“Are we on drugs?” This was the question that then-KCBA President Fred Noland asked seven years ago. Turns out, the answer is still “Yes.”
Twelve states, including Washington, allow the legal distribution or use of marijuana for medical purposes, and every month the federal government mails 300 marijuana cigarettes to each of the five remaining patients of the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program created in 1978. Additionally, according to a recent article in Forbes, which was in turn based on a study conducted by Jon Gettman and published in the Bulletin of Cannabis Reform, federally funded surveys reveal that at least 25 million people use marijuana annually.
Gettman’s study reports that “54.8% of children aged 12–17 and 52.8% of adults over the age of 35 say marijuana would be easy for them to get,” with an even higher response for those between these age groups. In other words, most people know where to get marijuana. Unfortunately, that place is an uncontrolled black market, where kids both deal and purchase.
The criminal justice system, despite expending incredible resources (approximately $7.5 billion per year across the U.S., by conservative estimates, as noted in the Background Information to the proposed KCBA resolution) has not produced a corresponding decrease in the operation of that market or the profits it turns for illicit dealers. Neither, apparently, has it curbed the ease with which most children think they could score some pot.
While the criminal justice system has failed to make headway against the problem not only of marijuana use, but the use and abuse of drugs generally, medical marijuana users, recreational users, personal-use growers and others who pose a minimal threat to society are visited with random and arbitrary enforcement that has a disproportionate impact on economically disadvantaged communities. Arrest and conviction result not only in the criminal sanctions imposed by the court, but in a number of collateral consequences that may include: the loss of professional licenses; loss of educational aid; bars on adoption, voting and jury service; and the loss of food stamps and access to public housing, depending on which state one lives in. By the way, this criminal and collateral punishment-focused system closely guards access to meaningful treatment through drug courts (of which, from the small number admitted, less than half successfully graduate) or other programs.
The Drug Policy Project of the King County Bar Association does not advocate smoking marijuana or making it easier to get. It’s already easy to get. Instead, the DPP has proposed its resolution to the King County Bar Association Board of Trustees in order to enhance public order and reduce crime, improve public health, protect children and make efficient use of scarce public resources.
By all measures, the current approach of relying primarily on the criminal justice system has failed. The DPP believes, after seven years of hard work on this issue, that we have a better approach, or at least one with more promise to be effective.
When asked by citizens’ initiative to pass judgment by proxy on the utility of the War on Drugs with respect to marijuana in 2003, voters in the City of Seattle resoundingly told the city to deemphasize to its lowest enforcement priority the arrest and prosecution of adult marijuana possession offenses. The broader community in our area already recognizes that which politicians and professionals (like the members of our bar association) have not yet been able or willing to say publicly: with respect to marijuana, if not other drugs, the War has failed.
It is time to recognize that a system of controlled distribution that properly manages and balances the need to treat, educate, minimize the black market and assess criminal sanctions only for criminal activity (such as driving while under the influence or committing other crimes, such as theft) is the right approach.
The KCBA’s adoption of the proposed resolution would be a positive step in the effort to create an approach that better achieves rational policy objectives. The Drug Policy Project recommends the Board adopt this proposed resolution so that we can continue our work with local, state and federal governments to achieve a more effective system of regulation.
[Editor’s Note: Statements in opposition to the marijuana policy, as well as additional statements in support, are posted on the KCBA Web site at http://www.kcba.org/scriptcontent/KCBA/druglaw/comments.cfm#submit. The Bar Bulle-tin also will consider selected letters to the editor on this subject for publication in the December issue. Anonymous submissions will not be considered.]
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Mark Aoki-Fordham is the chair of KCBA’s Drug Policy Project.
