Marijuana in California

Two days ago I stepped inside Santa Monica City Hall to tape a show of Connie Martinson Talks Books. The guest before me was Mike Farrell, of M*A*S*H fame, and he stated that 40 percent of the prison population in this country is incarcerated for drug crimes, most of them for marijuana.

How much money, I wondered, is spent arresting, indicting, prosecuting, transporting, imprisoning, guarding, feeding, clothing, and rehabilitating them?

The answer is compounded by a marijuana legalization bill before the California senate that, if passed, would provide nearly $1.4 billion in revenues each year. Here’s a story on it in the Orange County Register. It cites a study by the State Board of Equalization that “estimates retail sales would bring $900 million from a $50 per ounce fee and $392 million in sales taxes.” The revenues would go toward drug education and rehabilitation programs.

Add the revenues to the reduction in expenses once the entire state Drug War machinery is dismantled and the cost/benefit ratio looks extraordinary.

The report also noted that 16 million ounces of pot are consumed each year in the state. So much for the success of criminalization.

Elsewhere in the OC Register appears an op-ed entitled “Enough Senseless Slaughter.” It begins with a grisly picture: “the discovery in the West Coast state of Michoacan of the bodies of 12 federal agents who had obviously been tortured before being killed, then dumped along a mountain road. Authorities suspect La Familia, an especially violent trafficking cartel.”

Ever since President Calderon declared war on the cartels in 2006, and deployed 45,000 troops in the effort, arrested 60,000 suspects and seized large caches of drugs, 11,000 people have been killed. Instead of the cartels folding under the military operation, they have mobilized. Cartelistas have coordinated attacks in multiple cities, engaging in gun battles with troops that have lasted up to 10 hours. “It’s a self-defeating effort,” the editors say, one that has only raised the price of drugs, thus raising the incentives for drug running.

But Calderon stands firm, declaring “we will not take one step backwards in this matter.”

The editors, who are no liberal bunch, come back to the state legislature:

“The most effective way to undermine these vicious cartels would be to legalize currently illicit drugs and eliminate their huge profits. Given that most authorities believe that 40 percent to 60 percent of the Mexican cartels’ revenue come from marijuana, and California is a major market, California could make a significant contribution itself by passing San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s bill to legalize and tax marijuana.”