California says no - Eurad

In three other referendums Monday voters turned down a medical marijuana proposal in South Dakota with 63 against 37 per cent, one in Oregon with 58 against 42 per cent, and one in Arizona with 51 against 49.

The proposition in California was defeated with 56,3 against 43,6 per cent of the votes. If the people in liberal California doesn’t support it, then who will? Drug legalization has bumped into a serious obstacle: the voters.

The legalization movement in California was unable to offer any credible explanation of how legalization for those above 21 would protect children and young people. Even if you sympathized with some of the liberal arguments, the prospect of young people being more exposed to cannabis and its harms probably convinced the undecided to reject the proposition.

The legalization lobby had no credible argument to counter that particular point. The simple fact that prescription drugs, alcohol and tobacco are widely used by teenagers even if subject to control is and will remain perhaps be the strongest case against legalization.

When economic or moral arguments collide

The central argument in favor of legalization was that drug control policy, prohibition, causes more harm than the drug itself. The additional and rather opportunistic argument brought forward was that a legal cannabis trade would generate massive tax revenues for the bankrupt state of California.

That was a tactical mistake. The economic argument must have undermined the predominantly moral one. Their moral argument is about proportionality, human rights, dignity and justice. The economic argument, however, is about commercialization, big money, big industry, taxes and government deficits. So which is it? Big Cannabis, big revenues or the little man?

The exhausted 'straw man'

It’s been a ubiquitous “truth”, one blow in the US and you’re behind bars for years. The US, however, has in fact changed, and the argument unravels.

War on drugs, a Nixon era term, is today largely a construction to fit the argument of legalisation. You hardly read a drug liberal piece anywhere without a reference to it. But the "war on drugs"-argument is loosing its punch, and with it the legalisation movement most cherished argument is increasingly baseless.

There is little question that the United States is more punitive than most other countries in the Western world. Penalties are highly punitive for sellers. For users, the trend is different.

Early this year the US eliminated mandatory sentences even for possessing less than 28 grams of crack cocaine. The fact is that hardly any of the 750.000 annual possession arrests in the US result in jail time at all. Research has also shown that many of those in prison for possession have admitted to also be selling the drugs.

This trend is the most pronounced for marijuana use/possession. One estimate sets the figure between 800 - 2.300 in prison for marijuana use only, in all USA (J Caulkins et al: ”How many people does the U.S. imprison for drug use, and who are they?” Contemporary Drug Problems, Oct 1st 2005).

In California use and possession is already decriminalised. Users will be given a ticket of maximum 100 $ for the possession of up to one ounce (about 30 grams).

Possession in the US is in fact decriminalized in about 12 states, and in plenty of other places police officers turns a blind eye to simple cannabis use. And in yet other cities users may be given a mere ticket on the spot. Several states have allowed for the use of medical marijuana.

It is indeed a question if one could call the reality of US policy on cannabis prohibition at all. The question to ask is: where is the "war"?

In order to maintain the image of the "brutal" US drug policy the drug liberals are now lumping beheadings in Juarez in Mexico together with marijuana arrests in LA in order to shore up their argument.

Linking cannabis possession in the US to the current vicious battle taking place in Mexico is a far stretch. The cartels in Mexico would of course not diminish in brutality if cannabis was legalized in California or elsewhere. The most problematic and brutal drug related crime being in the US or in Mexico is related to "expensive drugs" like cocaine, heroin and metamphetamin, not cannabis.

Wonderland Portugal

Portugal is frequently described as a success story and brought in to support legalization in California. The logic is more than doubtful. Since Portugal decriminalized cannabis in 2001 "and, after a small increase in the first two years, adolescent use of cannabis has been in decline ever since," Mary Ann Sieghart wrote in the Independent (01.11.10). She is not the only one making such claims. The report by the liberal think tank, the Cato Institute in the US has been widely quoted as “proof” of success.

These are simply not a correct representation of the facts in Portugal. Prevalence in the adult population of any illicit drug increased from 7,8 per cent to 12,0 per cent between 2001 and 2007. According to Portuguese data for the younger age groups, only in the age group 15-19 is there a slight reduction in lifetime prevalence 2001-2007 (see chart, Instituto da Droga e da Toxicodependência de Portugal 2007, taken from the Cato Institute report).

In the age group 15-24 there is a larger increase and an even larger increase in the age group from 20-24. Looking at the ESPAD data a slight fall in lifetime prevalence of cannabis can be observed in Portugal after 2003 among 16 year olds but there is nothing uniquely Portuguese about that at all. Most of Europe has been moving into a period of declining levels of cannabis use in this period.

Portugal replaced criminal sanctions with administrative sanctions. People in possession of drugs for personal consumption are apprehended by the police and obliged to present themselves within 72 hrs before a Dissuasion Commission.

About 10-20% of the rulings of the CDTs are in fact punitive (fines etc), and about 20% are suspended rulings involving referrals to treatment while more than 60% receive a provisional suspension of the process.

This system, regardless of its merits, is certainly very different from legalization. If compared to how decriminalization is presently carried out in California it is indeed a question if not the Portuguese model is more paternalistic and regulatory.

Failure or success

Drug legalizers claim that the battle against cannabis use in the US is simply a lost battle. George Soros wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that America’s marijuana laws were doing more harm than good and had failed to prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the U.S.

Soros is avoiding the real question. What is the relevance of comparing marijuana use to other illicit drugs? The interesting comparison is of course between prohibition of substances such as marijuana and commodities like alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs.

Soros "fails" to mention that only 6% of the all Americans admit to have used cannabis in the past month whereas fifty percent of all Americans report to be current alcohol drinkers (SAMHSA 2004). In other words, legalisation has failed to prevent alcohol from being the most widely used intoxicant in the US.

If one looks at marijuana prevalence there has in fact been a significant drop since the late nineties among young people. Teenage marijuana use in the US has fallen with about 20-25% between 2001-2008 (SAMSHA 2008, MTF 2008).

One cannot rule out that prohibition may in some way have contributed to this, it has at least not prevented it. Looking at states that have decriminalised possession of marijuana, there is no indication that this has reduced consumption, the overall picture suggests the contrary allthough one would have to take into account a number of other factors.

Conclusion 

The fact remains that prohibition has not prevented significant improvements in prevalence among young people. While on the other hand, legalization for the above 21 year olds present a totally unconvincing prospect of protecting the young let alone reducing further their consumption of marijuana. If arguments alone were to count, legalization stands no chance.