Cannabis debate widens after Prop 19 voted down

California's Proposition 19 ("Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010"), a statewide referendum on the decriminalization of possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, was voted down yesterday, by a 56.5 percent to 43.5 percent margin.  The proposal, which would have undermined federal laws against narcotics use and sale, has added to widespread debate on the potential economic and social effects of current drug policy in the U.S. and in Latin America.

Proponents of the referendum in the United States estimated that the sale of marijuana could generate approximately $1.4 billion in tax revenues per year, helping California to escape its current budget deficit, which hovers around $20 billion (http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/fact-sheet/14147/); proponents also say a decrease in law enforcement would generate budgetary saving. Those in favor of looser marijuana laws also argued that decriminalization would help to end discriminatory arrests against blacks and Latinos, who are much more likely to be apprehended on marijuana charges, even though polls find that whites use marijuana at equal rates.

Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) executive director Ethan Nadelman said that despite its defeat, the California referendum was an important step forward in the growing cannabis legalization movement: "The mere fact that it was voted on, allied to a well developed campaign, transformed the public discussion on cannabis policy. The debate is changing from whether cannabis ought to be legalized to how it should be legalized," he wrote.

A report released on October by the Marijuana Arrest Research Project for the Drug Policy Alliance and the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) and led by Prof. Harry Levine, a sociologist at the City University of New York stated: “In the last 20 years, California made 850,000 arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana, and half-a-million arrests in the last 10 years. The people arrested were disproportionately African-Americans and Latinos, overwhelmingly young people, especially men."

Bill changed marijuana possession to civil infraction

Legalization—and regulation—of marijuana possession to adults over 21 would weaken drug cartels, reduce consumption by minors, and would help shift the focus on drug abuse from criminalization to medical treatment, proponents say.

Marijuana for medical use has been legal in the state since passage of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996; according to a 2008 CNBC report, sales from medical marijuana in the state generated $2 billion in revenue and approximately $100 million in state sales taxes.

The bills opponents, who include Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, incoming Governor Jerry Brown and all of California's major daily newspapers, cited a range of reason for blocking its passage. Gov. Schwarzenegger, who in October signed a bill to reduce marijuana possession (less than one ounce) from a criminal misdemeanor to a civil infraction, said the act would "...make California a laughingstock.”

In a September 24 opinion piece, the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote: "Californians ought to welcome a debate about whether marijuana is any more dangerous than alcohol, whether legalization would or would not increase consumption, and whether crime would go down as a result of decriminalization. But Proposition 19 is so poorly thought out, badly crafted and replete with loopholes and contradictions that it offers an unstable platform on which to base such a weighty conversation."

Prop 19 seen as 'terrible inconsistency'

They wrote that Proposition 19 lacks a statewide regulatory framework, conflicts with federal law, and would "...put employers in a quandary by creating a protected class of on-the-job smokers."

After the referendum's defeat, No on Prop 19 spokesman Roger Salazar said: “Californians have discovered that the claims of benefits made by proponents just aren’t true. Prop 19 cannot guarantee 'billions; in revenue to the state; it would make the job of law enforcement more difficult, not less; and recent studies show the initiative would have little impact on drug cartels. No matter where Californians stand on pot legalization, this is not the initiative they were looking for.”

The referendum was met with conflicted responses south of the border. Mexican President Felipe Calderón called the measure a "terrible inconsistency" in U.S. drug policy and Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla called it "contradictory." Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who hosted Presidents Calderón, Chinchilla as well as President Álvaro Colóm of Guatemala and Honduran President Porfirio Lobo at a one-day summit of the Tuxtla Group in Cartagena last week, said: "It's confusing for our people to see that, while we lose lives and invest resources in the fight against drug trafficking, in consuming countries initiatives like California's referendum are being promoted." The group released a statement calling for "consistent and congruent" drug policies throughout the hemisphere.

Proposition 19 hailed as paradigm shift

Debate over California's referendum comes at a time when Latin American governments are grappling with what is widely seen as failed drug policy in the hemisphere. In Mexico, narcotics trafficking-related violence has claimed 28,000 lives since President Calderón declared war on drugs in 2006. The U.S. pledged $1.6 billion in aid to Mexico and Central America combat narco-trafficking through Plan Mérida; under Plan Colombia, the Andean nation has received approximately $7 billion in U.S. aid.

In February 2009, the Latin American Comission on Drugs and Democracy, led by former Latin American Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico) and César Gaviria (Colombia) released a report concluding that: "Prohibitionist policies based on the eradication of production and on the disruption of drug flows as well as on the criminalization of consumption have not yielded the expected results," and called for "...the discussion of a new paradigm leading to safer, more efficient and humane drug policies."

The report points to Portugal, which legalized recreational marijuana use in 2001, as a potential model for decriminalization. In 2009, the Supreme Court of Argentina ruled to decriminalize marijuana; that year, Mexico also decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, and heroine, among other controlled substances (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/americas/21mexico.html).

Despite arguments that California's Proposition 19 would take revenues away from Mexican drug cartels, a recent study by the RAND Corporation, a non-partisan research group estimates that marijuana only accounts for 15 - 26 percent of revenues, and that California only represents one seventh of that consumption.

Jorge Hernandez, president of the Mexican NGO Colectivo por una Política Integral hacia las Drogas (CUPIHD) believes says that the California referendum played a role in widening discussions on drug policy in his country. “Independently of the result, it is proof that zero tolerance has no future, and that we are going through a paradigm shift,” said Hernandez.

In Hernandez’s view, the California vote was a positive learning experience in that it took the cannabis use discussion to higher instances. In Mexico, said Hernandez, it also proved an opportunity to contrast the official version championed by the federal government with a much more serious and better structured debate in the media. The subject matter changed, from being dismissed as “mere pot-dreams” to a question that demands political positioning: “are you in favor or against?”

Hernandez noted that 43% popular support for Proposition 19 "...means that a significant number of people are in favor of changing the status quo. The fact is, irrespective of the results, the cannabis market is not going to disappear, neither in the short nor in the long term.”