The King County Bar Association Drug Policy Project (DPP) has asked the Board of Trustees to consider and adopt a “Resolution on the Control of Marijuana” at the Board’s December 5 or December 19 meeting.
This resolution is in line with a Resolution on State Regulation and Control of Psychoactive Substances, adopted by the KCBA on January 19, 2005, requesting the Washington Legislature to establish a special consultative body composed of public officials, civic leaders and experts to develop recommendations for legislation to create regulatory systems for the control of psychoactive substances.
Since the adoption of that resolution, the DPP has narrowed its focus in order to more effectively realize concrete policy changes. To that end, the DPP has proposed that the KCBA start by promoting the idea of state regulation and taxation of marijuana as an alternative to criminalization of the widely used drug. With experience with state regulation and taxation of marijuana, the DPP believes that the challenges associated with regulating and taxing more potent psychoactive drugs can be addressed in a more rational manner.
This resolution contemplates a system in which marijuana would be available for lawful purchase by adults without a medical prescription or other special license to purchase it. Production and sale would be directly administered by a governmental entity or by private parties under strict government regulation. Penalties, either civil or criminal, would be imposed for violations of the system’s regulatory requirements — for example, for selling or otherwise providing marijuana to minors, for tax evasion, and for smoking in places where smoking is not permitted.
The resolution also contemplates the development of strong and effective public education programs, aimed both at children and at adults, concerning the effects of marijuana use. We note that strong public education efforts have led to reductions in tobacco use in recent years. By contrast, increased emphasis and expenditures on marijuana prohibition in recent years have produced no corresponding decrease in marijuana usage rates.1 And evidence suggests that marijuana prohibition and its associated black markets have made marijuana easier for children to obtain than either beer or cigarettes.2
Marijuana prohibition costs U.S. taxpayers at least $7.5 billion in law enforcement expenditures each year,3 with Washington taxpayers spending approximately $88.4 million in 2000.4 Significant police, judicial, prosecutorial and criminal defense resources are used in the enforcement of existing marijuana laws. In 2005, nearly 800,000 people were arrested on marijuana charges in the United States — one every 40 seconds — and 88% of these arrests were for possession only.5
One in eight drug offenders in state prison is locked up for a marijuana offense.6 While total arrests for all offenses combined decreased by 5% from 1991 to 2005, marijuana arrests increased 173% during that same period.7 Current long-term forecasts indicate that Washington will need to build two new prisons by 2020 at a cost of $250 million to construct and $45 million per year to operate.8
A marijuana-related conviction may make it less likely that an individual will become a productive member of society and more likely that he or she will become a public charge. It may be a barrier to employment or housing, to funding for education, to eligibility for various public programs, to child visitation, and may result in deportation.9
Marijuana prohibition has created a $35.8 billion per year domestic black market and made marijuana the largest cash crop in the United States.10
Marijuana prohibition has its roots in early 20th-century racism directed at Mexican and West Indian immigrants and African Americans,11 and marijuana laws continue to be enforced disproportionately against members of minority populations.12
Marijuana use is less harmful than either tobacco or alcohol use.13 While some (less than 10% of) users may develop some dependency on marijuana,14 the withdrawal symptoms they experience on discontinuing marijuana use are generally mild and short-lived.15
Most users of marijuana do not use other illicit drugs, and claims that marijuana use increases the likelihood that an individual will use other, more harmful substances are not empirically supported.16
Additional information regarding the resolution and the DPP is available on the KCBA Web site at http://www.kcba.org/druglaw/.
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1 Jason Ziedenberg & Jason Colburn, Justice Policy Institute, Efficacy & Impact: The Criminal Justice Response to Marijuana Policy in the U.S. 3 (2005) (citing Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Services (DHHS), National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and Health, Estimated Numbers of Past Month Users of Illicit Drugs Aged 12 and Older (1995, 1996, 1997-Table 5A; 1998-Table 2.1, 1999, 2000-Table 1.1A, 2001, Table H.1); National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Estimated Numbers of Past Month Users of Illicit Drugs Aged 12 and Older (Table H.1-2002, Table G.1-2003). See also SAMHSA, 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. While no state currently controls marijuana in the manner proposed by the current resolution, 11 states have eliminated criminal penalties for marijuana possession. They are: California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon. (In Alaska, individuals have a constitutional right of privacy that protects the possession of less than four ounces of marijuana in their homes. Ravin v. Alaska, 537 P.2d 494, 504–12 [Alaska 1975].) The decriminalization of marijuana possession in those states has not led to an increase in marijuana usage rates. Eric W. Single, The Impact of Marijuana Decriminalization: An Update, 10 J. Pub. Health Pol’y 456, 459–61 (1989). The states have realized significant savings in law enforcement costs and redirection of public safety resources to more pressing priorities. Id. at 461–63.
2 The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA), National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse VII: Teens, Parents and Siblings 17 (2002). See also, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Dep’t of Health and Human Services (DHHS), 2006 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and Health, Figure 6.5, “Perceived Availability of Selected Illicit Drugs among Youths Aged 12–17: 2002–2006” (over half of the youths reported marijuana was “fairly or very easy to obtain”); CASA, National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XII: Teens, Parents and Siblings 17 (2007) (more than one in three teens (37%) say they can buy marijuana within a day; 17% say they can buy marijuana within an hour).
3 National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Marijuana Prohibition 1937–1997 (1997) (comparing data from Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), National Drug Control Strategy, 1997 (1997); ONDCP, State and Local Spending on Drug Control Activities, Report from the National Survey on State and Local Governments (1993); and FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, 1995 (1996)).
4 Jeffrey A. Miron, Marijuana Policy Project, The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition 23 (Table 2) (2005).
5 Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, 2005 (2006).
6 Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004 (2006).
7 FBI, supra note 5, reports for years 1999 and 2005.
8 Steve Aos, et al., Washington State Institute for Public Policy, Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Future Prison Construction, Criminal Justice Costs, and Crime Rates 1, 4 (2006).
9 See, e.g., In re Orr, Empl. Sec. Comm’r Dec.2d 795 (1987) (Washington employee discharged solely on basis of off-duty marijuana use even though no impairment of job performance was detectable and use caused no harm to employer’s interests); 42 U.S.C. § 1437f(d)(1)(B)(iii) (any drug-related criminal activity on or near public housing, engaged in by a tenant, any member of the tenant’s household, or any guest or other person under the tenant’s control, shall be cause for termination of tenancy); 20 U.S.C. § 1091(r) (suspension of federal financial aid eligibility for any drug possession); State on Behalf of Hendrix v. Waters, 89 Wn. App. 921, 951 P.2d 317 (1998) (trial court did not abuse discretion in conditioning father’s visitation with son on cessation of marijuana use); 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(B)(i) (any alien convicted of a drug offense, other than a single offense involving possession of no more than 30 grams of marijuana for personal use, is deportable).
10 Jon Gettman, Marijuana Production in the United States (2006), 2 Bulletin of Cannabis Reform (2006).
11 Richard J. Bonnie & Charles H. Whitebread, II, The Marijuana Conviction: A History of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States 32–52 (1999).
12 Ryan S. King & Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project, The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on Drugs in the 1990s 9 (2005); Lynn Zimmer & John P. Morgan, Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts 40, 42 (1997).
13 Institute of Medicine, Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base 83–136 (1999).
14 Id. at 92–98.
15 Id. at 89–91.
16 Id. at 98–101.
