LEGALIZING CANNABIS
2009.04.06
An article was published in TIME on April 2nd by Joe Klein on “why legalizing Cannabis makes sense”. The writer tells that a few weeks ago the US government decided to stage a question answer forum. The president was to answer to public queries. About 92,000 questions came forward and most of them were about legalizing Cannabis. Looks like most of the Americans are interested in Cannabis legalization.
In US various forms of Cannabis legalization is being enacted. Many states, especially California, have legalized the personal use and possession of Cannabis for medical reasons. However federal government holds a strict stance and many medical Cannabis users have been arrested and sentenced for Cannabis possession and use. California has passed the Proposition 215 in 1996 which saved anyone from being arrested or prosecuted for Cannabis use if recommendation by a doctor was shown. A set of illnesses were outlined to which doctors could recommend medical use of cannabis. This proposition was later renamed as Compassionate Use act.
On 23rd February, 2009, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced the “Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act” which mainly pressed upon legalizing, regulating and taxing the recreational use of Cannabis in California. This bill is first of its kind regarding Cannabis. Previously, medical benefits and use of Cannabis were highlighted and bills put forward to legalize medical Cannabis. This bill will create a regulatory structure for Cannabis use, similar to the one which already exists for alcohol use, thus allowing taxed sale to adults above 21years of age. This bill is still pending.
Year 2006 statistics by federal government show that Cannabis is the largest cash crop in California with its annual revenues of about $14billion. This is even higher than the combined annual revenues of second and third cash crops i.e. vegetables $5.7 billion and grapes $2.6 billion. Even the huge wiping out efforts to eradicate Cannabis cultivation sites, as huge as 36,000 sites per year, are unsuccessful in affecting this underground industry at all.
"It is simply nonsensical that California's largest agricultural industry is completely unregulated and untaxed," said Aaron Smith, who is the Marijuana Policy Project California policy director. He was with Ammino at a San Francisco news conference to announce the bill.
In Massachusetts a couple of similar bills were introduced into the legislature on March 24th, 2009. These bills, named as House bill 2929 and Senate bill 1801, also targeted upon taxed sales and regulation of Cannabis industry.
Although Cannabis has found its place into many states’ legislature, it is still trying to make its place in the federal one. Cannabis decriminalization suggestion has reached the Congress recently where senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have proposed a package which will directly affect the drug sentencing and criminalization policies. Webb points out in a story in Parade magazine that US has 5% of world’s population and 25% of world’s criminals. Thus U.S. is the most “criminal” country of world spending $68 billion on corrections annually, 1/3rd of which is for non-violent drug related crimes. About $150 billion is spent on courts and police. Interesting to note here is this that 47.5% crimes are Cannabis related. This is a huge amount of money which is only used for Cannabis crimes. It can be used for better reform purposes. On one hand is this huge amount of money for Cannabis crime, on other hand there is another huge sum generated in underground Cannabis industry. If the federal government can regulate and tax Cannabis, it will not only save huge sum of money it will pay as well. A 10% Cannabis tax will generate $1.4 billion from California alone. It will also offer thousands of new jobs in agriculture, marketing and advertisement.
