Five years ago, California voters said no to legalized marijuana. But after Colorado and Washington passed pot laws, will the state reconsider? Drug “I do feel threatened by the election, because we’re not ready,” says the owner of MINT Alternative Healing, John Paul, or JP. He’s voicing his opinion on future elections and future propositions regarding marijuana. “We don’t know enough about marijuana yet to fully make it recreational or to fully legalize it.” 16
Debate by Alice Koltchev JP is developing a new “concept” in his store, reaching out to veterans, athletes, business people, and seniors. He’s cultivated a clean and professional environment for patients to get clean, pesticide-free, and lab-tested medicine by working closely with SC Labs. MINT provides free delivery of high quality marijuana to a huge following of customers. In 1996 California approved the the legal use of marijuana as medicine. In 2010, a law allowing for recreational use was defeated, but after Colorado and Washington successfully passed laws sustaining the recreational use of marijuana, the Marijuana Policy Project, or MPP, drafted legislation to force a vote in California in 2016. Founded in 1995, the MPP is the largest national organization focused solely on “ending marijuana prohibition.” In the November midterm elections, Washington, DC and Oregon legalized the recreational use of marijuana, while the majority of voters in Florida approved a similar measure, which nevertheless fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority. The Drug Policy Alliance, or DPA, a national organization focused on promoting scientific and healthy drug policies, intends to play a large role in the California campaign. The DPA expects to spend between eight and twelve million dollars. The MPP believes the law will pass. “Once state legislatures were written, once states started sticking their necks out on this issue,” explains Morgan Fox, representative of the MPP, “there have been probably over a dozen states looking to do something similar to what Colorado and Washington did, so I really think it’s a matter of exponential growth at this point.” ¨I believe [recreational legalization] can be successful, considering such a high demand for the drug. But I think success is a relative term,” says Avi Sinai, a senior. As a holder of a green card with unrestricted access to medical Cannabis, he doesn’t believe the law will affect him. ¨What follows Cannabis's legalization is going to be more issues depending on what kind of legalization we are talking about, and whether it is simply decriminalizing the drug, or whether restrictions will be placed in favor of pharmaceutical and industrial businesses.¨ The primary mission of the MPP is to ¨end marijuana arrests for responsible marijuana users,¨ or decriminalization. ¨When it comes to drug treatment, you start to see people who are caught with small amounts of marijuana <strong>that</strong> are given the choice between jail and treatment,” Fox says. ¨The state pays for treatment, so a lot of people who are running these clinics spend most of their time with people who are responsible marijuana users for the most part and are just caught and would rather go to these classes than go to jail, and this limits the potential to help people with serious drug issues.¨ Allison Holcomb was the campaign director of Initiative 502 in Washington state two years ago. “I-502 is at the right time, and it’s backed by the right people,” she explained to the New York Times. “The war on drugs has contorted us as a nation. It has taken what it means to be an American--to live in hope, to live in dignity, to live in freedom--and has turned it on its head.” Holcomb has never used marijuana, yet became interested in changing drug law through her first job as a criminal defense attorney. She argues <strong>that</strong> the increase in arrests has not driven marijuana use down, and therefore only strengthens the black market and undermines society. Holcomb often reminds the press <strong>that</strong> ten percent more people in the USA have tried marijuana than in any other country. Fox predicts <strong>that</strong> law enforcement offices will see a decrease in grants for marijuana law enforcement. In the eyes of JP, marijuana has already been mostly decriminalized, referring to the classification of marijuana by the federal government as a Schedule III drug as of 1999: drugs with a moderate to low level of potential for physical and psychological dependence. Potential penalties include a prison sentence for no longer than five years, and a fine no larger than $500,000. “The only reason I want it to be legalized is [<strong>that</strong>] we have all these people <strong>that</strong> are in jail,” explains JP. “Gotta get them out.” Out of 1,552,432 arrests for violations of drug laws in 2012, almost nine percent involve the possession of marijuana, and half of all drug arrests were marijuana-related. Middle and upper class users arrested can usually afford private drug treatment and in exchange receive more lenient punishment--typically a fine of one dollar and a sentence of one day. Approximately $2.5 billion are spent each year processing marijuana arrests. “I'm thoroughly opposed to drug dealers.” Judge Thelton Henderson told NPR in the winter of 1998. “But again, I think they're entitled to an individual look…. I have sent many away for as long as I can send them away, and I think they deserve it. Other [people], I think, are redeemable--can be rehabilitated.” Henderson lists a number of cases where the minimum 20-year sentence seemed extreme; most arrested marijuana users <strong>that</strong> are caught are otherwise responsible and educated could be taught the same lesson with two or three years, he says. Sinai claims <strong>that</strong> ¨our society basically is built so <strong>that</strong> pharmaceuticals and big businesses will take over the industry and tarnish the pure benefits of Cannabis to accommodate such a money making machine.¨ In his view, legalization of marijuana
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