From the Front Lines of the 'War on Drugs'

While perhaps written partly tongue in cheek, Joe Klein makes some good points about legalizing marijuana in his article in TIME, "Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense."

"[T]here are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice," writes Klein. "[T]he U.S. is, by far, the most 'criminal' country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one–third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana–related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public."

Or how about this? The money that is currently being squandered could be used to track down the dangerous elements of society — the murderers, the rapists, the identity thieves. Putting those people behind bars might make life livable for the rest of us.

On the economic side of the ledger, Klein observes, "there is an enormous potential windfall in the taxation of marijuana. It is estimated that pot is the largest cash crop in California, with annual revenues approaching $14 billion. A 10% pot tax would yield $1.4 billion in California alone."

And California, with its budget woes and double–digit unemployment rate, could certainly use an annual infusion of more than $1 billion.

Not to mention that the black market would be eliminated — along with the violence that accompanies illegal trade.

At the other end of this discussion is the proposal that was made recently in West Virginia to give drug tests to applicants for public assistance.

Republican Craig Blair suggested "randomly testing people receiving state and federal assistance through unemployment, food stamps or welfare programs." The proposal died in the legislature on Tuesday.

I don't know if such legislation would be on solid legal ground when it comes to testing applicants for welfare or food stamps. But unemployment benefits are insurance that people pay for when they are employed. Seems like giving drug tests to people who are applying for unemployment benefits would be opening a big can of worms — one I'm not sure Blair or anyone else really wants to get into these days.

More than 660,000 jobs were lost in March, bringing unemployment to 8.5%, and drug testing can be costly. It doesn't seem like the wisest expenditure for cash–strapped governments, state or federal, although officials in several states are exploring Blair's proposal.

But, for the sake of argument, how would this random testing be accomplished? Would this be a matter of age or racial profiling? If young, black men were targeted more often than any other group, in much the same way they are disproportionately represented in the populations of state and federal prisons, wouldn't that leave the governing entities wide open for lawsuits? How much would the taxpayers have to pay to defend the government against those?

Or against charges of false positives? Not all labs are meticulous about their procedures.

And how likely would those lawsuits be to succeed? I guess that depends on the individual circumstances.

For that matter, giving drug tests to applicants for welfare and food stamps seems illogical as well. Even if someone tests positive, how does that prove that the public assistance funds would be used to buy marijuana?

If the concern is substance abuse, how would government prevent public assistance monies from being used for alcohol?

Drug tests don't even measure impairment. They only confirm the presence of molecules in the system, molecules that may be days or weeks old.

And that would only confirm that someone had taken the substance within the last several days or weeks, not how frequently it was taken or whether the person who tested positive was the one who purchased it.

The War on Drugs is being fought against our own people, most of whom are law–abiding citizens. Most people who have to apply for assistance don't want to do so. If someone has lost a job, do we want to make the situation worse by requiring that person to pass a drug test to receive assistance?

"[T]he costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable," Klein writes. "Would legalization be any worse?"

It's a question that deserves better than the blithe dismissal it received from the president last month.