The Country Thinker

Last week, I promised to begin mak­ing the case why peo­ple should vote for (or at least con­sider vot­ing for) Gary John­son for pres­i­dent. To do so, I will go through each of the nine planks of his plat­form that he pre­sented when he threw his hat in the Lib­er­tar­ian Party ring. I will not shy away from Johnson’s more con­tro­ver­sial stances, as they are ulti­mately based in sound polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy. Indeed, I’m begin­ning with the one that seems to dis­turb poten­tial con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers the most. (Other planks will trou­ble liberals.)

Num­ber eight on his list is Johnson’s desire to legal­ize mar­i­juana. To explain his posi­tion I’m going to pre­tend I am Gary John­son fac­ing off against Mitt Rom­ney and Barack Obama in a debate next fall. Although I can­not speak for the Gov­er­nor, I have taken what I have heard him say on the topic and repack­aged it in my own words (and in a cou­ple of instances taken them from his cam­paign web­site).

MODERATOR:

Okay, next ques­tion. Gov­er­nor John­son has pro­posed that we legal­ize mar­i­juana. This is con­sis­tent with his party’s gen­eral belief that the War on Drugs has been a fail­ure and needs to end. What do you make of this pro­posal, Gov­er­nor Romney?

ROMNEY:

[Shal­low, ram­bling, and platitude-​​laden defense of the War on Drugs and the sta­tus quo.]

MODERATOR:

Thank you, Mr. Gov­er­nor. Now turn­ing to you, Mr. Pres­i­dent, do you sup­port the legal­iza­tion of marijuana?

OBAMA:

[Inco­her­ently tries to explain that mar­i­juana should not be legal­ized, but simul­ta­ne­ously argues that treat­ment is a bet­ter option than incar­cer­a­tion. Next blames George W. Bush for the preva­lence of mar­i­juana use in Amer­ica. Uses the remain­der of his time in a series of ram­bling attacks on con­ser­v­a­tives, Repub­li­cans, fat-​​cat bankers, and any­one else who didn’t donate to his campaign.]

MODERATOR:

So true, Mr. Pres­i­dent, so true. I love you. We all love you. I wor­ship the very ground you hover above. [Turns to John­son.] Okay, Mr. Gov­er­nor, here’s your chance to make your case to the Amer­i­can peo­ple why legal­iz­ing mar­i­juana is the right thing to do.

JOHNSON:

Thank you. In the first instance, the right to do with your body what you wish is an inalien­able human right. Legal­iz­ing mar­i­juana can be jus­ti­fied on the basis of indi­vid­ual lib­erty alone. It is ridicu­lous that peo­ple in great pain who could ben­e­fit from mar­i­juana, such as peo­ple under­go­ing chemother­apy, run the risk of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion for try­ing to ease their suf­fer­ing with a naturally-​​occurring prod­uct, marijuana.

Sec­ond, more Amer­i­cans sup­port legal­iza­tion than oppose it, includ­ing 62% of Amer­i­cans under 30 years of age. Amer­i­cans real­ize there has to be a bet­ter way to deal with mar­i­juana use than the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. I am the only one on this stage tonight who is speak­ing for the majority.

Now let me start with two premises that I think every­one would agree on. First, as a gen­eral mat­ter, mar­i­juana use is not healthy, and most of us do not want our friends and fam­ily using it recre­ation­ally, and we cer­tainly don’t want them to abuse it. Sec­ond, mak­ing mar­i­juana use a crime has not stopped it. Worse, the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of mar­i­juana has had ter­ri­ble unin­tended con­se­quences that are more harm­ful than the prob­lem it was intended to solve.

As some­one who built a busi­ness from the ground up, I know that when you are con­fronted with a problem—in this case the abuse of marijuana—you need to con­sider all poten­tial options. Once you know all of your options, you need to apply a cost-​​benefit analy­sis to each, and choose the best. Since mar­i­juana has been ille­gal for decades, we don’t need to guess at how it will turn out because we can look at the record. It isn’t pretty.

The so-​​called ben­e­fit of crim­i­nal­iz­ing was to stop mar­i­juana use. There is no evi­dence that mar­i­juana use is any lower now than when it was legal. Indeed, stud­ies have shown that mar­i­juana is the top cash crop in Amer­ica. That’s evi­dence of the fail­ure, not the suc­cess, of ban­ning mar­i­juana. Why not let hon­est farm­ers make money grow­ing mar­i­juana instead of drug lords?

Indeed, the effect of the pro­hi­bi­tion of alco­hol and mar­i­juana has been pre­dictably the same. In nei­ther case did use of the banned sub­stance decline, mean­ing the ben­e­fit has been lit­tle or nothing.

But what have been the costs? For some those charged with mar­i­juana felonies, it has meant fam­i­lies torn apart dur­ing incar­cer­a­tion. In some states it means the loss of gun own­er­ship rights, or even the right to vote, and all for using a prod­uct that is safer than alco­hol.

And who, exactly, is get­ting rich grow­ing and sell­ing mar­i­juana? The last peo­ple we want to enrich—criminals. The sale and dis­tri­b­u­tion of mar­i­juana has enriched inner city gangs and Latin drug car­tels. It’s sim­ple eco­nom­ics; mar­i­juana is a good that peo­ple demand, and the black mar­ket pro­vides it. Since only crim­i­nal gangs and car­tels are will­ing to take the risks asso­ci­ated with large-​​scale black mar­ket dis­tri­b­u­tion, the War on Drugs has made a lot of dan­ger­ous peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions very rich and very pow­er­ful.* For those who live in neigh­bor­hoods torn apart by gangs or threat­ened by drug car­tel vio­lence, I want to take away some of their fund­ing by legal­iz­ing mar­i­juana. I want you to be able take back your neighborhoods.

And what do our gov­ern­ments spend com­bat­ting mar­i­juana? The fed­eral gov­ern­ment spends nearly $9 bil­lion a year—that’s bil­lion with a “B”—fighting mar­i­juana. Then there are incar­cer­a­tion costs. Many states are cash-​​strapped, with pris­ons burst­ing at the seams. Does it really make sense to spend bil­lions and bil­lions every year when our gov­ern­ments are broke, to pur­sue a pol­icy that has failed by any measure?

And to no sur­prise, like so many other areas, the cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion has offered nei­ther hope nor change in the War on Drugs, opt­ing to crack down harder on mar­i­juana use.

No, I think it’s time for a real change. I want to legal­ize mar­i­juana and have it taxed and reg­u­lated like alco­hol. By man­ag­ing mar­i­juana like alco­hol and tobacco—regulating, tax­ing and enforc­ing its law­ful use—America will be bet­ter off.  The bil­lions saved on mar­i­juana inter­dic­tion, along with the bil­lions cap­tured as legal rev­enue, can be redi­rected against the indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ting real crimes against society.**

We can never totally elim­i­nate drug addic­tion and drug abuse. We can, how­ever, min­i­mize these harms and reduce the neg­a­tive effects they have on soci­ety by mak­ing sure drug abusers are able to access effec­tive treat­ment options. Jail is not an effec­tive treat­ment option.***

The pro­hi­bi­tion of mar­i­juana has been an unmit­i­gated fail­ure. It has wrecked lives. It has torn apart com­mu­ni­ties. We have spent bil­lions and bil­lions com­bat­ting this so-​​called prob­lem, yet have noth­ing good to show for it. The pro­hi­bi­tion of mar­i­juana has failed the cost-​​benefit analy­sis, and we need to try some­thing dif­fer­ent. That’s why I stand with the major­ity of Amer­i­cans who want mar­i­juana legalized.

Thank you.

* This sen­tence was taken directly from Gary Johnson’s pol­icy posi­tion on his cam­paign website.

** These two sen­tences were taken directly from Gary Johnson’s pol­icy posi­tion on his cam­paign website.

*** These three sen­tences were taken directly from Gary Johnson’s pol­icy posi­tion on his cam­paign website.

End Note:

See Reason.tv’s excel­lent video The Dumb­est Thing Ever Said!…By Hillary Clin­ton About the Drug War

This arti­cle is also posted at Polit­i­cal Real­i­ties.