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The concept of marijuana legalization has gone in and out of vogue over the past 20 years, as several states, either de jure or de facto, have decriminalized its possession and use. Some describe the cause of decriminalization in the 1970 s as a wave of permissive liberalism. This is hardly the case, however. In the early 1970 s, a presidential commission chaired by the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, Raymond P. Schafer, called for federal decriminalization and eventual legalization, regulation, and control of marijuana (National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972). The commission concluded that marijuana should be decriminalized.
This was not interpreted as a license to abuse substances. In fact, the Shafer Commission's overriding concern was reducing substance abuse. According to the report, "On the basis of our findings, discussed in previous Chapters, we have concluded that society should seek to discourage use, while concentrating its attention on the prevention and treatment of heavy and very heavy use. The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal use is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective" (National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972).
In 1977, Senator Jacob Javits and Representative Edward Koch introduced a bill to federally decriminalize marijuana. Although both congressmen were Democrats, their motivation for this bill had as much to do with the economics of pursuing marijuana users, then estimated at 13 million, as the undesirability of seeking to imprison such a large portion of the national population (Koch, 1977). Today, government surveys estimate the number of regular marijuana users at about 11. 8 million (NIDA, 1988). The cost of pursuing and punishing 11. 8 million marijuana users, if that is all there are, would be enormous, both financially and socially. NORML and others are skeptical of the government's ability to take an accurate survey of any criminal behavior.
Such estimates inevitably under report the actual number of users for several reasons, including agency bias and respondents' fear of disclosure. This will present problems when marijuana is legalized. The number of reported users will appear to skyrocket. The number of users may in fact increase slightly; however, the biggest increase will come from those who failed to report their use while it was illegal. The difference between truly new users and users previously hidden in the general population will not be immediately apparent. Thus estimates of the impact of legalization will have to be tempered appropriately.
Currently, only a small fraction of offenders are actually caught. The public concern over violence stems largely from the trade in crack cocaine, methamphetamine, and other dangerous drugs. The question becomes, do we have the luxury to continue sending police after marijuana bushes, or is there a more effective, less wasteful means to control marijuana use? The alternatives include: (1) continue the present system of catching a few and making examples of them; (2) fully decriminalize the possession and use of marijuana in private by adults, as 11 states have attempted to do; or (3) legalize, regulate, and control marijuana, a substance that DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young called "the safest therapeutically active substance known to man" (Young, 1988). Another option, actually only an expansion of the current system, would mean arresting, prosecuting, and punishing a significant percentage of the estimated 11. 8 million regular marijuana offenders. This idea should be discarded as impossible and undesirable.
In 1988, law enforcement authorities made 1, 155, 200 criminal arrests for all drug offenses (FBI, 1989). Of these, more than 324, 000 arrests were for simple possession of marijuana (FBI, 1989). It is unreasonable to increase by 12 times the number of drug arrests made annually, and add the proportionate amount of resources to the criminal justice system, simply to crack down on marijuana users. There are higher priorities for the criminal justice system and for society as a whole. Significant expansion of criminal justice efforts directed solely against occasional marijuana use would be unworkable because of the cost. It would also further compound crime problems, since resources would be diverted from pursuit of violent criminals toward marijuana users, sellers, and growers.
The ethics of any society that criminalizes and seeks to punish 5 % of its population over a simple plant must be called into question. The rationale behind such a scheme must be questioned critically, and the costs of both dollars and lives ruined by a criminal drug arrest must be considered. There is also the question of how to enforce the prohibition. Marijuana is simply the dried leaves and flowers of the cannabis plant. The cannabis plant grows easily almost anywhere in the world, and is produced and sold in all 50 states. It grows wild as a weed throughout the United States and in many other parts of the globe.
The plant may be grown either outdoors or indoors, using very simple gardening techniques. It is possible for any individual to violate the current marijuana prohibition with very little chance of detection. For these reasons among others, criminalization of marijuana must be discarded as an option. How can society control marijuana? This article argues that the best available option is regulation of the market through civil means. This civil regulation could take any of several forms.
NORML has developed a system for such regulation, and several others have been proposed in the past. Existing methods for control of legal drugs (e. g. , alcohol, tobacco, aspirin) could serve as models for a marijuana regulation system. Both positive and negative experiences with legal drugs could be used to help formulate the best possible system. Specifics are important, but a lack of consensus among law-makers on an agreed-upon model should not end the discussion.
Rather, it should serve as a touching-off point for discussion. The question should not be, as it has been legislatively, "How can we best proceed within the limited constraint of prohibition as decided several decades ago?" but rather "How can we best regulate, control, and discourage the use and abuse of marijuana?" The answer to that question is simple: Legalize marijuana, regulate it, and tax the commerce. CURRENT STATE OF MARIJUANA PROHIBITION The goals of a particular program or policy and its success or failure at meeting these goals must be reviewed in order to analyze the policy. In terms of marijuana as with other illegal drugs, the goal of current policy is twofold: (1) halt use, and (2) suppress production and trafficking. How successful has the government's war on marijuana been? A number of indicators give a contradictory view.
For example, the 1988 NIDA Household Survey of drug use in the noninstitutionalized population referred to above estimates that 11. 8 million people use marijuana once per month or more. This is a decrease of roughly 37 % from 1985, when an estimated 18 million were regular users (NIDA, 1988). Other indicators tell a different story, however. The National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee, for example, estimates that in 1985 there were 6, 400 - 8, 300 metric tons of marijuana available for consumption (NNICC, 1988). NNICC reports that in 1988, 12, 13016, 7 10 metric tons were available for consumption (NNICC, 1989). The NNICC also reports that domestic production of marijuana has increased and notes that marijuana prices have risen in the last 5 to 10 years (NNICC, 1989).
NORML contends, and many formal and informal indicators support the contention, that the NNICC e...
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