I started writing this article on February 5, 2009, five days after Barack Obama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t know that he was put in for the Nobel on February 1st, I just figured he needed the entire 10 days of being president to get it. I knew this issue was going to be a story but I didn’t think it was going to come this quickly.
The legalization of drugs or at least the decriminalization of drug use has been an issue for a long time. It has not been a topic on the front page of newspapers because it is a controversial topic. I’ll bet you haven’t heard about this issue or if you have you wonder why there wasn’t more news coverage. But, as the world turns so do the stars, and the stars are coming into alignment for drug use.
New guidelines were issued by the Obama administration that just about insures that federal drug agents won’t pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana. Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law. This is the beginning of decriminalization of marijuana.
I would like to be direct with the drug use issue but I have a jaundiced eye. Rather than seeing this as just a decriminalization of marijuana issue I see a wonderful tax opportunity. I think this is even bigger than taxes on gambling licenses and gambling revenues, maybe even bigger than taxing churches, fire department and veteran bingos. Remember, you heard it here first, taxes on illegal drugs will be the driving force to decriminalize or legalize drug use. Now back to drugs.
Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, and a state near you in the future.
California is unique among those for the widespread presence of dispensaries, businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services. Colorado also has several dispensaries, and Rhode Island and New Mexico are in the process of licensing providers, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that promotes the decriminalization of marijuana use.
One must understand that we have been in the War On Drugs for over 40 years. That’s because prior to the 60’s marijuana was not illegal. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs tried to make marijuana illegal from the 1930’s up to the 60’s when those hippies insured the legislation to make the plant illegal. It’s good we don’t need all that hemp rope like we did in the old days, because the hemp plant couldn’t legally be grown for the past 40 years.
If you didn’t know, our oppressive drug laws go back to the beginning of the 20th Century when two thirds of middle class women were addicted to cocaine. Remember, that’s when Coca Cola had real coke in it, heroine was sold in drug stores and various elixirs were sold off the back of buckboards across the United States.
First we had to clean all our products of that bad cocaine, then we worked on the heroine, then we tackled alcohol. We were doing pretty good until FDR came along and noticed the Roaring 20’s were particularly roaring because of the illegal alcohol being sold in Speakeasies. When the Department of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs came to its senses about 1936 they started calling for legislation to make marijuana illegal.
That didn’t work too well in the middle of the Depression, and then World War II came along and nobody was paying attention. After the war everyone was going to school, having children and starting back to work. Nobody was interested in drugs. Then came the Korean War and people still weren’t listening. But after the war a group of people started drawing attention, Beatnik’s. Did you know that jazz clubs and Beatnik’s were consumers of marijuana? Well, then the 60’s came and the baby boomers started to drop out. The rest is history. Except now we are starting a new page, are you ready for it?
