Imagine walking into your local liquor store and on the wall behind the clerk’s counter, you see a license permitting the facility to sell marijuana. To some this may sound farfetched and to others this may be the day they have been waiting for, but either way it is still a somewhat strange concept.
Of course there are medical marijuana dispensaries, clubs, and pharmacies, where people with prescriptions can purchase marijuana, but they have a doctor’s approval to use the drug. This is how marijuana has been legally sold for years.
What if you didn’t need a doctor’s signature to legally buy marijuana? This is what Tom Ammiano, Democratic Assembly Member of San Francisco, is proposing in his bill AB390 Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act. The bill was proposed Feb. 23 and has caused much speculation among the media. On April 20, National Public Radio conducted fake interviews to create a scenario of how life would change if marijuana were completely legal.
Some may believe nothing would change except California would gain between $12-16 billion, plus save tax payers an estimate of $1 billion, while others may worry the drug would become more popular and cause havoc (bad drivers, unemployment, crime, etc.). In reality, both of these scenarios would probably be wrong. In order to truly speculate, you need to know the specifics of the bill.
The idea is to tax and regulate marijuana similar to alcohol. Farms that grow the plant would have to come forward and be regulated by the government in order to sell the product to licensed liquor stores, which would then sell marijuana to persons over 21.
To me this doesn’t seem like such a bad system on the surface, because it is simply a fact that people smoke marijuana and if they want it, they can find a way to get it since it is available. Marijuana is actually supposed to be California’s leading crop, bringing in about $14 billion a year, so I do believe it should be taxed in order for the state to benefit from it.
However, when it gets down to how all of this would be executed, circumstances get more complicated.
If the bill were to pass, the immediate issue would be getting farmers to come forward. It doesn't seem likely to me that an already profitable business would want to be taxed and regulated. On the other hand, they wouldn't have to worry about raids or jail time.
Once farms decide to work with the government, how exactly are they going to be regulated? When I called Ammiano's Director of Communications, Quentin Mecke, he couldn't give any specifics of how everything would be carried out, but said after bills are passed, they may be amended. He did say that how the product would be sold would be debated, and it wouldn't be inspected in a special way (probably just the facilities that grow it would be inspected).
After the production comes the sale. If marijuana were to be sold in drug stores just like cigarettes or alcohol, would that make it any more available to people, especially minors? The legal age would be 21, but that has never stopped minors from getting adults to buy them alcohol or cigarettes. When this issue came up, Mecke said there is no end all be all to stopping minors from getting their hands on any kind of drug, but he does believe legalizing marijuana and regulating it is a step in the right direction.
Another issue would be drug dealers. They could possibly be put out of business. Unless some growers decide to remain illegal and outside of government regulation, or if they decided to buy legal marijuana and sell it at a higher price to minors. If dealers were out of business, what would happen? Possibly they would turn to dealing other drugs or decide to get a steady "real" job. It isn't easy to tell if this would have a positive, negative, or zero effect on society.
And all those who were put in jail, on probation, or under house arrest with crimes relating to marijuana, would they be pardoned? When asked about prisoners and such, Mecke said no one would be immediately let out, and most people would continue with their sentences. But, in the future, no one could be arrested for having marijuana on them, so jails would have fewer petty criminals. Therefore, there would be more room in jails and police could focus more on serious crimes (hopefully).
It is hard to predict what would happen if marijuana would become legal. Because, it already is a part of society. Mecke said, "we are simply recognizing reality." Marijuana is prevalent in California, so would legalizing it make an impact in a non-fiscal way? I'm not sure it would. I think legalizing marijuana would simply bring in money our state could really use in our current economic state.
Every bill and legal issue comes with problems, and they all need to be debated. I don't think Ammiano's bill is any different. But I don't think it s going to pass any time soon. The majority of Americans, even Californians, haven't gotten past their moral tie-ups so it will take time to convince many people that making marijuana completely legal is a positive thing. Still, the bill gets people thinking, which is never bad.