Legalizing marijuana: The feds vs. California

Californians may be on the way to legalizing marijuana, said Adam Nagourney in The New York Times, but the state’s stoners may still have to fear The Man if they light up. Attorney General Eric Holder last week promised that even if state voters approved Proposition 19, a referendum to legalize marijuana, he would “vigorously” enforce federal laws prohibiting recreational use of the drug. Holder said that legal sales of weed would “significantly undermine” efforts to keep California communities safe, and his vow could “plunge the nation’s most populous state into a murky and unsettling conflict with the federal government.” Besides, why encourage more drug use? said the Santa Cruz, Calif., Sentinel in an editorial. “Do we want our kids to get the message that being stoned is okay, because the government says it’s okay?”

Before Californians start trembling with fear, said Jacob Sullum in Reason.com, they should know that Holder is bluffing. The federal government accounts for fewer than 1 percent of marijuana arrests in the U.S.; the Drug Enforcement Administration has only 5,500 special agents nationwide, compared with 70,000 local police officers in California. Obviously, the feds don’t have the resources or the political will to bust tens of thousands of average citizens growing weed in their backyard gardens. If Californians choose legalization, “good luck” to Holder in turning back the clock.

Arresting people isn’t the only weapon in the federal arsenal, said the San Jose Mercury News. This administration, or a future one, could simply deny hundreds of millions in federal aid to California on the grounds that the state “is out of compliance with federal law.” It’s also worrying that Prop 19 allows each of California’s 478 cities and 58 counties to establish its own laws on how marijuana can be grown, sold, and taxed. What a legal mess that would create. Progress, though, is sometimes messy, said Edward Schumacher-Matos in The Washington Post. A new study by the RAND Corp. said that legalization in California could cost Mexican drug cartels from 4 percent to 20 percent of their revenues, and the state—which often serves as a cultural bellwether—could serve as a laboratory for drug legalization that could be studied by other states. Prop 19 isn’t perfect, but it’s the first step toward “overthrowing nearly a century of failed American drug prohibition.”

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