Sometimes there’s little difference between Republicans and Democrats. A case in point is an area of agreement between state Rep. Stephen Barrar, a Republican, and president Barack Obama, a Democrat.
While there are likely many more areas of disagreement, both men think it’s ridiculous to consider legalizing marijuana for the potential tax revenue that could benefit the state and federal governments.
Mr. Barrar said as much during an April 2 town meeting in Chadds Ford Township. It was a brief exchange. The seven-term representative from the 160th legislative district made the comment while talking about the state budget.
A few weeks earlier the president didn’t ask, but was asked whether the federal government should reconsider its position on marijuana so it could be taxed. He said that was not under consideration and even made fun of the question.
Both men are missing the point, many points, to be exact.
It may be difficult to estimate how much money individual states could raise by taxing marijuana in the same way they control and tax tobacco and alcohol, both drugs that are far more dangerous than cannabis.
However, the chief tax collector of California said that state could raise $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on enforcement and incarceration if pot were legalized.
Getting more money into the hands of any government is not necessarily a good thing since most governments have demonstrated an inability to spend wisely or with any sense of responsibility. However, even if Pennsylvania could generate half the amount estimated for California, there’s no doubt that state legislators could convince the governor to spend some to keep funding the Brandywine Battlefield Park.
Sarcasm aside, there are better reasons than money for considering the re-legalization of drugs.
As Arizona’s attorney general told a U.S. Senate subcommittee, the country should take another look at marijuana prohibition. "The most effective way to establish a virtual barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of it," he told the subcommittee.
One day after that, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the federal government would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the 13 states that have legalized med pot.
And, as one of those Chadds Ford residents told Rep. Barrar, it was the prohibition of alcohol that led to Al Capone’s rise to power, the bloody violence and the corruption of police, not the alcohol itself.
And this is the case now in this era of prohibition, the war on some drugs.
In addition to the California tax collector and the Arizona and U.S. attorneys general, the group LEAP also wants to see an end to prohibition of drugs, for reasons other than revenue enhancement.
LEAP stands for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Its more than 10,000 members are active or retired police officers, prosecutors, judges and even DEA agents. Everyone one of them call for the end of the criminalization of drug use and possession.
Jack Cole, a former New Jersey state trooper and narcotics officer, is LEAP’s executive director and one of the group’s co-founders. He says LEAP members consider the war on drugs “Not only a dismal failure, but a detrimental policy.”
And it does no good. According to Cole, 1.3 percent of the American population was addicted to drugs when the first narcotics law, The Harrison Act, was passed in 1914. When former President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs in the 1970s, 1.3 percent of the population was addicted to drugs. Now, almost 40 years later, the percentage of addicted Americans remains the same, 1.3 percent.
Yet, the country has spent $1 trillion during that time and has become the nation with the largest percent of its population in prison.
And the violence continues. In the last two years, more than 7,000 people have been murdered in Mexico and that violence is creeping across the border. It’s not the drugs that cause the violence, it’s prohibition. There’s no difference in what caused the rise of Al Capone or Pablo Escobar.
Messrs. Barrar and Obama should learn from history.
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