PRESENTED BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2009

By Paul Armentano
Deputy Director
NORML | NORML Foundation
Washington, DC | Vallejo, CA
paul@norml.org

I applaud the California Assembly Public Safety Committee for holding this informational hearing regarding the regulation and legalization of marijuana for adults over 21 years of age.

CRIMINAL MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IS A FAILURE
 
By any objective standard, marijuana prohibition is an abject failure.

Nationwide, U.S. law enforcement have arrested over 20 million American citizens for marijuana offenses since 1965, yet today marijuana is more prevalent than ever before, adolescents have easier access to marijuana than ever before, the drug is more potent than ever before, and there is more violence associated with the illegal marijuana trade than ever before.

Over 100 million Americans nationally have used marijuana despite prohibition, and one in ten – according to current government survey data – use it regularly.  The criminal prohibition of marijuana has not dissuaded anyone from using marijuana or reduced its availability; however, the strict enforcement of this policy has adversely impacted the lives and careers of millions of people who simply elected to use a substance to relax that is objectively safer than alcohol. NORML believes that the state of California ought to amend criminal prohibition and replace it with a system of legalization, taxation, regulation, and education.

THE CASE FOR LEGALIZATION/REGULATION
 
Only through state government regulation will we be able to bring necessary controls to the marijuana market.  By enacting state and local legislation on the use, production, and distribution of marijuana, state and local governments can effectively impose controls regarding:

• which citizens can legally produce marijuana;
• which citizens can legally distribute marijuana;
• which citizens can legally consume marijuana;
• and where, and under what circumstances, is such use legally permitted.

By contrast, the criminal prohibition of marijuana – the policy the state of California has in place now – provides law enforcement and state regulators with no legitimate market controls. This absence of state and local government controls jeopardizes rather than promotes public safety. 

For example:

• Prohibition abdicates the control of marijuana production and distribution to criminal entrepreneurs (e.g., drug cartels, street gangs, drug dealers who push additional illegal substances);
• Prohibition provides young people with unfettered access to marijuana (e.g., according to a 2009 Columbia University report adolescents now have easier access to marijuana than they do alcohol[1]);
• Prohibition promotes the use of marijuana in inappropriate and potentially dangerous settings (e.g., in automobiles, in public parks, in public restrooms, etc.)
• Prohibition promotes disrespect for the law, and reinforces ethnic and generation divides between the public and law enforcement (e.g., according to the FBI, 75 percent of all marijuana arrestees are under age 30; African Americans account for only 12 percent of marijuana users but comprise 23 percent of all possession arrests[2]).

REGULATING MARIJUANA WILL IMPROVE PUBLIC SAFETY

Specifically, Assembly Bill 390, The Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act, seeks to regulate the adult use and distribution of marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.  The advantages of this regulatory scheme compared to our present prohibitive policy include:

• Commercial production of marijuana would be limited to licensed producers (in some cases, non-retail, home production is also allowed);
• The quality and potency of commercially distributed marijuana would be regulated by the state, thereby making the potency of the product publicly available to the consumer;
• Retail sale of the product would be limited to state licensed distributors;
• The state would be free to impose and enforce strict controls on who may obtain the product (e.g., no minors), where they may legally purchase it, when they may legally purchase it (e.g., sales would most likely be limited to certain hours of the day), and how much they may purchase at one time;
• The state would be free to impose and enforce strict regulations prohibiting marijuana use in public (e.g., no open container in public parks, or beaches, or in an automobile) and/or furnishing the product to minors;
• The state would be free to impose and enforce strict regulations limiting the commercial advertising of the product;
• Counties and/or cities would likely retain the right to revoke the retail sale of the product, or certain types of marijuana-based products all together, if they so choose to do so.

For these reasons I urge this Committee to move forward with the enactment of marijuana regulations, such as those outlined in AB 390.

1) Passage of AB 390 would raise at least an estimated $1.4 billion in annual tax revenue for the state of California.

The California State Board of Equalization estimates that taxing and regulating the retail sale of cannabis by adults would raise approximately $1.4 billion in annual new state revenue.[3] This figure is arguably a conservative estimate as the BOE assessment did not quantify whether the enactment of AB 390 would reduce existing law enforcement and prosecutorial costs, which have been estimated by California NORML to average some $200 million per year. Moreover, a broader economic assessment authored in 2009 by California NORML estimates that the eventual establishment of commercial cannabis-based businesses and related industries in California could ultimately raise some $12 to $18 billion in annual new tax revenue.[4]

2) Passage of AB 390 will restrict access to marijuana to those under 21 years of age.

Marijuana prohibition presently provides open marijuana access to young people. Enacting AB 390 will significantly limit teens access to marijuana – providing for the improved health and safety of our young people and our communities.

According to the University of Michigan, which has been surveying youth access to cannabis since 1975, nearly 85 percent of teens now report having "easy" access to marijuana.[5] In fact, an August 2009 study released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported that 25 percent of teens between the ages of 12 and 17 say that they can obtain marijuana within an hour, and a majority of them now say that they have more ready access to marijuana than they do alcohol.

According to the U.S. government's most recent Survey on Drug Use and Health, 15 percent of children age 14 to 15 have tried marijuana (including 12 percent in the past year), as have 31 percent of those age 16 to 17 (a quarter of which have done so in the past year). By age 20, 45 percent of adolescents have tried marijuana, and nearly a third of those children age 18 to 20 have done so in the past year.[6]

Assembly Bill 390 seeks to limit children's access to pot by restricting its sale to state licensed retail outlets and imposing strict age controls on those who may purchase it legally. This proposal will remove cannabis from our street corners (and out the hands of illicit drug pushers) and school yards and put it behind the counter -- where it belongs.  

3) Passage of AB 390 will improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to focus on more serious offenses.

Law enforcement resource allocation is a zero-sum gain. Time that a police officer spends arresting and processing minor marijuana offenders is time when he or she is not out on the streets protecting the public from more significant criminal activity. One notable study by Florida State University economists Bruce Benson and David Rasmussen determined that serious crimes, such as robbery and assault, increase proportionally when police focus their attention on drug law enforcement, particularly marijuana prohibition. Analyzing Florida state crime statistics, they reported that that every one percent increase in drug arrests leads to a .18 percent increase in serious crimes.[7]
 
In short, increasing police resources toward marijuana law enforcement inevitably decreases resources that would have otherwise been dedicated to combating other crimes. Passage of AB 390 marijuana will enable law enforcement, prosecutors, and the courts to re-allocate their existing resources toward activities that will more effectively target serious criminal behavior and keep the public safe.

4) Passage of AB 390 will institute reasonable regulation consistent with the state and federal constitution.

Marijuana use is not a harmless substance. But this fact is precisely why its commercial production and distribution ought to be controlled and regulated by the state in manner similar to the licensed distribution of alcohol and cigarettes -- two legal substances that cause far greater harm to the individual user and to society as a whole than cannabis ever could.[8] Taxing and regulating cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol, as is proposed by AB 390, will bring long-overdue state oversight to a market that is presently unregulated, uncontrolled, and monopolized by criminal entrepreneurs. While this alternative may not entirely eliminate the black market demand for cannabis, it would certainly be preferable to today’s blanket, though thoroughly ineffective, expensive and impotent, criminal prohibition.

Further, there exists little if any evidence that the enactment of these type of regulations would lead to an increase in marijuana use among either young people or among the general public.  Most recently, a World Health Organization report concluded, “Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly, and is simply not related to drug policy.  … The U.S. … stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies.  … The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the U.S., has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in national rates of illegal drug use.”[9]

5) California voters support sensible marijuana law reform.

Voters nationwide, and in California in particular, support ending criminal marijuana prohibition. This past spring, 56 percent of California voters expressed support for taxing and regulating marijuana in a statewide Field poll.[10] Passage of AB 390 would give greater control to state law enforcement officials and regulators by imposing proper state restrictions and regulations on this existing and widespread marijuana market.

In closing AB 390 is a fiscally conservative, common sense proposal that will raise revenue, promote public safety, and limit minor's access to marijuana. It seeks to bring control to California's largely untaxed, unregulated marijuana market by treating cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol.

I urge this Committee to move forward with the enactment of sensible regulations for legalizing marijuana.

Author’s Note: Paul Armentano is the Deputy Director of the National Reform for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and the co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink (Chelsea Green, 2009). He lives in Vallejo, California.