Joe Klein: Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense

[babylonsister]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1889021,00.html


Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense
By Joe Klein Thursday, Apr. 02, 2009


Illustration by Stephen Kroninger for TIME


For the past several years, I've been harboring a fantasy, a last political crusade for the baby-boom generation. We, who started on the path of righteousness, marching for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam, need to find an appropriately high-minded approach to life's exit ramp. In this case, I mean the high-minded part literally. And so, a deal: give us drugs, after a certain age — say, 80 — all drugs, any drugs we want. In return, we will give you our driver's licenses. (I mean, can you imagine how terrifying a nation of decrepit, solipsistic 90-year-old boomers behind the wheel would be?) We'll let you proceed with your lives — much of which will be spent paying for our retirement, in any case — without having to hear us complain about our every ache and reflux. We'll be too busy exploring altered states of consciousness. I even have a slogan for the campaign: "Tune in, turn on, drop dead."

snip//

But there are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice, especially on the sentencing side. As Webb pointed out in a cover story in Parade magazine, the U.S. is, by far, the most "criminal" country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public. (See the top 10 ballot measures.)

At the same time, there is an enormous potential windfall in the taxation of marijuana. It is estimated that pot is the largest cash crop in California, with annual revenues approaching $14 billion. A 10% pot tax would yield $1.4 billion in California alone. And that's probably a fraction of the revenues that would be available — and of the economic impact, with thousands of new jobs in agriculture, packaging, marketing and advertising. A veritable marijuana economic-stimulus package! (Read: "Is Pot Good For You?")

So why not do it? There are serious moral arguments, both secular and religious. There are those who believe — with some good reason — that the accretion of legalized vices is debilitating, that we are a less virtuous society since gambling spilled out from Las Vegas to "riverboats" and state lotteries across the country. There is a medical argument, though not a very convincing one: alcohol is more dangerous in a variety of ways, including the tendency of some drunks to get violent. One could argue that the abuse of McDonald's has a greater potential health-care cost than the abuse of marijuana. (Although it's true that with legalization, those two might not be unrelated.) Obviously, marijuana can be abused. But the costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable. Would legalization be any worse?

In any case, the drug-reform discussion comes just at the right moment. We boomers are getting older every day. You're not going to want us on the highways. Make us your best offer.

[jwirr]

1. I don't think making sense is the problem. Convincing the majority

of the American public that it is a good idea and not just a liberal idea is the problem.

[Beam Me Up]

2. I hate articles like this.

I'm not a journalist so I don't know what they are called -- but they are a particular type of article. I've seen them many times. The author contextualizes his information in a kind of "wittiness" or "enlightened cynicism" as if this will make it all more palatable. The consequence is a kind of superficiality that masquerades as critical commentary. I say "superficial" because there is no attempt on the author's part to investigate, much less reveal, the real reasons behind drug prohibition. I believe there is a good reason fort that, which is that it was largely due to the false reporting of this professional journalists predecessors that the groundwork was laid for drug prohibition. I mean all drugs but most specifically marijuana. Would marijuana have been prohibited had this prohibition not been proceeded by a period of journalistic hysterics proclaiming what a menace refer (read non-white folk) was to polite (read white folk) society? Has anything significantly changed in this regard? Is anyone telling http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm">THE STORY about HOW and why marijuana was really prohibited in the first place -- and how it has been kept illegal for more than half a century largely by a kind of journalism that passes for "intelligent" and "factual" discourse in "polite" society?

I'm glad this issue is being discussed but I do not expect it to be discussed factually by a profession of liars whose real function is to create and maintain a particular social "zeitgeist".


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[Uncle Joe]

3. I agree, Klein is clearly on the right side of an issue and yet argues his point in a

mediocre, Milquetoast manner. He can't seem to or doesn't want to connect the dots and make the moral points for legalization, just pointing toward some against it, combined with his fear based political analysis and back handed slap against the people's will via the Internet, all turn this in to a *piss poor article in spite of the fact I agree with him on the major point.

*Unless he was writing satire, in which case there was more piss involved in this piss poor article.

His own article should have allowed him to connect at least one moral point, furthermore 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners doesn't make us a "criminal" country, it just means our laws are among the most draconian, and our government has little respect for the American People's freedom and privacy. Klein needs to grow some perspective.

In regard to our government, I consider simple justice to be the supreme moral point. I consider any industry that profits from imprisoning the American People, taking away their hard fought freedom with the ability and wherewithal to bribe the people's government to be anathema to morality. I also consider the Bill of Rights to have moral qualities, based on our values as a nation, among them freedom and privacy.

I consider alleviating the suffering of those in pain to be of a much higher moral priority than enriching those greedy corporations; based on profiting from the American People's afflictions. Maybe this was the reason for Klein's lukewarm writing skills, I wonder how many ads Big Pharma buys from Time?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

"But there are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice, especially on the sentencing side. As Webb pointed out in a cover story in Parade magazine, the U.S. is, by far, the "most "criminal" country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public. (See the top 10 ballot measures.)"

<snip>

"So why not do it? There are serious moral arguments, both secular and religious. There are those who believe — with some good reason — that the accretion of legalized vices is debilitating, that we are a less virtuous society since gambling spilled out from Las Vegas to "riverboats" and state lotteries across the country. There is a medical argument, though not a very convincing one: alcohol is more dangerous in a variety of ways, including the tendency of some drunks to get violent. One could argue that the abuse of McDonald's has a greater potential health-care cost than the abuse of marijuana. (Although it's true that with legalization, those two might not be unrelated.) Obviously, marijuana can be abused. But the costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable. Would legalization be any worse?"

<snip>

[Tutankhamun]

4. The writer wasn't attempting to create an expose of the real reasons for marijuana prohibition.

Nor did the writer intend to lay out a comprehensive argument for legalization. Either task would require a far longer article.
The author found a "hook" (the facetious part about baby boomers, driving, drugs, and turning 80) and used it to draw readers in before making a more serious and substantial argument about marijuana and the economy. It was a quick, entertaining read with a timely argument for legalization.