Recently, much has been made about the move in California to decriminalize the use of marijuana. Opponents of California’s initiative talk about increases in crime, corruption of the children and how the legalization of marijuana would lead to a breakdown of society.
Let us lay these opinions out and look at the facts. First, there is the argument that there would be an increase in crime in society. Well, let us take a look at the numbers of homicide in the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a handy graph that lays out the numbers from 1900 to 1997. The highest spikes in the graph come from 1919 to 1933 and then from 1969 to the present. Notice anything about those two spaces of time? From 1919 to 1933 we had the era of Prohibition and in 1969 President Nixon announced the War on Drugs, which continues to the present day.
Next, let us talk about what opponents of legalization refer to as a breakdown in society because of the legalization of marijuana. I would posit that instead of breaking down society, prohibition fosters instability as well as reveals a disturbing part of our criminal justice system.
Allow me to present some statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, “Among persons convicted of drug felonies in state courts, whites were less likely than African-Americans to be sent to prison. Thirty-three percent of convicted white defendants received a prison sentence, while 51percent of African-American defendants received prison sentences. It should also be noted that Hispanic felons are included in both demographic groups rather than being tracked separately so no separate statistic is available.”
Doesn’t this seem disturbing to you? The majority of our indictments for drug related activities are disproportionate in one race? Not only that, these laws affect our nation’s youth more then any other demographic.
According to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, “The age groups accounting for the biggest increases in marijuana possession arrests per capita from 1990 to 2008 were ages 50-59 (up 420 percent), age 60+ (up 418 percent), and under 21 (up 205 percent). Barely 1,000 Californians age 40 and older were arrested for marijuana in 1990; in 2008, nearly 5,500.”
Also, allow me to point out that according to NORML, over 20 million Americans have smoked Marijuana at some point in the past and more then 14.5 million continue to do so despite the current prohibition. Isn’t it a bit insane that because of our current policies over 20 million Americans could be considered criminals under the law? I don’t know about you but it is my conception that the law is meant to serve the people, not make criminals out of them, which our current drug laws most certainly do.
I would also like to point out, that while all drugs have harmful effects, marijuana is much safer than alcohol which is legal and which we did end a prohibition on. According to the U.S. Centers for disease control and prevention “approximately 20,000 Americans die every year as the direct result of alcohol consumption. The number for marijuana is zero. In addition, alcohol overdose deaths are not just possible, but an all-too-frequent occurrence .’
This is an unfortunate reality of our current drug laws, which while claiming to want to reduce crime and make our country safer have done just the opposite. Instead, like the earlier era of prohibition, our laws made a criminal class rich and growing richer as our country marches onward towards the road to serfdom with a $12 trillion debt and military engagements around the world.
This is not a left or right issue either, as freedom never is. To quote one of the founders of the modern conservative movement William F. Buckley “Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.” and to quote MIT linguist and American societal critic Noam Chomsky “Very commonly substances are criminalized because they’re associated with what’s called the dangerous classes – poor people or working people.”
So for example in England in the 19th century, there was a period when gin was criminalized and whiskey wasn’t, because gin is what poor people drink. That’s kind of like the sentencing for crack and powder.
If these two very different men can agree, and it looks like the statistics are in their favor what is the problem? The problem is that the American drug war has become an industry and many people are heavily invested in keeping it that way. So, for the children, legalize marijuana.
Alex Habighorst is a sophomore majoring in political science. He can be contacted at [email protected].