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Just Say ‘No’ to Legalization

Commentary by George and Sharon Runner

By George Runner | Sunday, Aug 17, 2014

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In two short years, California voters will almost certainly vote again on whether to make recreational marijuana use legal under state law.

It won’t be the first time. In 2010, California voters rejected Proposition 19, a deeply flawed legalization proposal, by a vote of 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent.

Since then, voters in Colorado and Washington have approved legalization. Surveys show 49 percent to 52 percent of likely voters now favor legalization of marijuana for recreational use.

Before we join Colorado and Washington in this risky new social experiment, Californians should be warned that many so-called “facts” cited by supporters are actually dangerous myths.

Myth No. 1 – Marijuana Is Harmless

At the same time big-government liberals are proposing banning everything from Big Gulp sodas to Happy Meals, they are hypocritically leading the charge for legalizing marijuana – a substance that contains more than 400 chemicals including the psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Proponents of legalization often compare cannabis to legal substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, aspirin or even peanuts to make their case for the supposed safety of marijuana. These are apples-to-oranges comparisons and are misleading.

Research proves that marijuana impairs judgment, critical thinking and memory, even days after use. A recent study found that teen use of marijuana can result in a lower IQ years into adulthood even after the user quits.

Another study found that greater use and increased levels of THC contributed to a 59-percent increase in marijuana-related emergency room visits in the U.S. between 2006 and 2010.

It should be no surprise then that the American Medical Association opposes marijuana legalization and warns that “cannabis is a dangerous drug and as such is a public health concern.”

Proponents of legalization say marijuana’s current legal status makes research into its full health impact difficult. “Legalize it so we can study it,” they argue. They might as well say, “Jump first and ask questions later.” If further research is needed, marijuana proponents should take their case to the federal government rather than state voters.

Keep in mind that any future California vote isn’t about medical marijuana. In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, making our state the first to legalize medical marijuana. As a result, patients with a serious medical condition can, with a doctor’s recommendation, legally obtain and possess marijuana, at least under state law. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

Myth No. 2 – Legalization Will Improve Public Safety

Legalization proponents argue that marijuana legalization will reduce drug cartel-related crime but ignore the fact that those cartels smuggle other dangerous drugs, as well.

The truth is that smuggling, black markets and related crime continue even when products are legal. Colorado and Washington have quickly discovered that many marijuana sellers and growers would rather remain in the “underground economy” than become legitimate and pay high taxes.

Even legal, high-taxed products such as cigarettes and tobacco are often smuggled. A 2013 study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy found that more than one-third of cigarettes smoked in California were smuggled into our state. Not coincidentally, the state with the highest cigarette taxes, New York, has the highest smuggling rate: 60.9 percent. Crime is not reduced because of legalization.

Legalization will also lead to more dangerous roads. Researchers found that marijuana use contributed to 12 percent of traffic deaths in 2010 – three times more than a decade earlier. Increased use will lead to more traffic deaths, particularly among young people.

Finally, if any doubt remains, ask residents who live near medical marijuana dispensaries whether their neighborhoods are safer. Then you’ll have your answer.

Myth No. 3 – Legalization Will Improve State Finances

California’s financial problems are the result of over spending and wrong priorities, not a lack of revenue. The state is receiving billions in new revenue due to a surging stock market and voter-approved tax increases. More revenue will merely tempt legislators toward greater fiscal irresponsibility.

In addition, revenue estimates connected to marijuana are typically overblown. Colorado and Washington are seeing lower revenues than were forecast. Medical marijuana is taxable and has been legal in California for years, and the state still struggles to collect taxes owed by growers and sellers.

Furthermore, businesses that grow or sell marijuana are in violation of federal law. As a consequence, they deal only in cash, rather than use a financial institution. This increases tax evasion and money laundering. These are serious crimes.

Unless Congress legalizes marijuana, growers and sellers will continue to operate in the shadows of our economy, and the state will have difficulty collecting taxes. Given all of these concerns, Californians would be wise to think twice before joining the social experiment underway in Colorado and Washington.

At the end of the day, we must ask ourselves if our society will be better off or worse off if we make mind-altering drugs available to more people. The prudent and compassionate answer is “no.”

George Runner is a member of the California Board of Equalization. Both George and Sharon Runner have served in the state Assembly and Senate. This commentary originally appeared in the Antelope Valley Press.

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17 Comments

jw says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

Riddikulus!!

Reply
Chris Fuentes says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

Mr. Runner: your data is outdated and lacks the reality of today, August 2014. I’ve spent the last 55 days in Boulder, CO observing the transformation of 20+ medical marijuana to recreational shops. Here’s a couples myths you don’t mention:

Hey Baby Boomers…this isn’t your ’80’s Disco era weed!

You smoked the leaves in college. the bud, oils, edibles and waxes for sale right now in CO are ‘insane’. Try ‘Ear Wax’ at +80% THC. You can smoke or eat 100 mg of THC or about 10 old joints in 30 seconds.

Marijuana isn’t a gateway drug:

With so much THC is your system at once, you’re less likely to giggle than visualize how cool it would be to get even ‘more out there’. So you try DMT, Peyote or other “Molly’s”. Come to a music festival in Colorado for a full scene of hundreds tripping from THC dosed up with ‘a little something extra’.

Cannabis doesn’t cause Psychotic Breaks

The Mental Health unit at Boulder’s hospital has a regular flow of young adults who experienced severe psychotic breaks from reality because of what they thought was ‘just some good weed’. Turns out THC was a trigger for their brain to go completely haywire for weeks.

Ahh, It’s cool, we’re just catching up on old times

Boomers are the biggest ‘Pot Tourist’ segment. Boulder sold $1MM in legal retail cannabis products in July 2014 alone. There were no students at the Univ of CO. Just tons of 50 somethings walking out with $200 worth of THC to ingest, smoke or rub on. Does it matter if their college age kids see Mom and Dad whacked out on Whiplash Brownies? It’s your call.

When you write, ‘legalize it, so we can research it”….Nope! In America, we innovate! Coming soon from the cannabis chefs: pizza sauce infused with oils. The amount of new products coming to market is ridiculously. The market is predicated to expand +40% annually. The market is chasing new ways to get high – we’ve only just begun.

Cannabis is coming one way or the other! How we look at it has to be much more in tune with today’s consumer and not our outdated ‘research studies’ show approach.

Reply
luke says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

lol

Reply
Bill says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

2 on the take from the tobacco and liquor industry. Hey, double the “donations”.

Reply
Brian Kelly says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

There is absolutely no doubt now that the majority of Americans want to completely legalize marijuana nationwide. Our numbers grow on a daily basis.

The prohibitionist view on marijuana is the viewpoint of a minority of Americans.. It is based upon decades of lies and propaganda put forth largely by The National Institute On Drug Abuse, commonly referred to as NIDA .

“While U.S. officials defend their monopoly, critics say the government is hogging all the pot and giving it mainly to researchers who want to find harms linked to the drug.

U.S. officials say the federal government must be the sole supplier of legal marijuana in order to comply with a 1961 international drug-control treaty. But they admit they’ve done relatively little to fund pot research projects looking for marijuana’s benefits, following their mandate to focus on abuse and addiction.

“We’ve been studying marijuana since our inception. Of course, the large majority of that research has been on the deleterious effects, the harmful effects, on cognition, behavior and so forth,” said Steven Gust, special assistant to the director at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which was created in 1974.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/201…

Each and every tired old NIDA has propagated has been thoroughly proven false by both science and society.

Their tired old rhetoric no longer holds any validity. The majority of Americans have seen through the sham of marijuana prohibition in this day and age. The number of prohibitionists left shrinks on a daily basis.

With their credibility shattered, and their not so hidden agendas visible to a much wiser public, what’s left for The National Institute On Drug Abuse to do?

Maybe, just come to terms with the fact that Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think, and there is nothing they can do to stop it!

Legalizing Marijuana will not create an influx of impaired drivers on the road. It will not create an influx of professionals (doctors, pilots, bus drivers, etc..) impaired on the job either. This is a prohibitionist propaganda scare tactic.

Truth: Responsible drivers don’t drive while intoxicated on any substance period! Irresponsible drivers are already on our roads, and they will drive while intoxicated regardless of their drug of choice’s legality. Therefore Legalizing Marijuana will have little to zero impact on the amount of impaired drivers on our roads.

The same thing applies to people being impaired on the job. Responsible people do not go to work intoxicated, period. Regardless of their drug of choice’s legality.

Truth: What message are we sending our children when it is easier for them to obtain marijuana now with it being illegal than it is for them to buy alcohol?

It doesn’t take the intellect of a genius to understand that stores card kids for I.D.. Thugs and gang members do not. They also push the real hard drugs on children. Stores do not.

Marijuana legalization will make it harder for children to obtain it.

What message does it send our children when the President of The United States himself alongside a long list of successful people openly admit regular pot use at one time or another in their lives while we tell our kids how it will ruin their futures, and then ensure so by allowing our government to send our kids to jail and give them permanent criminal records when they get caught with a little marijuana? Especially if they are the wrong skin color or from the “wrong neighborhood”. Which in turn, ruins their chances of employment for life.

The Prohibition of Marijuana is the wrong message to send our children while we advertise and promote the much more dangerous use of alcohol like it’s an all American pastime.

The worst thing about marijuana and our children is what happens to them when they get caught up in the criminal justice system due to it’s prohibition.

The government should not attempt to legislate morality by creating victim-less “crimes” because it simply does not work and costs the taxpayers a fortune.

Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think and there is nothing they can do to stop it!

Fear of Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is unfounded. Not based on any science or fact whatsoever. So please all you prohibitionists, we beg you to give your scare tactics, “Conspiracy Theories” and “Doomsday Scenarios” over the inevitable Legalization of Marijuana a rest. Nobody is buying them anymore these days. Okay?

Furthermore, if all you prohibitionists get when you look into that nice, big and shiny, crystal ball of yours, while wondering about the future of marijuana legalization, is horror, doom, and despair, well then I suggest you return that thing as quickly as possible and reclaim the money you shelled out for it, since it is obviously defective.

The prohibition of marijuana has not decreased the supply nor the demand for marijuana at all. Not one single iota, and it never will. Just a huge and complete waste of our tax dollars to continue criminalizing citizens for choosing a natural, non-toxic, relatively benign plant proven to be much safer than alcohol.

If prohibitionists are going to take it upon themselves to worry about “saving us all” from ourselves, then they need to start with the drug that causes more death and destruction than every other drug in the world COMBINED, which is alcohol!

Why do prohibitionists feel the continued need to vilify and demonize marijuana when they could more wisely focus their efforts on a real, proven killer, alcohol, which again causes more destruction, violence, and death than all other drugs, COMBINED?

Prohibitionists really should get their priorities straight and or practice a little live and let live. They’ll live longer, happier, and healthier, with a lot less stress if they refrain from being bent on trying to control others through Draconian Marijuana Laws.

Legalize Nationwide! Support All Marijuana Legalization Efforts!

Reply
Mike Dill says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

Same old tired politicians, spouting the same old tired talking points. Tell me something new and maybe I’ll listen. Until then…LEGALIZE IT!

Reply
Simon Hardinsky says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

The main reason for the legalization of cannabis for adult consumption is that pure product can be regulated and controlled. Right now, there is a huge black market for pot and our kids can get marijuana if they want it. Just this past week in New Hampshire, the governor had to declare a state of emergency over synthetic marijuana that had been stocked in vending machines and our youth had access enough to sicken over forty kids. With proper guidance through legal channels, marijuana can be controlled and cannabis will be thoroughly inspected for purity before it hits the shelves and anyone under the age of 21 will not be able to buy it, legally.

Right now, with the things the way they are, the public sector is at risk when they go out to purchase pot. Those who wish not to buy marijuana will still be able to abstain from exposure however the black market sales are funding more crime in our cities and in our suburbs.

I have written Attorney General Holder about working with the National Organization for Reformation of Marijuana Laws to put in to place a significant plan of guidance from the federal level to the states so that if a certain state legalizes marijuana for adult consumption then there will be purity and distribution strategies that will protect our children and community just as the ABC has strict guidance on the sales of alcohol.

I do understand your view and it does have a great deal of merit however now, there are seventeen more states that have legalization initiatives on the upcoming November ballots. I am certain that our nation’s capital will have marijuana legalized after November; we have statistics to prove this and if we don’t get a handle on the inevitable now, it may be too late in the not to distant future.

Respectfully,

Simon Hardinsky
Virginia NORML

Reply
Ken Burden II says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

Lol

Reply
Lee Morrell says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

Legalize and tax it…financial woes? What financial woes…

Reply
DonDig says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

The prohibition of Cannabis has caused much more hardship than the plant ever has. So you’re saying we should keep it up hoping for an eventual better outcome? What might that be?
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different outcome.
What positive benefit has come out of cannabis prohibition? Go ahead, name one… I’ll wait.

Reply
Dave Corner says:

Sunday, Aug 17, 2014 at

Decriminalize it. Deschedulize it. And legalize it!

California should vote YES on freedom and YES on personal responsibility and NO on prohibition! Get the true facts; do not accept what you read here as truth because it is twisted. Do your own research and vote to legalize cannabis!

Reply
Eric Beattie says:

Monday, Aug 18, 2014 at

I don’t care, either way, but those people that are pictured scare me.

Reply
Sophie Sidky says:

Monday, Aug 18, 2014 at

There wasn’t a single link to a credible source for any of those facts and numbers, so I’m honestly finding them difficult to believe. :P

Although anyone who seems to think a lower IQ (marijuana) is worse than the cancer-inducing gunk (tobacco) that people voluntarily put into their lungs after experiencing nicotine poisoning initially may not be all that credible to begin with.

Reply
jw says:

Monday, Aug 18, 2014 at

I wonder what target group George and Sharon and their ilk are trying to reach. “Reefer Madness” type misinformation is good for yuks but it has had less and less impact on the ‘sheeple’ as their exposure to it continued. Along with their lack of creditability they use a picture of themselves that will resurface around Halloween(shades of Jim and Tammy Bakker) to scare the kids with. What kind of message do they think they’re sending and who do they think will believe it? Underestimating the enemy is dangerous , especially when we’re winning, but if we match up Patrick Kennedy against Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Michele Leonhart with Sarah Palin, we could pit George and Sharon against Cheech and Chong for a very good drawing card. Vegas gets uncomfortable when the betting all goes one way, hence putting Sarah on the card. By the way the latest polls in Florida are showing almost 90% for medical Cannabis. It appears that the obstructionist/prohibitionists are running out of believable straw dogs who are willing to look like fools. Cannabis never should have been banned.

Reply
Allyson Maynard says:

Monday, Aug 18, 2014 at

This whole article is option. No actual facts. Where are your sources. Haha embarrassing.

Reply
Mr SCV says:

Monday, Aug 18, 2014 at

Sorry George, but you just made a total fool of yourself. Next time please reference your facts, if you can and they are not all lies..LOL

Reply
Ted Wright says:

Wednesday, Aug 20, 2014 at

Saying “no” to regulating cannabis is doing our children a disservice. Currently they obtain the substance from black marketers who not only don’t care who they sell to but most carry with them other, more dangerous substances like cocaine, meth and heroin, thus exposing children to the real “gateway”. As a legislator who has attended many hearings on the medical use of cannabis, I have heard many times the story of a patient, who in their 50’s or 60’s and now dealing with cancer treatments, who knew not where to obtain cannabis for relief. That same patient turns to their children or grandchildren because the kids know where to get it easily. I asked, “do you think that same child could get a bottle of whiskey as easily?”; and the answer is “NO!”. This, among other things is the reason I now support regulating cannabis like alcohol…

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