Video of the hearing can be seen here.
The Wall Street Journal discussed the hearings here. The Seattle PI covered it here.
Coverage of marijuana in the traditional media has certainly improved in the past few years (with some exceptions, of course). Reporters recognize that the massive chorus of voices demanding that we change our drug laws is far more than just people who want to get high. Groups like Law Enforcement Against Prohibition have driven home this point about as well as anyone.
That said, I wanted to make a few comments about the columns linked above. Starting in the WSJ:
Still, there is deep opposition to legalizing marijuana in Washington state from law-enforcement groups and chemical-dependency organizations, many of which argue it would make the drug even more accessible to teenagers than it is currently. Also many argue that marijuana is a “gateway drug,” meaning it will lead those using it to moveon to other drugs.
“What message does legalizing marijuana send to the youth of Washington?” asked Riley Harrison, a ninth-grade student, before a packed committee hearing this week in Olympia. “That you’re willing to gamble our future for a little tax revenue?”
The central claim being made by these groups is that legalization would make marijuana more accessible to teenagers than it is currently. Not surprisingly, they found a student who was willing to miss a day of school to help them reinforce that notion. Yet the Journal fails to point out that this claim makes no sense. The system we have now makes marijuana extremely accessible to teenagers. Moving marijuana sales out of schools and into the state’s liquor stores, where an individual will have to produce ID in order to buy it, will make it much less accessible to teenagers than it is currently.
The PI also lets a very similar claim stand unchallenged:
Opponents said any loosening up of the laws would be harmful to children.
“If you believe that it is OK for kids in school to use marijuana and be high, then you should pass either one or both of these,” said Don Pierce, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
This is complete nonsense, but Rachel La Corte at the AP fails to point that out, or to present the other side. One of the primary reasons for passing the legalization bill is precisely because it’s not OK for kids in school to use marijuana and be high, and therefore we should take the distribution out of the schools and move it to a place where people under 21 can be prevented from buying it. The effectiveness of this approach can be verified by looking at the Netherlands, where tolerating marijuana distribution to adults in coffeeshops has led to reductions in teen use rates over the past few decades, and fewer adult marijuana users than even the rest of Europe, which itself has fewer marijuana users (by percentage) than the United States.
One can argue that La Corte is just presenting both sides of an argument, but it’s certainly incumbent upon a reporter to point out when one side’s arguments don’t make any sense. Even worse, both the Wall Street Journal and the PI fail to point out that there’s even a challenge to this argument from the other side, let alone that the argument itself has no basis in reality. I don’t think La Corte – or Nick Wingfield and Justin Scheck in the Journal – do this maliciously, I just think that these debates are new and reporters who cover a large number of different topics aren’t as familiar with drug law reform as they should be. But as long as that’s the case, propagandists like Don Pierce will continue to get away with making ridiculous statements that go unchallenged.
Not necessarily. Alcohol is only supposed to be sold to folks over 21 and is forbidden for kids under 21, and I think it’s safe to say it is easier for teenagers to get than pot. I’m not arguing against legalization, but if kids (or anybody else, for that matter) want to get pot, whether it’s sold legally or not, they’ll get it. So to say use among teenagers will go down if pot is legal is a stretch. Further, you can’t compare European experience as the attitudes towards alcohol and drugs is much different.
Poor Riley, he doesn’t have a clue how he is being used. Having grown up in the most conservative part of this state, that part where Dino Rossi thought courts might be favorable to him, let me say that finding pot when you were a teenager was not difficult (not that I was looking for it) even then. Now, I would suspect that buying a joint or lid there is no harder than buying a 6-pack of Diet Pepsi. At some point, you would think, rationality would take over and drug laws would follow.
@2 Basically, there are two groups which adamantly support maintaining the status quo. First is the conservatives, and putting “conservative” and “rational” in the same sentence nowadays is like putting Tabasco sauce on ice cream.
The second group is the legion of those employed by the giant drug-law enforcement industry, which is about as large as the illicit drug industry itself. Whether or not these people are willing to admit it, they have to be at least partly motivated by the fact that they have skin in the game. If there was no longer a legal mandate to fight “killer weed”, many of these people would be faced with having to find something else to do for a living.
AF @ 3: “putting ‘conservative’ and ‘rational’ in the same sentence nowadays is like putting Tabasco sauce on ice cream.”
Hey, man, as a fan of language, I’ve got to say, that’s a great turn of a phrase.
@1
I’m sure that sounds like a perfectly reasonable and “safe” assumption, but it completely ignores the actual reality.
The article above provided one-click access to information that unambiguously demonstrates the truth. With the vast and rapidly-growing amount of relevant information easily available to all, it’s really a shame that intellectually lazy people can’t be bothered to find out the facts before making asinine and easily-disproven statements like yours.
Pot has always been exceedingly easy for teens to get, and so long as the laws remain as they are, it will always continue to be readily available.
@1
Alcohol is only supposed to be sold to folks over 21 and is forbidden for kids under 21, and I think it’s safe to say it is easier for teenagers to get than pot.
Absolutely incorrect. In fact, as Robby mentioned in comment #5, I even linked to one of the many surveys that have found that it’s easier for teenagers to get access to marijuana than to alcohol.
I’m not arguing against legalization, but if kids (or anybody else, for that matter) want to get pot, whether it’s sold legally or not, they’ll get it.
Many will succeed at doing so, either by getting a fake ID, or finding an older sibling/friend who will buy it for them. But that will still be harder than simply buying it from a fellow student or a criminal on a street corner who could give a crap that he’s selling to a minor.
So to say use among teenagers will go down if pot is legal is a stretch.
Not at all, in fact teenager marijuana use in California has been going down since they’ve moved to the dispensary model for medical marijuana patients.
Further, you can’t compare European experience as the attitudes towards alcohol and drugs is much different.
There’s some truth to that, but you can certainly compare the Netherlands to the rest of Europe. The Dutch now have lower teen marijuana use rates than nearly all other countries in western Europe. That’s happening for a reason, and part of that is because allowing the drug to be sold legally takes away a bit of its allure among kids.
Robby @ 5: I did read the report, did you before you start throwing out personal insults?
Lee @ 6: Thanks for the response, however, I think if you at the responses at the end of the CASA report, my overall point about access still holds up:
While up, still only a quarter of the respondents said that pot was easier to get than other substances.
So a third of the respondents say they couldn’t get pot ever. However…
Only 5% of the respondents that have tried alcohol said they couldn’t get it if they wanted it.
Please note that I’m making a difference between “access” and “purchase”.
Again, I’m not arguing against legalization; it is a discussion that is long overdue. I just don’t think teen use should be part of the debate as legalization isn’t going to make much difference either way. The CASA report shows overwhelmingly that parental use (or non-use) of substances makes the biggest difference in kids’ decision to use or not.
This is often completely true. It’s because right now, if you want to buy marijuana, you have to have some sort of connection with someone who can get drugs. Ask any marketer – one of the best ways to get people to buy a product (like cocaine, meth, or oxycontin) is to build on an existing relationship selling them something else (like, say, marijuana). Marijuana is a gateway drug, and the way we close the gateway is to legalize it.
why do we not say fuck you getting high is fine, we like it, it’s just as valid as having a drink of jim beam or moet Chandon bubbly?
why so scared to tell the truth?
If we talked about getting high we could also point out it NEVER makes people violent, unlike booze.
There is so much still taboo.
Also taboo: everyone in the debate whether legislator or commenter or reporter or indeed, law enforcement dudes supporting putting folks in jail for smoking pot….I’d bet 99% of ’em all have smoked pot.
But too scared to talk about it!
Ah, not too worry there stoner Lee. Once you change residence to the Gray Bar Hotel, I will gladly drop a cool shiny nickel into your commissary account. It’s not all bad, right? Cough! Hack! Whoa! Dude!
as a libertarian, i agree with all of your opinions on marijuana. the war on drugs is both expensive and immoral.
but blogging about letters to the editor might be a wasted effort. rather, why don’t you focus your brainpower on critiqing the opinions of people who make a difference?
@3 “putting ‘conservative’ and ‘rational’ in the same sentence nowadays is like putting Tabasco sauce on ice cream.”
hot damn i have to agree with @4.
@7 …still only a quarter of the respondents said that pot was easier to get than other substances.
You might want to reread that survey…
Then you go on to compare a question open to all respondents (ease of pot purchasing), to one which is limited to those that who have drunk alcohol. Access to alcohol is usually a prerequisite for drinking it, so you should expect most of the respondents of this question to be able to get access to it.
I made a post on Sharkansky’s blog (# 21 under Gregoire: Purveyor of Liquor (or some such shit)) and asked Time Eyman if he’d start the initiative process to legalize marijuana in Washington.
The way these insane marijuana laws will be overturned is via small towns, initially, declaring their cops will not enforce laws against adults using marijuana in their homes or private lives. The next step is an initiative to declare marijuana legal in Washington, regulating and taxing it in the process. State law enforcement people would be forbidden in assisting, in any way, the DEA or other federal law enforcement people in harassing one of our citizens when it comes to marijuana.
If this process is repeated in other states, we can break the back of these insane laws and score a victory for individual liberty.
Tim Eyman, if you’d like to do something really useful for Washington, how about an initiative proposing legalization of marijuana?
FYI, Sensible Washington is submitting an initiative to legalize marijuana:
http://sensiblewashington.org
uptown @ 13: Granted, the alcohol question was qualified, but they didn’t ask a similar question for pot.
Politically Incorrect @ 14: Hey, if you have a few hundred thousand lying around, I’m sure Mr. Eyman will take it and run a legalization initiative, as that’s all he’s interested in.
@13
Thanks, that was a complete misreading of those survey results. And it’s also important to keep in mind that this survey is done every year – and it continually finds the same thing. Here’s the 2008 survey. Here’s an article on the 2002 survey, the first survey where marijuana was found to be easier to obtain that cigarettes.
So you get caught breaking the law. Then you complain about it. I just do not understand Pot-Heads. If you choose to break the law you need to accept the consequences.
The traditional news media are essentially so lame that the majority of ‘reporters’ do little more than ‘cut-and-paste’ from their sources regarding drug issues without challenging those sources on their veracity…or agendas. They don’t want to upset the cozy relationships with their manipulative sources, relationships that that allow for them to be spoon-fed such drivel, which they may detect but refuse to confront, for fear of having their access to the table crumbs cut off.
The traditional media reminds me of Pomeranian lapdogs, anymore; useless for anything but fluffy, noisy decorations…
Lee
If you know these guys, could you tell them to do something about that font. I realize the difficulties of being a nonprofit but that poster makes them look like a look like a bunch of sloppy amateurs who don’t really care about their cause.