Bud’s Nugs: Legalization debate could get down and dirty

Let’s not get too smug about polls that suggest California voters are poised to legalize marijuana. Even if the Tax Cannabis initiative passes by a landslide, you can bet cops, prosecutors and elected officials will undermine the law in every way possible. After all, they’ve had plenty of practice with medipot.

While it’s too soon for full-blown campaign fireworks, the anti-legalization strategy is easy to predict. The law-and-order types will paint medical marijuana as a plague unleashed upon California, while at the same time expressing heartfelt compassion for patients who use it legitimately. They’ll point to the explosive growth of dispensaries, particularly in Los Angeles, San Diego and the Bay Area, as a dangerous situation that must be reined in. A recent Chico newspaper editorial suggests that the authors of Proposition 215 were stoned while writing the law, though it stopped short of using the same tired cliche for the millions of voters who passed it. It also fails to mention that top cops and prosecutors in all levels of government have worked hard to torpedo the law ever since.

As for caregivers, patients, collectives and physicians, they’ll be depicted as frauds and profiteers in TV ads, direct mail and other media. The very notion that marijuana can be used as medicine will be rehashed over and over again, even though it’s largely irrelevant to the question of full legalization. Medipot is out of control, the critics and pundits will say in unison, so it’s obvious that legalized cannabis will make things 10 times worse. And because there’s some truth to what they’re saying – the Compassionate Use Act is widely abused, after all – undecided voters might start to think twice about the consequences of full legalization.

Let them think, I say. Let voters think deeply about medical marijuana, and whether it’s good medicine or good law. Let them rewind the past 14 years and decide whether Prop. 215 was a big mistake. Let them review each federal prosecution, each legal challenge to SB 420, each ordinance and moratorium that limits where MM dispensaries may operate. Let them acknowledge that many so-called patients and caregivers are more interested in growing and selling pot for money than in using the herb medicinally.

And after they’re done doing all that deep thinking, let’s ask voters whether any person should face arrest and prosecution simply for using or possessing cannabis. That’s the central question California voters answered in regard to medical marijuana, and the same core question faces us today about legal, non-medical use.

For the campaign itself, deep thinking is not required. Opponents will paint medipot users as perpetually stoned scofflaws suffering from self-delusion and chemical dependency. They’ll say the same things about the 55 percent of voters who passed Prop. 215, more kindly perhaps but no less dismissively. They’ll blame potheads for every legal twist and turn, while prosecutors and lawmakers are praised by conservatives for ignoring and undermining the will of the voters. This is politics, folks, and it’s going to get ugly, which may tempt some pro-pot advocates to start slinging mud too.

That would be a mistake; you can’t use logic to fight an argument that’s illogical on its face. What you can do is engage friends and colleagues in honest discussions about marijuana, then ask them whether simple possession or use should continue to be a crime in California. I believe the answer is “no,” just as I did when I voted for the Compassionate Use Act. If that makes me a misguided voter, so be it; at least that puts me in pretty good company.

Bud Green is editor of CalPotNews.com, a news aggregate site devoted to California cannabis issues.