More than 65 professors from many of America’s top law schools have signed a letter urging Californians to vote “yes” on Proposition 19, a measure that would would decriminalize the recreational use and cultivation of small amounts of marijuana by adults. The letter says that “as with alcohol prohibition,” the nation’s laws have failed to control marijuana, resulting in “an unregulated and increasingly violent black market.” Among those calling for passage of California’s Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 are such legal luminaries as Randy Barnett of Georgetown University, Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California at Irvine, Alan Dershowitz of Harvard University, Ilya Somin of George Mason University, Nadine Strossen of New York University, and Alexander Volokh of Emory University.
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Said signatures will now no doubt be a smoking gun against approval for appointment to the Supreme Court.
“…and Eugene Volokh of UCLA.”
The actual letter (linked in the opening sentence) does not list Eugene Volokh as a signatory. It instead lists his brother, Alexander “Sasha” Volokh, of Emory University.
Experience shows that if about 10% or more of the general population engage in some practice, it is folly to make it illegal as it will be unenforceable and will stimulate large-scale criminal activity.
While marijuana has never been as popular as alcohol (or tobacco) it is plenty popular enough to make the “War On Drugs” an a priori failure. Too bad we had to learn that a posteriori!
I guess the next issue will be prostitution, another pretty popular industry.
An amendment to the Constitution to decriminalize marijuana is required for the whole nation, not just one state. Anti marijuana activists are arguing that said legislation will not make a dent in drug related crime. Have the reachers calculated into the independent and dependent variables the probability of users switching from an illegal drug to a legalized marijuana? My guess is the results would show a greater decrease in violence than predicited.
cu_alum: You are correct, and the blog post has been corrected to reflect the change. Thank you for pointing it out.
-Don Troop
Quoth wdabc (Numbers?) “An amendment to the Constitution to decriminalize marijuana is required for the whole nation, not just one state.”
Then the Country will indeed go to pot.
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If possession and use of marijuana and other mood-altering substances are de-criminalized, who then, can we target as “bad guys and gals?” If the obvious violence and asorted criminal activities currently associated with the present state of the law are significantly reduced, doesn’t it also require a reciprocal reduction in the number of “good guys and gals” sucking off of the public tits? How many fewer cruisers, service-revolvers, uniforms, cameras, radios, etc, will society have to spend funds on in response to lighter, more professional and intelligent police departments? Can the arms industry remain a large employer and formidable political force, if the demand for their product is substantially reduced, when the violence associated with the criminalization of marijuana purchase, possession and use is drastically curtailed?
More importantly, how much will soceity change when all of the young minorities, who are presently being incarcerated and ostracized, kept constantly under surveillance by Big Brother and otherwise denied full citizenship, are free to indulge their personal and private recreation, without being stigmatized and traumatized on a daily basis?
Drugs, particularly marijuana, is used today as a political and economic tool to enable the overly-paranoid and greedy dominant-group, within American society, to better control and extend it’s influence over less-organized, literate and conscious others, within society, especially minorities.
Look more at what keepng drugs illegal does, for some, rather than what it doesn’t do. If honest and capable of seeing beyond the tree, in one’s face, one can see the real reason why drugs are illegal, in America. You can also readily see why there is no strong impetus to make it illegal in The netherland. Does the Netherland have a large, minority population that a majority needs to control and exploit? Do they have a minority, in their midst, who was enslaved and cause those who enslaved them enough anxiety that the majority feels compelled to suppress, by any mean necessary?
There is not, and can never be, any such thing as a War on Drugs. Conscious people know that, for a fact! If tghere is not and cannot be a war on Drugs, then, for what purpose has this nation waged a purported war for more than three decades, is the question that enlighten folks ask rhetorically. If one has been the victim of the charade, is it any wonder that he or she is more bitter than others and more vexed than others, to see it, and the hypocrisy it produces, continue?
How many very talented and insightful American citizens have been prevented from making positive contribution to society, because of the success, those with direct vested-interests, in the status quo, have had and continue to have, in keeping the larger society ignorant and hysterical? Is there a reason we have hundreds of CSI, SVI, and other alphabets shows on t.v., depicting “good guys” versus “bad guys and gals?” I think so and it goes way beyond mere entertainment. There is a reason a 30 second commercial, during the Super Bowl, costs so darn much: people, generally, are relatively easily influenced. Mass-communication, in the hands of those with an agenda, moves, ever so gingerly and stealthly, into the realm of mass-indoctrination.
For whom the bell toll? It tolls for a society of people who have become bloated and consumed by their own over-confidence and false sense of security in their aging tools of oppression.
To “wturnertsu”…….uuummmmm – WHAT???????????????????
The War on Drugs is oxymoronic — the more it “succeeds,” the more it is doomed to fail. In economic terms, demand for marijuana is very price-inelastic: price increases reduce demand very little. In this respect, marijuana smokers are like cigarette smokers; they’ll pay virtually any price to get their drug of choice. (No value judgment; just fact.) Thus, as the War on Drugs reduces supply and demand is relatively unchanged — the result is simply higher prices. The higher profits combined with the risks involved in evading the War’s tactics leads to two things: (1) the involvement of the criminal element and (2) criminal violence to intimidate and/or brutally attack those who are on the War’s front lines. One need look no further than the estimated 30,000 people who have been killed in drug cartels’ turf wars to see the evidence.
Allow individuals to grow their own (easily cultivated) supplies and the demand for marijuana from outside sources dries up. (I mean, really, how much marijuana can one smoke beyond a reasonable personal allotment?) When citizens can legally “grow their own,” pot dealers will go the way of rum runners after the repeal of Prohibition.
It’s no longer a matter of IF, but WHEN the m.j. laws fall. The handwriting is writ large on the wall.
535, just ignore the part that you couldn’t comprehend (aren’t willing to accept or acknowledge) and simply deal with that portion that you can. Perhaps my literary skills are poor, but my observation skills aren’t.
The so-called War on Drug was, and remains to this day, a poorly disguised means of controlling a segment of society, while also providing a huge economic benefit to another segment. Slice and dice it, anyway you choose; there is no intelligent, just reason, to support the criminalization of marijuana, the mass-incarceration and deprivation of citizenship of so many Americans. You do know that persons convicted of even small amount of marijuana are summarily denied employment opportunities and housing, don’t you? You also know that they have difficulty entering colleges and universities, in some states, too.
Balancing the harm vs. the benefit of de-criminalizing the stuff, any honest person, and those with no vested interest in keeping it illegal, would readily acknowledge that it is time to assign the 30 year saga to the dust-bin of history, as was done with the prohibition of alcohol. The Golden Goose has laid more than enough eggs and more than a few minorities have died and/or had their lives destroyed as a result of the sinister plot. Far too many whites have been kept estranged from their families, as well. How many more corrupt persons in law enforcement and the judicial system must we allow to become filthy-rich from the status quo, before we say in unison, enough is enough.
5358, you know darn well, What. If not, then get someone to translate. The bell tolls for you and your kind to let go and end your exploitation of a very gullible and docile public. Drugs do not produce the violence; the corruption and competition in controlling and distributing it does.