So I just listened to an NPR report on organized crime’s move into the marijuana industry. The report said the drug generates $35 billion annually in the US, making it the nation’s number one cash crop. The story went on to detail federal busts in suburban California communities, and illustrated with little room for argument how those busts point to organized crime. Before I get to comparing the US’s view of marijuana to Hungary’s view of the drug, I want to say something more general.
I don’t like organized crime. I think people who make a living off the black market do harm to the rest of us. This is a view I didn’t have when I lived in the States, but since moving to Hungary where the black market is doing visible harm to honest people who work harder then they should considering the wages they make, I’ve come to view organized criminals as weak-minded parasites. If there are two things I have grown disdainful of, they are organized crime and corruption. The two often go hand in hand, but right now I’m mostly concerned with the dickless goons who think they’ve beat the system because they control the liquor market, the casinos, the high-end dance clubs, and the strip clubs without paying a penny in taxes. Sounds like a sweet gig, but they’re dragging down the rest of the country. There are a few people who see the damage being done, but whether it is through threats of violence or through their connections to corrupt officials, the small-minded goons in charge of the whole system have secured their strangle-hold and won’t be happy until Hungary has no more money left to steal.
That said, I think it would be in America’s best interest to keep the marijuana market out of the hands of organized criminals. And considering the country’s understanding/acceptance of the drug, I think the only way to do that is decriminalization. The NPR report features a police officer pointing out that the busts being made did not involve the hobby home growers or the groovy gardeners. These bust involved criminal rings looking to cash in on a widely accepted, yet illegal commodity. The criminals in California are taking advantage of the drug’s status as a risky investment. The state of California has all but agreed to look the other way, but the Federal government is riding around on their high horse and kicking in pot-growers doors. The small-time growers can’t afford the risk anymore, but the demand persists. Who will supply the market? Well, it will be people who can afford to invest in an operation that uses economy of scale to make up for the occasional loss. It will be people who can hire someone willing to go to jail for a while. It will be people accustomed to flagrantly breaking the law. The Federal government is all but handing them the market.
Marijuana is easy to grow. It is called weed for a reason. It should be dirt cheap. Even the good stuff can be grown on a small scale with minimal investment. If growing a plant or two for personal use means jail time, however, the value goes up and the criminals move into the market. So, attempting to control the supply with harsh law enforcement not only fails to achieve its goal, it fills the pockets of the worst kinds of people.
So, can America do anything about the demand side of the equation? In short, the answer is no. I’m over here in Hungary where the Soviets did a bang up job brainwashing the population. If you ask anyone over forty about marijuana, they will tell you that the stuff will kill you, give you herpes, make you impotent, and put a curse on your family line for generations to come. Of course that same person will also tell you that being gay is a disease you can catch by watching too much Western television (someone actually told me that). America, while it doesn’t say nice things about the drug, does allow a healthy exchange of ideas to take place among its citizens. If you like pot, you don’t feel bad telling your best friend about it. When the Soviets were here in Hungary, however, even if you thought marijuana was harmless, hell if you were going to tell your friend at work. He’d get a promotion for reporting you. In the States we don’t have that kind of paranoia to deal with, and over time people have come to realize that pot isn’t all that bad. Sure there are a number of drawbacks, but overall the harm is nowhere near that of harder drugs. It has gotten to a point where people are okay with marijuana. They don’t want to see it sold in gas stations, but if someone keeps a little wooden box stocked with rolling papers and an ounce or two, no harm no foul. Without an expensive public “education” campaign aimed at un-learning America’s three to four decades of experience with the dreaded marijuana, there seems to be few choices other than decriminalization. And so my question to you, dear reader, is: Does that sound like, totally, really like the most awesome plan ever, or am I just soooo stoned?
2 comments:
good line of reasoning here, rougez. i think the thing that holds legislators back is fear of short-term backlash, that in the near future the ills that would plague a stoned society would be much much (politically) worse (for them) than any possible long-term benefits in other realms. couple with that the historical association between pot and central and south american immigrants and the last vestiges of of the baby boomers who hold office and you still have a federal ban on the stuff.
unfortunately the general solution to a problem like this is one of force: more laws, more police, more sentencing. and if that doesn't work, it's probably because the laws, police force, and sentencing were too little or too weak. it never would occur to the feds to try something different if one strategy isn't working...but we're seeing that in other realms these days, so we can't be too surprised.
But what's hard for me to understand is the Fed's decision to step in when California stepped down. Nevermind a supposedly conservative legislator stepping on state's rights, California could've/should've been allowed its experiment in decriminaization. Law makers needn't openly pass laws allowing drug traffic to flow freely - too much paper work.
This is a matter where executive and judicial branches need only to turn a blind eye for a trial period. Which is essentially what California was attempting. Now you have the Chinese mafia raking it in, and they're not going to spend the profits on Sun Chips and organic soda. That money is going to fund bad things - to be on the not-so-subtle side.
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