Despite Obama drug czar Gil Kerlikowske’s admonition that marijuana will still be federally outlawed regardless of the reduction of “war on drugs” rhetoric, there appears to be an increase in legal measures both at a state and federal level to legalize pot within the next few years, or at least severely reduce penalties for distribution.
According to SFGate, California’s budget crisis and increased public support are tipping the scales regarding pot legalization. The efforts include a July ballot measure in Oakland to create a cannabis tax category and hearings in the fall on a bill for decriminalization. The bill would allow limited cultivation, sales, and personal possession, but pro-decriminalization groups like TaxCannabis2010.org, estimate billions of dollars in sales tax revenue gain if marijuana is legalized.
Of course, even if California manages to legalize marijuana, the federal government still outlaws it. Activists hope that successful state initiatives will motivate change in the federal government, and the underlying states’ rights issue might set a tone conducive to the constitutional ideology of allowing states to grant greater freedoms to its citizens despite federal efforts to impose.
This dynamic is evident in the same-sex marriage issue today — some states are legalizing same-sex marriage while bills are being proposed in Congress to amend the U.S. Constitution to outlaw it. The concept of infringing upon freedom was played out to great detriment when the federal government passed the prohibition amendment, The Noble Experiment manifest in the 18th Amendment, later repealing it with the 21st Amendment. Today, marijuana legalization opponents argue that states’ rights should trump the federal government in issues like gay marriage, abortion, and gun rights, while arguing that the federal government trumps state sovereignty with regard to personal use of marijuana.
While this interplay carries on, the sting of the federal prohibition against marijuana has already become less severe with Obama’s new pot dealer policy. Last March, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the feds would no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries, and that states would be able to set their own marijuana laws. Regardless of such sentiment, the feds are still convicting and imprisoning dispensary owners.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, in June, a federal judge in Los Angeles handed over a year and a day prison sentence to a medical marijuana dispensary owner as an act of leniency, instead of the mandatory minimum five-year sentence for dealing in marijuana. This perpetuates the state-given rights versus federal prohibition issue, but it does establish some precedent and indication that, as Kerlikowske suggested, the tone of the drug war is being overtly and quickly lowered. What to watch for next is if California does legalize personal use, whether the federal government will conform to Holder’s assertion that states will be able to run their own show with regard to marijuana law.
