From welcome@back.home Sun Apr 26 04:54:59 1998

Newsgroups: usenet.alt.drugs.pot,usenet.alt.drugs.pot.cultivation,usenet.rec.drugs.cannabis,usenet.talk.politics.drugs,usenet.alt.law-enforcement,usenet.alt.hemp.politics

Subject: "Marijuana Prohibition Facts"

From: welcome@back.home (Tolerance)

Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 00:54:59 GMT

http://www.mpp.org/ - posted without permission or commentary -

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Marijuana Prohibition FACTS 1998

Very few Americans had even heard about marijuana when it was first federally prohibited in 1937. Today, nearly 70 million Americans admit to having tried it.[1]

According to government-funded researchers, the perceived availability of marijuana among high school seniors has remained high and steady despite decades of a nationwide drug war. With little variation, every year about 85% consider marijuana "fairly easy" or"very easy" to obtain.[2]

There have been more than 10 million marijuana arrests in the United States since 1965, with a record-breaking 641,642 arrests in 1996. About 85% of all marijuana arrests are for possession -- not manufacture or distribution.[3]

Every comprehensive, objective government commission that has examined the marijuana phenomenon throughout the past 100 years has recommended that adults should not be criminalized for using marijuana.[4]

Cultivation of even one marijuana plant is a federal felony.

Lengthy mandatory minimum sentences apply to a myriad of offenses. For example, a person must serve a five-year mandatory minimum sentence if federally convicted of cultivating 100 marijuana plants -- including seedlings or bug-infested, sickly plants. This is longer than the average sentences for auto theft and manslaughter![5]

A one-year minimum prison sentence is mandated for "distributing" or "manufacturing" controlled substances within 1,000 feet of any school, university, or playground. Most areas in a city fall within these "drug-free zones." An adult who lives three blocks from the edge of a university is subject to a one-year mandatory minimum for selling an ounce of marijuana to another adult -- or even growing one marijuana plant in his or her basement.[6]

More than 35,000 marijuana offenders are in prison or jail right now.[7]

According to the organization Stop Prisoner Rape, "290,000 males were victimized in jail every year, 192,000 of them penetrated. ... Victims are more likely to be young, small, non-violent, first offenders, middle-class. ..."[8]

Civil forfeiture laws allow police to seize the money and property of suspected marijuana offenders -- charges need not even be filed. The claim is against the property, not the defendant. The property owner must then prove that the property is "innocent" -- and indigents have no right to appointed legal counsel. Enforcement abuses stemming from forfeiture laws abound.[9]

The MPP estimates that the war on marijuana consumers costs taxpayers more than $7 billion annually.[10]

Many patients and their doctors find marijuana a useful medicine as part of the treatment for AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, and other ailments. Yet only eight patients in the United States are allowed to use marijuana as a medicine, through a program now closed to all new applicants. Federal laws treat all other patients currently using medicinal marijuana as criminals, the same as recreational users. Doctors are presently allowed to prescribe cocaine and morphine -- but not marijuana. Nearly 80% of U.S. voters support medical access to marijuana.[11,12]

Organizations that have endorsed medical access to marijuana include the AIDS Action Council, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Public Health Association, California Medical Association, California Society of Addiction Medicine, Lymphoma Foundation of America, National Association of People With AIDS, National Nurses Society on Addictions, the New England Journal of Medicine, and others.

A few of the many editorial boards that have endorsed medical access to marijuana include: Boston Globe; Chicago Tribune; Miami Herald; New York Times; Orange County Register; USA Today.

A bill to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana (H.R. 4498) was co-sponsored by 84 members of Congress in 1981-82, including U.S. Representatives Newt Gingrich (GA) and Bill McCollum (FL). They have yet to sign on to the newest medicinal marijuana bill, H.R. 1782, which is now pending in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, which U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum chairs.

Recent studies show that the vast majority of Americans favor treatment and education over law enforcement. By 53% to 34%, Americans view drug abuse as a public health problem best handled by prevention and treatment programs, rather than a crime problem best handled by the criminal justice system.[13]

"Decriminalization" involves the removal of criminal penalties for possession of marijuana for personal use. Small fines may be issued (similar to traffic tickets) but there is no arrest, incarceration, or criminal record. Marijuana is presently decriminalized in nine states -- California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon. In these states, cultivation and distribution remain criminal offenses.

Decriminalization saves a tremendous amount in enforcement costs. California saves $100 million per year.[14]

A government-sponsored study comparing marijuana consumption rates in states where marijuana has been decriminalized to rates in states where marijuana possession remains a crime found that "decriminalization has had virtually no effect either on the marijuana use or on related attitudes and beliefs about marijuana use among American young people."[15]

A federally funded Research Triangle Institute study of Drug Abuse Resistance Education found that D.A.R.E. students were no less likely to use drugs than students not involved in the program. The authors concluded, "D.A.R.E. could be taking the place of other, more beneficial drug use curricula that adolescents could be receiving."[16]

The arbitrary criminalization of tens of millions of Americans who consume marijuana results in a large-scale lack of respect for the law and the entire criminal justice system.

Marijuana prohibition subjects users to extraneous health hazards:

Adulterants, contaminants and impurities -- Marijuana purchased through criminal markets is not subject to the same quality control standards as are legal consumer goods. Illicit marijuana is oftentimes adulterated with much more damaging substances; contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers; and/or infected with molds, fungi, or bacteria.

Inhalation of hot smoke -- One of the more well-established hazards of marijuana consumption is the fact that the inhalation of burning vegetable matter is bad for the respiratory system. Laws that prohibit the sale or possession of paraphernalia reduce the likelihood that individuals will smoke through devices which cool and filter the smoke.

Because vigorous enforcement of the marijuana laws forces the roughest, toughest criminals to take over marijuana trafficking, prohibition causes violence and increases predatory crime.

Prohibition invites corruption within the criminal justice system by giving officials easy, tempting opportunities to accept bribes, steal and sell marijuana, and plant evidence on innocent people.

Marijuana prohibition creates a mixed drug market, which puts marijuana consumers in contact with hard-drug dealers. Regulating marijuana -- e.g., allowing adults to grow their own -- would separate marijuana from cocaine, heroin, and other hard drugs.

Because marijuana is typically used in private, trampling the Bill of Rights is a routine part of marijuana-law enforcement, e.g., drug dogs, urine tests, phone taps, government informants, curbside garbage searches, military helicopters, infrared heat detectors.

NOTES

1. National Household Survey on Drug Abuse: Main Findings 1993, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1995.

2. National Survey Results on Drug Use from the Monitoring the Future Study, 1975-1995, L. Johnston, J. Bachman, and P. O'Malley; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse; Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1996.

3. FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States: 1996, published in October 1997.

4. For example, Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report, 1894; Panama Canal Zone Military Investigation, 1929; The Marihuana Problem in the City of New York (LaGuardia Committee Report), 1944; Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding (Nixon-Shafer Report), 1972; An Analysis of Marihuana Policy (National Academy of Sciences), 1982; and others.

5. 21 USC 841(b)(1)(B); "1996 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Guidelines," U.S. Sentencing Commission, 1997; p. 24.

6. 21 USC 860(a); report from Congressional Research Service, June 22, 1995.

7. Marijuana Arrests and Incarceration in the United States: Preliminary Report, Chuck Thomas; Washington, D.C.: Marijuana Policy Project, 1995.

8. "Rape of Incarcerated Americans: A Preliminary Statistical Look," Stephen Donaldson; New York, NY: Stop Prisoner Rape, 1995.

9. Forfeiting Our Property Rights: Is Your Property Safe From Seizure?, U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde; Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1995.

10. In 1993, the federal government spent over $12 billion on the "drug war." Approximately 70% ($8.4 billion) was spent on enforcement, court, and prison expenses. (The rest was used for treatment and education.) In 1991 -- the most recent year for which data are available -- state and local governments spent a total of nearly $16 billion, of which about 80% ($12.5 billion) was used for enforcement, court, and prison costs (National Drug Control Strategy, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Washington, D.C., 1994).

Hence, the total annual criminal justice system expenditure for federal, state, and local governments is $20.9 billion ($8.4 billion + $12.5 billion).

This total annual expenditure of nearly $21 billion is not broken down by specific drugs. (Marijuana, as usual, is lumped in with all illegal drugs.) However, because marijuana crimes account for one-third of all drug arrests, it is estimated that the war on marijuana consumers costs taxpayers $7 billion annually.

11. "Marihuana as Medicine: A Plea for Reconsideration," Journal of the American Medical Association, June 21, 1995.

12. Medicinal Marijuana Briefing Paper; Washington, D.C.: Marijuana Policy Project, 1997.

13. "Americans Look at the Drug Problem," Peter Hart Research Associates; Washington, D.C.: Drug Strategies, 1995.

14. "Savings in California Marijuana Law Enforcement Costs Attributable to the Moscone Act of 1976 -- A Summary," Michael Aldrich, Ph.D., and Tod Mikuriya, M.D.; Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Vol. 20(1), January-March 1988; pp. 75-81.

15. "Marijuana Decriminalization: The Impact on Youth, 1975-1980," Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper 13, Lloyd Johnston, Patrick O'Malley, Jerald Bachman; Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 1981; pp. 27-29.

16. "How Effective is Drug Abuse Resistance Education? A Meta-Analysis of Project DARE Outcome Evaluations," S.T. Ennett, et al.; American Journal of Public Health, September 1994.