Medical Marijuana, House Bill 1380 and House Bill 1383

Here is what I wrote to our newspaper when Senator Henry introduced the same type of legislation in Delaware. It is still sitting in committee. It has been voted out. She just has not brought it to the Senate floor for debate.

Editor,

I’d like to take my hat off to Senator Henry, Peterson, Venables, Sorenson and Representative Plant for their introduction of Senate Bill 94, An Act to amend Title 16 of the Delaware Code Creating the Delaware Medical Marijuana Act.

While this legislation would permit the doctor-advised medical use of marijuana by patients with serious medical conditions and protect those patients from arrest of controlled substance laws I personally believe it is time to take the debate to a higher level and consider complete legalization of marijuana.

The debate rages on in many countries and here in America, in many states. For instance in April of 2005 Forbes magazine stated that next to electricity marijuana was the second largest income generator in Canada. This year California has recognized marijuana as a multi billion dollar a year industry.

The following information can be found in various reports funded by the Marijuana Policy Project grants program:

In 2006 25.3 million Americans were using marijuana.

In any given year 750,000 people are arrested or marijuana offenses and approximately 50,000 of these are felony convictions

In nearly every state, a person who commits a marijuana offense and fully serves his or her sentence (or completes probation) is subject to continuing and long-lasting professional debilitation, barriers, to family life, and limits to civic participation even those these offenses are less violent than crimes such as murder, rape or kidnapping.

From 1990 to 2002 82% of the national drug arrests were for marijuana offenders. Marijuana arrests now constitute 45% of the 1.5 million drug arrests annually. Only 6% end up in felony convictions which mean significant policing resources are being dedicated to low level offenses.

Using data from a variety of federal and state government sources Doctor Jeffery Miron concluded in his report, “The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition” that replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement - $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 at the state and local levels – and revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.

Marijuana prohibition or the “THE WAR ON DRUGS” has failed. Just like the prohibition on alcohol failed. The only thing that has happened is people have made illegal money, many non violent people have been jailed, and others have been murder because of the prohibition.

What do I mean when I say “legalization” exactly what we did with alcohol, a commonsense, solid control of the substance.

There are over 100 million Americans who have admitted to using marijuana and some 15 million use it at least monthly according the U.S. government. More people use marijuana today than when President Nixon declared the “war on drugs” in 1970.

Marijuana is not addictive, it does not lead to harder drugs, the people who use will use it once regulated and it will be more restrictive to teens, people won’t grow it in large numbers any more than grow tobacco or fruit or vegetables now, and it will downsize our prisons and make room for more serious offenders. It will also add to our state’s economic tax base.

As pointed out by the Marijuana Policy Project Foundation, the question isn’t whether there will be marijuana use, but how to handle marijuana so as to minimize harm – not just to marijuana users but to all of society. Our current laws don’t control marijuana, but they do guarantee that 100% of the profits from marijuana sales go to criminals and gangs. I think it is time to put marijuana to use for the greater good of our state and society.

Thank you,