cannabisnews.com: Lawmakers Part Ways in State's War on Pot





Lawmakers Part Ways in State's War on Pot
Posted by FoM on May 10, 2000 at 09:28:30 PT
By Dan Hamburg
Source: San Jose Mercury News 
The war against marijuana took two interesting, and very divergent, turns last month. In Ukiah, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors placed a measure on the November ballot to decriminalize the personal cultivation and use of marijuana. In Sacramento, the Assembly Public Safety Committee voted to reimpose California's ``smoke a joint, lose your license'' law.
Mendocino County is where the state's war on marijuana began 21 years ago. In a headline-grabbing event that helped fuel his gubernatorial ambitions, then-Attorney General George Deukmejian, accompanied by automatic rifle-toting, flak-jacketed agents, descended by helicopter on a northern Mendocino County garden. Huge amounts of money have been spent on all aspects of the marijuana war. Two decades later, the weed is more prevalent than ever.The message from this state of affairs is so plain and simple that only a politician could miss it -- prohibition doesn't work. But the war on marijuana has never been about stopping marijuana use so much as it has been about pandering to a public that is legitimately concerned about health and safety, especially the health and safety of children. Pandering is where Gov. Gray Davis and the Assembly Public Safety Committee come in.The ``smoke a joint, lose your license'' mandate was devised by the Bush administration as an attack on California's marijuana decriminalization law under which possession of less than an ounce is deemed an infraction rather than a misdemeanor. To this day, the feds withhold transportation funds from states that refuse to take driver's licenses from drug offenders, regardless of whether the drug offense has any relationship to operating a vehicle. States that don't wish to abide by the mandate can ``opt out'' with the signature of the governor. Thirty-two states, including every state west of Texas, have taken advantage of the ``opt out'' option. Despite polls showing that two-thirds of Californians disagreed with him, former Gov. Pete Wilson chose to support the Bush mandate. That Wilson law is due to expire in July 2000.Now, to the shock of many of those who supported his bid for high office, Gov. Davis has made it clear that he wants the Wilson policy extended. This is despite the fact that California will be forced to continue spending millions processing minor pot offenders, whose charges would otherwise be dismissed with a ticket, to come back to court in order to defend their licenses. It is despite the fact that the law Davis supports, AB 2295, would make it a worse offense to have a joint in your pocket or purse at home than to be caught speeding, driving recklessly, or with an open liquor container in your car.In the halls of the state Capitol, our leaders, eager to prove how much they care about kids and despise crime, sip their martinis and condemn pot smokers. Many of them have no doubt ``experimented'' themselves.The governor and our misinformed state legislators need to pay heed to the discussion now going on in Mendocino County. Sheriff Tony Craver signed the initiative to legalize the personal cultivation and use of marijuana. He did this not because he supports marijuana use but because as a longtime law enforcement official he has seen that prohibition is a bust. If the initiative passes, he believes it will ``send a message to policy makers in Sacramento and Washington that despite decades of efforts to suppress marijuana, the number of users and amount of plants seized continues to increase.''Mendocino County Counsel Peter Klein said that the initiative was unenforceable because it pre-empts state and federal laws prohibiting the possession and use of marijuana. However, as Supervisor Richard Shoemaker pointed out, Proposition 215, the 1996 ``medical marijuana'' initiative, purportedly had similar problems and is now being successfully implemented.Perhaps it should come as no surprise that it is in the county where the pot war got started that it's now winding down. Mendocino County has experienced many of the negative effects of illegal pot. Millions of dollars spent by law enforcement, skewing priorities and clogging the courts. Thousands of casual users arrested, sometimes imprisoned and left with indelible marks on their records. The hypocrisy of preaching against pot while pushing more dangerous drugs. A culture of greed and occasional violence brought about directly by astronomical prices. The unseemliness of an economy whose largest cash crop is an illegal weed.Mendocino County has learned the hard way and is finally on the right track. Threats and bullying don't work. Lose your home. Lose your freedom. And now lose your license. Too bad the politicos in Sacramento seem once again to have lost their minds.Dan Hamburg is a former Mendocino County supervisor and member of Congress. He was the Green Party candidate for governor in 1998 and is currently executive director of Voice of the Environment, a Bolinas-based non-profit group.Published Wednesday, May 10, 2000 © 2000 Mercury Center. Related Articles & Web Site:The Green Partyhttp://www.greenparties.org/War Against Marijuana Goes Onhttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5630.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Search:http://google.com/search?q=cannabisnews+medical
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on May 11, 2000 at 15:56:31 PT
Thanks DankHank and Everyone
Thank DankHank! It is all related. I have a very difficult time anymore shutting off any aspect of the war on drugs. I don't do drugs. Cannabis is an herb, period. But the big but! I did do drugs. I was lucky enough to not get caught and grow up and move on. I worry about the younger generation. They can be destroyed by youthful indiscretions and that is so morally wrong the words just can't say how angry it makes me inside.Peace, FoM!
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Comment #8 posted by Dankhank on May 11, 2000 at 11:09:37 PT:
Sure, it's related
FOM, soon as I read your first post I came to the same conclusion as all.Good work FOM
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on May 10, 2000 at 21:43:10 PT
It all does matter!
Hi Jean,I agree with you 100 percent. I only meant I should have used my regular Cannabis Archives. I guess I try too hard sometimes. Seriously I wasn't paying close attention and I always make it a medical article if it is one and then it is archived in medical because so far most California articles have been medical. It is all very important I agree!Peace, FoM!
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Comment #6 posted by Jeaneous on May 10, 2000 at 18:36:23 PT:
Not Medicinal
This post is still important, at least to me, being a resident of California. We have been through the court and had to deal with this law. Even though there was no car involved in our situation, my husband lost his license. You have to go back to court to modify your sentencing in order to recieve your license back. My husband lost two months of work due to this law. Then you add the DMV's idiots and my husband ended up with a "restricted license". As time came due for him to recieve his back, I called for information about the procedures. We found out that day that my husband had his sentence modified and that he should have had his license the whole time. We were told that he was driving illegally under a restricted license and that he could be arrested for it.I know this probably sounds confusing, but it is just a way to say how important this law is to me and the fact that we have a dicator for a Governor that is supporting this.Sure wish Grey would recieve letters from every person that has been though this hellish game of a law. Your representatives need to hear your voice on this one. It is important. This would by the way effect even the medicinal users. They would have the same action taken against them.
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Comment #5 posted by MikeEEEEE on May 10, 2000 at 16:58:32 PT
The difference between black & white
Black = prohibitions taking driver licenses away.White = freedom fighters giving us our freedoms back.
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Comment #4 posted by dddd on May 10, 2000 at 14:02:21 PT
Relevant
I think this article is quite relevant to MMJ.If you are going to take away someones license for smoking weed,and at the same time,have people who are allowed to use it medically,then you have an akward situation. Relax FoM,any articles,even if they are not directly related to MMJ,are valuable,and appreciated. JAH shine on you........dddd
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on May 10, 2000 at 13:33:02 PT
Thanks Mark
Hi Mark,I think I automatically thought it was a medical article and I only scanned it before I posted it. I'm used to everything beng medical coming out of California. I do agree it is all related though and thank you for the compliment!Peace, FoM!
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Comment #2 posted by Mark Tide on May 10, 2000 at 12:50:47 PT:
Hey, even if misclassified IT WORKS
No issues here with your category scheme FoM. This is a good read, and I believe it's quite relevant to P215 (it is mentioned in text of column). Hamburg works over some good rhetoric here, as a spokesperson for the Greeens, basically the sponsoring agent for this Mendocino Co. initiative. Even though it has no actual force of law, perhaps it will somehow send a frontier call down to the Dome in Sacramento or the swamp in D.C., announcing the beginning of the end as Hamburg hopes in his column. Somehow, I believe more will be required than this hoot from the hinterlands, though it's good to read. Hamburg on his hobby horse. He's very effective as a spokesperson in some areas, and the SJMerc has done well to publish the column since SJ needs some better advocacy and consensus development to engage that city's own P215 implementation miasma.Thanks again to FoM & Cannabisnews.com for bringing us the latest news & views and allowing commentary. This is the best service on the web for cannabis politics.
Arcata Journal
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on May 10, 2000 at 09:46:41 PT
Not Medical
After I posted the article I realized that it isn't concerning Medical Marijuana. Here are CannabisNews Archives on Cannabis.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtmlPeace, FoM!
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