Texas High Ways
Why the unlikeliest of states—ours—should legalize marijuana.
Cara says: I am very proud of Texas Monthly for publishing the article, “Texas Highwaysâ€, by William martin in the October 2009 issue. Marijuana law reform is long overdue and I agree with Dr. William Woodward that the decision should be left up to the states and not the federal government. Our first step should be to decriminalize the possession of and use of marijuana for adults. Too much money is spent on this ridiculous war on drugs and too many non violent drug offenders are rotting away in jail because of the impertinent flaw in our legal system. Secondly we need to recognize the many benefits that legalizing marijuana will have on Texans and on the Texas economy. Marijuana produced by Texans for Texas will immediately reduce the demand for the marijuana that is being smuggled in from Mexico. With proper regulation and dare I say taxes, foreign drug cartels will cease to exist because the demand for imported drugs will diminish and therefore the supply. Marijuana could be an excellent cash crop for Texas. Demand for marijuana is high. We would not be having a “war on drugs’ if drugs were not desired. Recreational marijuana users are not alone. The amount of medical marijuana users are growing. I hate to think that that someone with a chronic or terminal condition is depriving themselves of the healing benefits of marijuana because they buy in to the taboo given to the plant by the “war on drugsâ€. Texas should not be so blind. Marijuana is lucrative. I would be the first person to plow under my corn and spread some marijuana seeds. (December 1st, 2009 at 5:54pm)
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A better way to deal with marijuana—not a perfect way but what the Economist calls “the least bad” way—would be to legalize it outright, to remove any taint of lawbreaking and reduce the chances of capricious or discriminatory enforcement. What would that mean? It would surely include the right to grow one’s own, though most people, especially urban dwellers, would prefer to let someone else handle that side of things. Any system of legalization would involve quality control, regulation of sales, and taxation.
A number of possibilities exist. Cannabis could be sold at drugstores and grocery stores, as it was in the early 1900’s, but that seems unlikely. Allowing liquor stores to sell the drug makes sense, but the prospect of people coming in to double up on intoxicants, one of them damned as demonic for 95 years, would surely meet public resistance. A bill that attracted 44 percent support from voters in Nevada in 2006 recommended that, with some exceptions, retail sales of marijuana be in the hands of tobacco stores. The bill forbade all advertising and mandated that a substantial portion of tax money, including a stiff excise tax, be used to support programs for prevention and treatment of abuse of alcohol and other drugs. That sounds cautious enough, but it would be hard to maintain the ban on ads, and a state government in need of more tax revenue might encourage wider commercialization, just as Texas and other states push their lotteries, which amount to a tax on people with little understanding of statistical probability.
Mark Kleiman, a professor at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, has proposed a legalization scheme that would permit responsible adult users to obtain more than enough to satisfy their needs, but with built-in safeguards against glamorization or abuse of cannabis. Under Kleiman’s Optimal Marijuana Control Regime plan, legal cannabis sales would be restricted to “state stores” similar to those that arose after alcohol prohibition and still exist in some places today. Adults could easily obtain an individual license bearing the same number as their driver’s license or other state-issued ID. They could purchase a generous amount of marijuana at reasonable intervals, but a record of their purchases would be kept by a central registry, just as purchases of narcotics such as Vicodin or Percocet are currently monitored, to curtail abuse. Users convicted of marijuana-related offenses, such as driving under its influence or selling to minors, would face loss of their cannabis license. Kleiman acknowledges that he has found few enthusiasts for his proposal, but “compared to prohibition,” he notes, “it represents a considerable liberalization, while creating much less serious threats than virtually unrestricted commerce.”
Whatever the specific system, legalization of marijuana would bring substantial economic benefits. Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron has calculated that it could save the nation at least $13 billion annually in law enforcement costs and generate more than $6.7 billion in revenue, assuming cannabis were taxed like cigarettes and alcohol. According to his estimates, Texas would save nearly $274 million and take in $46.6 million in new taxes each year.
California, which legalized medical marijuana in 1996, has already realized some of this potential. No one doubts that the cannabis trade in the Golden State extends far beyond the afflicted. An estimated six hundred legal marijuana dispensaries have sprouted in the Los Angeles area alone. Some jurisdictions have moved to limit their number or zone them into particular areas, after the manner of liquor stores and strip clubs, but many have become established parts of the economy and culture. In downtown Oakland, Houston native Richard Lee operates a cannabis conglomerate that he claims generates $300,000 in annual state sales tax and “about double that” in taxes to the federal government. Estimates of possible income from full legalization vary widely, but everyone agrees it would be substantial.
Obviously, any effort to legalize marijuana will meet stiff opposition. In addition to parents understandably fearful for their children and the hordes who’ve seen the devastation wrought by alcohol and abhor the idea of making another intoxicant legally available, powerful forces have a vested interest in maintaining prohibition. Pharmaceutical companies will not welcome a homegrown alternative to their painkillers, muscle relaxants, and antidepressants.
Some of the greatest resistance is likely to come from law enforcement. The DEA and the ONDCP exist to oppose drugs. The FBI, the Border Patrol, state troopers, and local police all have control of contraband as part of their mandate and, as such, have budgets and bureaucracies they do not want challenged and jobs they do not want to lose. In fairness, their objections go beyond self-interest. They have seen the harm drugs can do, and they know that drug traffickers are evildoers. They may believe that legalizing marijuana would set loose a chain of developments that would be far worse than the problems we already face, although the experience of countries and states that have legalized cannabis suggests otherwise.
Whatever their reasons, most law enforcement personnel regard talk of a truce in the war on drugs as a personal and professional affront. After his controversial attempt earlier this year to get El Paso on record as questioning the status quo, Beto O’Rourke came under attack. “The entrenched interests are toeing the party line,” he said. “The most virulent opposition came from retired law enforcement personnel: ‘I can’t believe you have let down our officers and people who have given their careers and are laying their lives on the line to keep you safe.’ It’s a way to take you off the real argument, which is whether what we are doing is working. I wasn’t surprised at that. I was surprised by an organization I didn’t know about until we offered that resolution, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. These are retired law enforcement people—from the Border Patrol, police, sheriffs—who have waged the war in real life and believe it absolutely cannot be won. These are guys who have put their lives on the line and have come back from that experience and said, ‘This doesn’t work,’ and they are so eloquent and articulate on this subject.” Not all who hold such views are retired. A federal agent I’ve known for many years, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me matter-of-factly, “Jack Daniel’s is no different from marijuana, as far as I can tell. We were told that marijuana is addictive. It is not. Legalization has to be discussed.”
True legalization of cannabis is, for the moment, largely a thought experiment. Not only is the U.S. a signatory to the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which demands the prohibition of marijuana, but it has exercised pressure on countries that have considered legalization. There is a legal mechanism for opting out of the Single Convention, and many countries would welcome such a move by the U.S. But it’s unlikely.
It is not impossible to imagine, however, that a state could institute a legalization scheme that would be allowed to stand and could serve as a model that other states would emulate, just as twelve states have followed California’s lead in legalizing medical marijuana (and several others are poised to do so). A state that decided to allow the production and sale of marijuana and was able to show that this policy increased government revenue, cut into the profits of criminals, and reduced hardship on its citizens, all without a troublesome increase in usage or social harms, could probably get away with it.
California is openly toying with such a strategy. Texas is not, but it could and should. The largest and most powerful Mexican traffickers—the Gulf, Sinaloa, and Juárez cartels—view Texas as both a major market and a vital conduit for shipping drugs into the U.S., forming alliances with local gangs that handle sales in their territory and move the product outward to other regions. Legalizing marijuana would not only dry up the Texas market for illegal pot, it would disrupt the chain of delivery from the Texas-Mexico border northward. It would also greatly reduce contact with customers who might be enticed into buying cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines.
If a smaller or less influential state were to go the legalization route, it might be ignored as insignificant or quashed as a warning to others. (Who knew that Alaska already allows its citizens to possess enough cannabis for a hundred joints?) If California does it, other states will smirk for a while, writing it off as more Left Coast looniness, then gradually fall in line with similar measures of their own. In the meantime, billions more dollars will be wasted and millions more lives harmed. But if Texas, famous for its independent spirit and conservative mien, were to legalize marijuana, the world would take note, and great and beneficial change would sweep across the country.
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