I’ve been thinking a lot lately about marijuana. No, it’s not what you suspect, I don’t smoke the stuff. Nor do I need it to alleviate pain. Rather, it’s our country’s schizophrenic way of dealing with “weed.”
Here in Stephenson County is In Grown Farms, which is perfectly legal and is growing marijuana plants to be harvested, packaged and sold at marijuana dispensaries as medicine. You need a doctor’s prescription to get it. There hasn’t been much controversy about it. Indeed, folks are happy that a new business decided to locate in the Freeport area.
There’s even talk – perhaps far-out talk, but still – of mixing marijuana, legally, with snack foods like pretzels or potato chips.
Meanwhile, next door in Winnebago County, the county sheriff’s police raided two fields, one near Durand, the other between Rockford and Winnebago, and found what they said was $1 million worth of marijuana plants. These plants were growing illegally. Police said the property owners had not known the plants were growing in their fields.
According to Governing magazine, 25 states and Washington, D.C., “currently have laws legalizing marijuana in some form.” Four states – Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska – have legalized pot for any use.
And on Nov. 8, various legalization measures will be on nine state ballots. Some are medical marijuana referendums. But in California, Nevada, Massachusetts, Maine and Arizona, the question on the ballot is outright legalization.
California is our most populous state, now with 39.5 million people, according to worldpopulationreview.com. It has the world’s sixth-largest economy, having just passed Spain. As California goes, so goes the nation. If voters legalize pot, the state would earn $1.08 billion in tax revenue a year.
Uncle Sam, however, is not amused. The federal behemoth declined to take marijuana off its “List of Stuff You Can’t Have Because We Are Fighting a War on Drugs.” Yes, we’ve been fighting that war for more than 40 years. As we know from Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting wars gets to be a habit, and habits are hard to break.
Here’s the paradox: The feds consider marijuana an illegal drug. But the U.S. is not shutting down pot-growing and sales operations in states that have decided it is legal in various circumstances.
What we have here is the doctrine of dual sovereignty run amok. We’ve been here before, and not so long ago.
When the U.S. got all self-righteous in 1919 and passed the 18th Amendment banning the sale and production of alcoholic beverages, effective in January 1920, it was hailed as the noble experiment. Cops at the federal, state and local level were kept busy raiding speakeasies – illegal clubs – confiscating stills and arresting proprietors. Canadian whiskey was spirited across the 4,000-mile unguarded border to the U.S. The cops often invited the papers and newsreel cameras to record elaborate, highly choreographed raids where casks were gleefully chopped open and booze flowed down the streets.
Politicians and police chiefs took bribes to look the other way. The mob charged protection money. Prohibition created its own subculture, much of which is still with us, including supper clubs, built out in the country to be far from cops, and NASCAR, which began in North Carolina when bootleggers souped up their cars to outrun the police and tax agents. Prohibition also gave us the plea bargain, because the courts were inundated with Prohibition violation citations; settling cases in the courthouse hallway was the only way to clear the dockets.
Prohibition also breathed a vigorous life into organized crime syndicates, because when something that tens of millions of people want is outlawed, outlaws are the only ones who will provide it. Prohibition strengthened the mob’s cash coffers enormously. Rival gangs routinely had shootouts over disputed territory.
Sound familiar?
With public disregard for Prohibition becoming more and more obvious, it began to break down, and by the early 1930s some states had stopped spending vast sums to enforce it.
Finally, Americans came to their senses and passed the 21st Amendment in 1933, legalizing alcohol once again, while putting reasonable restrictions on its sale and consumption.
States and local governments retained the option whether to legalize alcohol in their jurisdictions. There are some dry localities to this day.
The states and the U.S. need to establish one set of laws and requirements governing the growing, distribution, sale and taxation of marijuana, as we did with alcohol in the 1930s.
To see where we’re headed, watch what happens in California on election night.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker
Full Article: Chuck Sweeny – We Need To Standardize Marijuana Laws
Author: Chuck Sweeny
Contact: (815) 232-0166
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Website: Journal Standard
