It is Friday evening, you are done with a hard week of work and you are looking to relax. You pull into the local liquor store and select your grade of marijuana from the list next to the counter. The clerk weighs out the buds, charges you $30 for an eighth of an ounce, and off you go.
Fiction? Maybe not if AB 390 passes. Democratic State Assembly member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced legislation last month that would legalize marijuana and allow the state to regulate and tax its sale. Ammiano says it could take up to a year before it comes to a vote for passage. A few days after the bill was introduced, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that states should be able to make their own rules on medical marijuana and those federal raids on pot dispensaries in California would cease. Ammiano explained, “If we’re hemorrhaging money and doing all this wink-wink, nod-nod all these years, it’s about time we start harvesting this. And admit to the fact that it’s going to be around and if we regulate and tax it, and decriminalize it, we could not only have an economic benefit but a policy benefit.”
Financial impact
Marijuana is California’s biggest cash crop, responsible for an estimated $14 billion in annual sales. The possible tax windfall for the state is estimated at $1.3 billion in revenue (about 1.5 percent of the budget). “The state of California is in a very, very precipitous economic plight. It’s in the toilet,” said Ammiano. “It looks very, very bleak, with layoffs and foreclosures and schools closing or trying to operate four days a week. We have one of the highest rates of unemployment we have ever had. With any revenue ideas people say you have to think outside the box, you have to be creative, and I feel that the issue of the decriminalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana fits that bill. It’s not new, the idea has been around, and the political will may in fact be there to make something happen.”
It is estimated that legalizing pot will also save the state an additional $1 billion per year by ceasing to arrest, prosecute and imprison non-violent offenders. Retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray explained, “We couldn’t make this drug any more available if we tried. Not only do we have that problem, along with glamorizing it by making it illegal, but we also have the crime and corruption that go along with it. Unfortunately, every society in the history of mankind has had some form of mind-altering, sometimes addictive substances to use, misuse, and abuse or get addicted to. Get used to it. They’re here to stay. So, let’s try to reduce those harms, but right now we couldn’t do it worse if we tried.”
Marijuana as medicine
When California voters passed Proposition 215, The Compassionate Use Act, in 1996 it morphed pot from contraband to medicine. Jewel Mathieson, wife of Sonoma Mayor Ken Brown, is a member of the Sonoma Patients Group and has been very active in the movement to establish a medical marijuana dispensary in the city of Sonoma. “I understand the city process; I’ve watched a lot of projects so I understand why it takes so long. I just want to provide safe access to local patients who can’t drive. There is lots of education needed about this topic, but no one came to our educational forum.” The Sonoma Patient Group operates one of the three dispensaries in Santa Rosa.
In California and twelve other states, medical marijuana is available for anyone suffering from such ailments as cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, epilepsy, insomnia, depression, post-traumatic stress, PMS and alcoholism. There are marijuana dispensaries nearby in Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Guerneville, Fairfax, Vallejo, and Novato. In Sonoma, a draft ordinance to allow dispensaries with city limits has been approved by the planning commission and is on the agenda for the May City Council meeting.
David Goodison, Sonoma Planning and Community Development Administrator, said in a report from the March planning commission meeting, “There are supply questions. Must the pot be supplied by a member of the cooperative? Who grows it? Is it safe? How is it checked? How will it be offered? How do you regulate potency?” These are big questions, as marijuana comes in many forms with varying levels of the active ingredient, THC. Sonoma planning commissioner Robert Felder cast the one vote against moving the ordinance forward, explaining, “I see a deeper issue. I would not like to see a center in the city of Sonoma. It adds a dimension to the city I just don’t want to see.”
Others agree.
The Dutch have reduced the number of coffee shops that sell marijuana particularly near schools and is considering various measures to limit “drug tourism.” In August of last year, California Attorney General Jerry Brown ordered a crackdown on medicinal pot clubs that are selling the drug for big profits. “The voters wanted medical marijuana dispensaries to be used for seriously ill patients and their caregivers – not million-dollar businesses,” Brown said.
In most dispensaries, according to Mathieson, “Cleanliness, purity and safe access are stressed; we inspect the properties and have longstanding relationships with vendors. We maintain an organic product free of pesticides and common impurities like dog hair. We have a grading system, as do most dispensaries, with different quality levels to suit patient needs.”
Legalization for recreational use
A Rasmussen poll in February showed 46 percent of Americans are opposed to legalization, with 40 percent supporting and 14 percent unsure. Many opponents to legalization say that it will compound substance abuse problems, that it is a gateway drug that leads to use of harder drugs and that legalization would send the wrong message to children.
David Ford, the local marijuana proponent who has written two books and lectured to millions about the benefits of marijuana, says, “In ten thousand years of use there is not one recorded death from the overdose or toxicity of cannabis. Compare that to alcohol that kills more than 100,000 Americans each year. Nicotine products kill more than 400,000. And FDA ‘safe drugs’ in the Physician’s Desk Reference (PDR) cause the death of 100,000 each year and puts 1 million Americans in the hospital annually due to toxicity or overdose.” Ford is totally for the legalization of what he calls “nature’s tranquilizer” but he is against use by kids. “Legalization would get drug dealers out of the business, free up prisons from minor offenders, and stop the demonization of marijuana and hemp. What I tell people is to have an open mind and learn.” He encourages people to visit his website for more information.
In 1937, the federal government passed the Marijuana Tax Act and the Marijuana Transfer Tax Bill prohibiting cultivation, industrial and medical use of marijuana and hemp. Defined as a Class 1 narcotic and classified in the PDR as a hallucinogen, marijuana consumption is considered to cause psychological effects including alterations of mood, memory, motor coordination, cognitive ability, and self-perception. It may impair sensory perception, concentration, and information processing. It enhances the senses of touch, taste and smell. In higher doses it can lead to delusions, paranoid feelings, anxiety and panic. It increases the heart rate and systolic blood pressure and is three times more potent when smoked as when taken orally.
Opponents say legalizing pot will only add to social woes. “The last thing we need is yet another mind-altering substance to be legalized,” says John Lovell, lobbyist for the California Peace Officer’s Association. “We have enough problems with alcohol and abuse of pharmaceutical products. Do we really need to add yet another mind-altering substance to the array?” Many think easy availability will lead to a surge in use similar to what happened with alcohol when it was allowed to be sold in venues other than liquor stores, and others worry about a possible increase in use of methamphetamine and “crack” cocaine once marijuana itself is legalized.
This issue continues to play out on the local political stage. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors declined two years ago to authorize a medical marijuana dispensary just outside city limits, but the Sonoma City Council is expected to consider that prospect, inside city limits, very soon.
