Conservative Republican Leads Effort To Decriminalize Marijuana

[MedicalNeed]

Virginia is one of 18 states where government operates a monopoly on the distribution and sale of hard liquor. Virginia's Alcohol Beverage Control stores are a holdover from alcohol Prohibition. Lasting from 1920 to 1933, Prohibition was repealed when it became clear that it was financing organized crime while failing miserably at preventing alcohol use. Making the case for ABC privatization, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has argued that selling alcohol is not a core government responsibility.

Neither is criminalizing people who use marijuana.

State alcohol sales generate state revenue. Virginia brings in $324 million a year from alcohol sales. Marijuana prohibition, on the other hand, squanders tax dollars and creates opportunity costs as police focus efforts on non-violent consensual vices. Virginia police made 19,764 arrests for marijuana offenses in 2009. Six percent of all Virginia arrests are for marijuana offenses. Police time spent busting marijuana consumers is time not spent going after child molesters, rapists and murderers.

Virginia legislators will soon get a chance to end this misuse of police resources. Del. Harvey Morgan has proposed a bill to decriminalize marijuana possession in the upcoming General Assembly session. HB 1443 (LIS > Bill Tracking > HB1443 > 2011 session) would replace criminal penalties for simple possession with a civil fine of $500. The bill does not reduce penalties for cultivation or distribution. Courts would still have the option of mandating substance abuse treatment for at-risk youth.

In the face of continued budget woes, Virginia legislators need to ask themselves a simple question. Which is the bigger priority: Locking up non-violent marijuana offenders or saving the jobs of police officers, firefighters and teachers? The cost of incarcerating three marijuana offenders for a year more than covers the salary of a police officer, firefighter or teacher. Morgan's bill would save on criminal justice costs and generate millions in new revenue.

Del. Morgan is no dope-smoking hippy. In fact, he is ideally suited to push the envelope on this once controversial but increasingly mainstream issue. Morgan is a Republican member of the General Assembly and, more important, an assistant clinical professor of pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University's medical school. His bill is grounded in legitimate clinical expertise and fiscal conservatism.

Marijuana decriminalization admittedly faces an uphill battle in Virginia. Big-government culture warriors will no doubt oppose HB 1443. Make no mistake, marijuana prohibition is a cultural inquisition, not a public health campaign. If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco.

Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but criminal records are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. Studies show that states that have decriminalized marijuana do not have higher rates of use than states that criminalize users. The U.S. has double the rate of marijuana use as the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available. This is the type of abject government failure that should outrage proponents of limited government. Tax dollars are being wasted on a failed government program. Public safety resources are being diverted to further a punitive nanny state built upon a hypocritical version of morality.

The ideological arguments being used to make the case for Alcohol Beverage Control privatization apply to marijuana law reform. Criminalizing citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis is not an appropriate role for government. Fiscally conservative Republicans and tea partiers who truly believe in liberty and limited government will support marijuana decriminalization. Democrats who privately support marijuana law reform but fear the soft-on-drugs label need to get smart-on-drugs and get behind HB 1443. They've got a conservative Republican leading the way for them. Bottom line: Virginia can no longer afford to subsidize the prejudices of culture warriors.


NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: dailyprogress.com
Author: Daily Progress Staff | Robert Sharpe
Contact: Contact Us | Daily Progress
Copyright:2010 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC.
Website:Conservative Republican leads effort to decriminalize marijuana | Daily Progress

 

[G-Dog]

I have lived and worked in Virginia for contract engineering assignments a few times. I was arrested there and charged for possession of 3 grams of marijuana. That arrest record has come back to haunt me in places that would not arrest anyone for that amount (like Oregon). I guess the way background checks work, a conviction is a conviction. I was denied an apartment that I wanted to rent in Oregon. I was supposed to have that lifted from my record for doing 30 hours of community service, attendance in a drug and alcohol program and of course a fine. I did what I was supposed to but for some reason it was not recorded correctly and it is still on my record. I wonder if they ever did decriminalize it if it would come off of my record??? Coastal Virginia is a pretty nice place with decent weather. I would hope that they could get on the band wagon with the more progressive states. From where I am sitting now is seems improbable.

 

[thebabyalex]

Courts would still have the option of mandating substance abuse treatment for at-risk youth.

Again, as is consistent with a pharmacratic presence, that moral disapprobation be couched in the medical, and, to be sure, in the justificatory rhetoric of "protecting our children". Few among us, so it seems, dares question the authority from those who shape the social and the political, by the very use of junk science and a politicized medical presence. This is most certainly true with the inflation of such terms as "disease" and "health" in the medical lexicon, both terms serving its political and legal ends, as that of the state's ongoing de facto war on the individual.

And many doctors support present drug prohibition, are also the very same who the first to rail against the former, as a transgression of his (doctor's) "sacred" duty to his patient. As with many other germane stories, the above is the same political theatre for mass consumption.

If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco:
Who is in the position to frame this in terms of "health" and "illness"? Yes, the article is correct in naming the real root of drug prohibition, as that of cultural scapegoating. However, the one quoting such a "revelation" falls short of the "bigger picture": that of the ritual persecution of all drugs and its users, and the scapegoating as same, under the "justification" that such individuals are either diseased, disordered or addicted: herein lies the stigmatizing and dehumanizing nature of so-called medical "diagnoses" and labels, and the medical legitimacy to treat such wayward, "sick" citizens.
A large proportion of court ordered treatment falls on the poor and powerless, leaving the tax-payer to pay for a dubious social good.
I will arugue, that to accord cannabis consumers a set of preferential rights and laws, under provisions of the state and its medical agents, says nothing about any shift in cultural perception; it is, however, confirmation of the status quo.