麻豆传媒

Editorial: Time to legalise marijuana

If voters say yes to legalising marijuana use in California, it will send a shock wave around the world

LIKE most people in his line of work, Jesse Porter used to oversee modest harvests of marijuana. His clients, medical users of the drug, came to him for growing tips. Most had three or four plants hidden at home in closets and garages. To do quality control on his own crops, Porter smoked the stuff himself 鈥� and he looked forward to days off when he didn鈥檛 have to get high.

All that may be about to change. When he swung open the door to an unmarked warehouse in Oakland this month, Porter was contemplating a very different kind of marijuana-growing operation. This business uses bar codes and radio tags to track every shipment. It employs botanists and engineers who use top-flight lab equipment. And every ounce of marijuana shipped from the 30,000-square-metre facility we were touring would be completely legal.

He is not alone in that vision. Medical use of marijuana has been legal in the state since 1996 and several cities want to license industrial cultivation facilities. , a start-up firm at which Porter is director of product development, is bidding for a permit. But the company also has its eye on a bigger prize. When Californians go to the polls next week, they may decide to make sale and possession of marijuana for recreational use legal throughout the state.

The plan, known as , would be the most radical experiment in drug policy since prohibition in the first half of last century. And if California adopts it, entire nations may follow the state鈥檚 lead. 鈥淚t would send a shock wave through the system,鈥� says of the University of Melbourne, Australia, who has written extensively on drug use and control.

Supporters of proposition 19 point to the success of experiments elsewhere in loosening the control of marijuana. The most notable is the Dutch decision in 1976 to tolerate, but not legalise, possession and sale of small amounts of marijuana. Consumption in the Netherlands is around average for a European nation and the sale of the drug has been successfully restricted to well-regulated outlets.

Proposition 19 differs from the Dutch experiment in one crucial respect. In the Netherlands, cultivation remains illegal. Growers risk criminal penalties and so charge their customers a premium. As a result, marijuana costs roughly the same in the Netherlands as illegal marijuana sold elsewhere in Europe.

In California, cannabis cultivation would likely become a branch of modern agribusiness, with massive growing facilities supplying the state鈥檚 users with much cheaper weed. 鈥淲e鈥檙e fairly confident that there will be a substantial price drop,鈥� says at the University of California, Berkeley, part of a team that conducted an of proposition 19 for the , a non-profit research centre based in Santa Monica, California. 鈥淪omething in the order of around 80 per cent.鈥�

That would put California into new territory. Proposition 19 does not specify the taxes that will be levied on marijuana sales, and hence the prices users will pay, but the RAND authors are confident consumption will rise. 鈥淚t could double,鈥� says MacCoun.

A big increase would come with social costs. Marijuana has been linked to , for example. Many of the drivers involved had also been drinking, making it difficult to gauge the impact of marijuana alone. But the RAND authors say it is possible the change could lead to around 60 extra traffic fatalities per year on top of the 3000 that normally occur in California.

Officials will also be keeping an eye on mental health statistics if proposition 19 passes. Some studies have found that young people who use marijuana regularly are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia. In California, marijuana was recorded as a contributory factor in 7 per cent of hospital admissions for the disorder in 2008. It is unclear, however, whether drug use causes the disorder, or vice versa. 鈥淭hey can鈥檛 nail the causality,鈥� says , a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The RAND team says that the potential increase in traffic accidents and mental health problems, together with possible adverse effects such as an increase in respiratory illnesses, could cost tens of millions of dollars a year. But this cost is dwarfed by the savings and income that would follow legalisation. California鈥檚 tax authorities estimate that a levy of around $2 per gram would bring in $1.4 billion per year. Hundreds of millions of dollars would also be saved in policing costs. Almost 80,000 people were arrested for marijuana use or supply in California in 2008.

鈥淎 tax of $2 per gram would bring in an estimated $1.4 billion per year鈥�

Until recently, the initiative had support from around half the electorate. However, as 麻豆传媒 went to press, a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California suggested the tide was turning against it, with 49 per cent of the electorate now opposing proposition 19 and 44 per cent in support.

What is certain is that if it passes, the effects will be felt worldwide. Attempts to rewrite the , a 1961 UN treaty that makes marijuana and other drugs illegal, have always been opposed by the US. 鈥淭he only way the system will change is if the United States changes,鈥� says Room. 鈥淭his might be the beginning.鈥�