Personal Marijuana Use

Another Reason the Marijuana Debate is Moving Forward

Nate Silver at the very cool polling blog FiveThirtyEight has another angle on the growing support for marijuana legalization.

Put simply, the percentage of Americans who've ever tried marijuana is getting bigger. There are steadily fewer voters out there who grew up before the 60's and 70's. Naturally, people who have experience with marijuana are less likely to be fearful of it and support harsh penalties for users.

Interesting. In other words, support for marijuana reform is likely to increase over time regardless of anything we say or do. That doesn't mean we donât have our work cut out for us, but it's another factor to keep in mind when we run into new obstacles. The fight is exhausting, but time is on our side in a very real way.

from fivethirtyeight.com

Breaking News: Massachusetts Has Not Been Taken Over by Drug Maniacs

I visited Boston this weekend for the Northeast Regional SSDP Conference and was curious to observe that no one was smoking marijuana on the sidewalks. Weird, huh? It's been months now since Massachusetts decriminalized small-time marijuana possession and yet it almost felt as though I wasn't surrounded by hippies in a skunky smoldering ashtray from hell.

Good thing I kept the receipt for that gasmask. This is great news for everyone, especially all the police officials who were genuinely concerned that life in Massachusetts would be at least partially destroyed if the punishment for marijuana was reduced slightly.

Those cops must really be glad that no one listened to them and everything worked out this way, because now we've got the best of both worlds: 1) fewer people have their lives messed up by getting a criminal record for pot, and 2) nobody blows bong hits in your face when you're trying to hail a taxicab.

It's really beautiful to see that the collective goodness of mankind can somehow prevent an intoxicating plant from utterly destroying the world.

The Media's Approach to Marijuana Coverage Has Changed Dramatically

This CNBC appearance by MPP's Rob Kampia is an exhibit in the rapid evolution of marijuana policy coverage in the mainstream press:

Radley Balko pretty much nails what I wanted to say about this:

Former DEA chief Asa Hutchinson is the only person on CNBCâs (oddly enormous) panel arguing against legalization. These arenât stoners or activists. Theyâre financial reporters and pundits. And they seem to be uniformly in favor of legalizing. This debate has come a long, long, way since the 1980s.

I've been critical of CNBC in the past, but this more than surpasses my expectations. Asa Hutchinson probably feels like he was ganged up on, but he should just consider himself lucky that the press didn't start asking these questions a long time ago.

The Drug Czar's Office Doesn't Know What to Say About Marijuana

Ever since Obama's awful attempt to duck the marijuana legalization debate last week, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that the issue of marijuana reform is a major challenge for the new administration. They aren't ready to endorse legalization, but they're equally intimidated by the rapidly growing movement to reform marijuana laws.

Another example is found at the drug czar's blog, which posted the video of Obama's statement, yet withheld any further comment on the matter. It 's a subtle, yet profound departure from the way this blog was run during the previous administration. Every post related to marijuana ended with, "Click here to learn more about how marijuana is highly f#$king toxic."

I can't prove that, though, because they deleted everything when Obama took office (which just further demonstrates that the new ONDCP is a very different creature). Considering that ONDCP's charter mandates opposition to drug policy reform efforts, their failure to actually even applaud Obama's statement against marijuana legalization is remarkably tame. Â

It almost feels like we're running out of people to argue with.

Obama Doesn't Know What to Say About Marijuana

Pete Guither points to yet another prominent example of the Obama administration's glaring inability to explain the president's position on legalizing marijuana:

When asked why Obama opposes legalization, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs literally said this:

"Uh, he, he does not think that, uh, uh, that that is uh, uh, [pause] he opposes it, he doesn't think that that's the, the right plan for America."

It's a comical and precious moment, like when the teacher calls on that half-asleep kid who never has a clue. Except, as Paul Armentano points out, they knew perfectly well that this was a hot issue in their online forum and that the press would likely be asking about it. Clearly, they are badly boxed in, simultaneously reluctant to embrace reform, while equally hesitant to offend marijuana reform advocates with the typical anti-pot propaganda you'd expect from a guy who just said he opposes legalization.

The result is a ridiculous and failed effort to laugh the issue off, even as everyone stares at them expectantly. They're still working from the old rules which state that drug legalization questions are best handled by chuckling and mockery, followed by a quick pivot towards a more "serious" issue. That advice is no longer very good.

Obama Won't Say Why He Opposes Marijuana Legalization

The overwhelming popularity of marijuana questions on the president's website has repeatedly forced him to address the issue, yet his answers are utterly lacking in substance. From Change.gov in December:

President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.

And at today's event:

"No, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy."

As lame as these responses are, you can bet he'd never have said anything at all if marijuana questions hadnât repeatedly pulled the most votes on his website. There's a subtle and revealing undertone to all of this insofar as Obama has publicly declined to actually challenge the merits of our argument in any way.

For all of the stereotypical anti-pot talking points at his disposal, Obama chooses to take the softer path of pushing the matter aside as best he can and moving on. Is that because he can't refute our arguments, he doesn't want to, or both? I'm operating under the assumption that 1) Obama privately agrees with us, but remains concerned about the political consequences of associating himself with that viewpoint, and 2) Obama has enough respect for the potency of our movement that he doesn't want to piss us off any more than he has to.

As frustrating as all of this is, we'd be foolish to miss the significance of our success at strong-arming the reform argument into a high profile discussion of the economy. It's not everyday that a sitting president is forced to comment on the legalization of marijuana. The fact that this even happened means we're doing something right.

Obama Insults Online Community for Supporting Marijuana Legalization

At his Online Town Hall meeting this morning, President Obama joked about the overwhelming popularity of marijuana legalization questions on his online forum.

Well, Mr. President, if you "don't know what this says about the online audience," allow me to clue you in. We're more than just some nicknames on a computer screen. We're Americans and we have the same right as anyone else to be heard and to be treated with respect.

As nearly a million among us are arrested each year for marijuana, it should come as no surprise to you that we've come together to ask why. The reason you find us in every category of your site is because the harms of the war on drugs reach into every facet of American life. Drug prohibition destroys all it touches and there is scarcely a problem we face as a nation that couldnât be made more manageable by ending this great war that continues to stigmatize and divide us.

You can trivialize and dismiss our argument, but you cannot silence our movement. You make us more powerful with every public forum you hold.

Update: This quote from Jack Cole at LEAP pretty much sums it up:

"Despite the president's flippant comments today, the grievous harms of marijuana prohibition are no laughing matter. Certainly, the 800,000 people arrested last year on marijuana charges find nothing funny about it, nor do the millions of Americans struggling in this sluggish economy. It would be an enormous economic stimulus if we stopped wasting so much money arresting and locking people up for nonviolent drug offenses and instead brought in new tax revenue from legal sales, just as we did when we ended alcohol prohibition 75 years ago during the Great Depression."

Marijuana Legalization Bill Introduced in Massachusetts

Paul Armentano at NORML has the details. From the comments, you'd think the thing had already passed. That's probably a bit much, but I don't fault folks for being excited right now. Marijuana policy reform is gaining momentum in a way we've never seen. It will still take time, but the first step is understanding that our goals are achieveable. For too long, we've been told that "it's never gonna happen."Â Suddenly, the discussion is erupting into the mainstream everywhere you look.

Police Shoot Unarmed Marijuana Suspect

As long as the war on marijuana continues, police will continue shooting harmless people:

GRAND RAPIDS -- The family of a Grand Valley State University student shot by police said he did nothing to provoke gunfire in a drug raid at the student's off-campus apartment.

"All he had time to do was cover his face from a flashlight in his eyes, and they shot him," George Copp said today. [MLive.com]

Police havenât even announced what, if anything, was found in the raid. Of course, the shooting was reprehensible either way, but it's just another reminder that police use these violent, confrontational tactics without even having good information. Believe me, if there was more than a pinch of dope in that apartment, the police would have told everyone about it by now.

The one thing we do know about Derek Copp is that he's a hippie and he smokes pot. We know this because some intrepid journalist got into his Facebook page and published portions of it in the newspaper. Great job! Now that you're done frolicking on Facebook, can you please go find out why the hell the cops shot this guy?

NBC Insults Marijuana Users

Once again, we find the press struggling to cover drug policy reform without resorting to derogatory epithets:

State Moves Toward Lighter Sentences for Potheads
By Scott Ross

The state Assembly has struck a blow for the state's stoners by voting to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws that have threatened so many tokers with the wrong kind of joint. [NBCNewYork.com]

This is really an achievement in childish drug reporting in that it not only sounds ridiculous, it actually renders the story utterly frivolous and misleading. Marijuana arrests are a problem in New York to be sure, but simple possession is technically decriminalized already. Rockefeller reform is primarily not about marijuana at all. It's about reforming wildly draconian sentencing guidelines for a variety of drug offenses. Framing it as a marijuana policy reform is just wrong. Many of the worst excesses of the Rockefeller laws have nothing at all to do with marijuana.

Sadly, it looks as though the author loved his dumb headline so much, he destroyed the entire story just so he could use it. It's pure journalistic malpractice.

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