21 Jun 2017

State Governments Are Becoming the Biggest Drug Lords of All

By Robert Higgs

The so-called “war on drugs” – actually a war on certain people associated in various ways with certain drugs – has served since the Nixon administration as a major profit center for governments at every level. Owing to the ostensible efforts to suppress the possession, use, and commerce in these drugs, governments have been able to justify great increases in their staffs, budgets, and power.

24 Feb 2015

Don't Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol - Keep Government Out!

By James C. Wilson

On February 20, U.S. Representatives Jared Polis (D-Colorado) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced two new bills for federal marijuana legalization. The U.S. government's practice of imprisoning, fining, harassing, and stigmatizing marijuana users is tragic and has damaged many lives. Ending prohibition is a welcome change, but these bills have severe problems. If passed, they would turn marijuana into a cartelized industry rather than a business opportunity for everyday people.

Blumenaur's bill, The Marijuana Tax Revenue Act of 2015 (HR 1014), would place a federal excise tax on marijuana, and occupational taxes on the marijuana-related businesses. Polis' HR 1013, The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, would end federal prohibition of marijuana and transfer enforcement from the Drug Enforcement Agency to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives. The bills would subject marijuana to the same sort of taxation and regulation as alcohol and tobacco, using Colorado as a nationwide model. Such a regime would lead to the development of "big marijuana" firms similar to "big alcohol" and "big tobacco."

07 Aug 2014

The Forest for the Trees: Lessons from Newspaper Coverage of the Benton Mackenzie Trial and Rock Island County Government

By Jeff Ignatius

The July 9 Rock Island Argus/Moline Dispatch article announcing a verdict for Benton Mackenzie on drug charges began like this: "Even as the 12 jurors shuffled into the courtroom to announce their verdict, Benton Mackenzie could already sense his fate. Guilty."

As storytelling journalism quickly establishing a mood and then getting to the point, it's pretty good.

Yet with the basic facts of the case never in dispute, the verdict had long been almost a foregone conclusion because of a pre-trial ruling in May - which the Illinois-based newspapers mentioned in trial coverage but didn't actually cover. Judge Henry Latham ruled that Mackenzie couldn't claim he grew marijuana out of medical necessity to treat his cancer.

The Quad-City Times, on the other hand, did cover that ruling, and did a decent job explaining the precedent behind it.

But the Benton Mackenzie coverage from both entities, while voluminous, overlooked or ignored frameworks in which daily events could be understood, processed, and put into a more-meaningful context. The story is ultimately not just about one man with terminal cancer facing a criminal trial. Nor does it merely illuminate the general issue of medical marijuana.

Rather, it's a heart-wrenching, complicated example of something larger: how the justice system deals with an area of rapidly changing law - one that is itself chasing a swift change in public attitudes following decades of calcified prohibition policy.

25 Jul 2013

The Drug War's Collateral Damage: Support for Industrial Hemp Grows - Even in Congress

By Jeff Ignatius

By most standards, Jason Kakert's Iowa Hemp for Victory page on Facebook is a modest grassroots political effort. He started the page in 2011, and this week it had only 58 "likes."

"This is just getting started out," the 31-year-old graphic artist said last week in his studio at the Bucktown Center for the Arts. "Right now this is kind of a one-man show."

But Kakert (a former River Cities' Reader intern) is an eloquent advocate for industrial hemp, and he's part of a movement that's gaining significant traction. Last month, the U.S. House - by a vote of 225 to 200 - passed an amendment to the farm bill that would allow "institutions of higher education to grow or cultivate industrial hemp for the purpose of agricultural or academic research," according to the amendment's summary. "The amendment only applies to [the nine] states that already permit industrial hemp growth and cultivation under state law."

The amendment is now attached to the House-passed farm bill, but its fate is uncertain at best; the larger politics of the farm bill dwarf this particular issue.

Yet the amendment's passage represented a major surprise victory for hemp advocates. As Tom Murphy, the national outreach coordinator and a board member of the not-for-profit organization Vote Hemp, said in an interview last week: "We were expecting a 50 to 375 defeat."

08 Jul 2010

Bumps in the Road to Medical Marijuana: The Current Iowa Stalemate Doesn't Change the Endgame -- Federal Legalization

By Jeff Ignatius

On February 17, the Iowa Board of Pharmacy voted unanimously to support a motion recommending "that the legislature reclassify marijuana from Schedule I of the Iowa Controlled Substance Act ... to Schedule II ... with the further recommendation that the legislature convene a task force or study committee ... for the purpose of making recommendations back to the legislature regarding the administration of a medical-marijuana program."

That simple, unequivocal statement followed four public hearings in summer and fall 2009, and appeared to be a major victory for medical-marijuana advocates.

But that win looks largely symbolic today, as Democratic legislative leaders last month balked at forming a study group, and the Board of Pharmacy reiterated its desire for legislative guidance.

Yet the Board of Pharmacy's recommendation remains a clear first step toward allowing medical use of marijuana in Iowa. According to the Iowa Controlled Substances Act, a Schedule I drug has "no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States; or lacks accepted safety for use in treatment under medical supervision." A Schedule II drug has "currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, or currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions."

So a request to reschedule marijuana is an acknowledgment by the Board of Pharmacy that marijuana has an "accepted medical use." But who will make marijuana available for medicinal use in Iowa?

At this point, the answer from the Board of Pharmacy and the legislature could be drawn from that old Family Circus gag: "Not Me!"

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