nonmedical use as well.

In this regard, the history of Dutch policy on cannabis (i.e.,
marijuana and hashish) is instructive. The "coffee shop" model in the
Netherlands, where retail (but not wholesale) sale of cannabis is de
facto legal, was not legislated into existence.

It evolved in fits and starts following the decriminalization of
cannabis by Parliament in 1976, as consumers, growers, and
entrepreneurs negotiated and collaborated with local police,
prosecutors, and other authorities to find an acceptable middle-ground
policy. "Coffee shops" now operate throughout the country, subject to
local regulations. Troublesome shops are shut down, and most are well
integrated into local city cultures. Cannabis is no more popular than
in the U.S. and other Western countries, notwithstanding the effective
absence of criminal sanctions and controls. Parallel developments are
now underway in other countries.

Like the Dutch decriminalization law in 1976, California's Prop 215 in
1996 initiated a dialogue over how best to implement the new law. The
variety of outlets that have emerged-ranging from pharmacy-like stores
to medical "coffee shops" to hospices, all of which provide marijuana
only to people with a patient ID card or doctor's recommendation-play
a key role as the most public symbol and manifestation of this dialogue.

More such outlets will likely pop up around the country as other
states legalize marijuana for medical purposes and then seek ways to
regulate distribution and access.

And the question will inevitably arise: If the emerging system is
successful in controlling production and distribution of marijuana for
those with a medical need, can it not also expand to provide for those
without medical need?

Millions of Americans use marijuana not just "for fun" but because
they find it useful for many of the same reasons that people drink
alcohol or take pharmaceutical drugs.

It's akin to the beer, glass of wine, or cocktail at the end of the
workday, or the prescribed drug to alleviate depression or anxiety, or
the sleeping pill, or the aid to sexual function and pleasure. More
and more Americans are apt to describe some or all of their marijuana
use as "medical" as the definition of that term evolves and broadens.
Their anecdotal experiences are increasingly backed by new scientific
research into marijuana's essential ingredients, the cannabinoids.
Last year, a subsidiary of The Lancet, Britain's leading medical
journal, speculated whether marijuana might soon emerge as the
"aspirin of the 21st century," providing a wide array of medical
benefits at low cost to diverse populations.

Perhaps the expansion of the medical-control model provides the best
answer-at least in the U.S.-to the question of how best to reduce the
substantial costs and harms of marijuana prohibition without inviting
significant increases in real drug abuse.

It's analogous to the evolution of many pharmaceutical drugs from
prescription to over-the-counter, but with stricter controls still in
place.

It's also an incrementalist approach to reform that can provide both
the control and the reassurance that cautious politicians and voters
desire.

In 1931, with public support for alcohol Prohibition rapidly waning,
President Hoover released the report of the Wickersham Commission. The
report included a devastating critique of Prohibition's failures and
costly consequences, but the commissioners, apparently fearful of
getting out too far ahead of public opinion, opposed repeal.

Franklin P. Adams of the New York World neatly summed up their
findings:

Prohibition is an awful flop.

We like it.

It can't stop what it's meant to stop.

We like it.

It's left a trail of graft and slime

It don't prohibit worth a dime

It's filled our land with vice and crime,

Nevertheless, we're for it.

Two years later, federal alcohol Prohibition was history.

What support there is for marijuana prohibition would likely end
quickly absent the billions of dollars spent annually by federal and
other governments to prop it up. All those anti-marijuana ads pretend
to be about reducing drug abuse, but in fact their basic purpose is
sustaining popular support for the war on marijuana.

What's needed now are conservative politicians willing to say enough
is enough: Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain each
year. People losing their jobs, their property, and their freedom for
nothing more than possessing a joint or growing a few marijuana plants.

And all for what? To send a message?

To keep pretending that we're protecting our children? Alcohol
Prohibition made a lot more sense than marijuana prohibition does
today-and it, too, was a disaster.

Mr. Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy
Alliance (www.drugpolicy.org).