Should Marijuana Be Regulated Like Alcohol or Tobacco?

The marijuana legalization debate has gained a whole new momentum ever since the economy took a dip. Cities, counties, and states are cash strapped, and see their budgets dwindled with every revenue report. This has obviously been horrible for the job market, but it has been a big factor in converting citizen’s and politician’s opinions towards marijuana legalization. I remember when it was just consumers and sympathizers that were calling for legalization. Now, even some staunch conservatives are looking into the idea. They don’t consume marijuana at all, but are all about taxing the S out of it. I hope it doesn’t result in marijuana being taxed to death before it gets off the ground, but hopefully we can win that battle after we win legalization.

 

A question that has been popping up on TWB lately is whether or not marijuana should be regulated like the tobacco industry, or the alcohol industry. I just posted an article this week about regulating marijuana like wine, which is a revolutionary idea, but I am still waiting to see how much traction it gets. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea, but I’m just not sure about the logistics of the campaign strategy. More will obviously be known as 2012 approaches. But for the sake of this article, we will look at the alcohol industry, and the tobacco industry.

 

When most people think about marijuana legalization, they picture the regulations being like that of the tobacco industry. After all, you smoke both tobacco and marijuana, right? Just as someone goes to the local corner market to get a pack of cigs, they would be able to get a pack of Camel greens or Marlboro danks. I have long pointed out the difficulties of such a business model. For starters, marijuana is not like the tobacco plant. Tobacco can grow from the Carolinas to the Caribbean and for the most part, the quality will only variate slightly. A tobacco farmer would argue that there is distinct differences, but let’s get serious, it’s not nearly on the same level as marijuana cultivation.

 

Cultivating and selling marijuana on the same scale as tobacco is nearly impossible, unless it was grown entirely indoors by a large company, which is unrealistic. All of the football stadiums in the country couldn’t house the amount of marijuana plants that the market would require if it were legal and sold by a big tobacco company. It would have to be cultivated outside, year round, on a very large scale if it were done by just a handful of large companies. This is also unrealistic. Marijuana can vary from room to room inside of a house, let alone outdoors.

 

Outdoor marijuana plants that grow in the State of Jefferson (Southern Oregon, Northern California) are going to be starkly different than plants that are grown in Pennsylvania. For that matter, even outdoor grow ops in the State of Jefferson are not all created equal. It would be too hard, if not impossible, to market so many kinds of marijuana the same way as cigarettes. Right now you go into a store and there are just a handful of types of cigarettes. There are different brands, but the type of actual cigarette you can buy is fairly limited. Compare that with a dispensary, that has in some cases hundreds of strains. That’s a big reason why corporate America hasn’t harnessed the cannabis market; it’s just too hard to get a consistency that it would take to launch the industry on a huge scale.

 

And with all of that being said, would we really want those blood sucking bastards in charge of the marijuana industry? Look at what they have done to society with their research and development already. Can you imagine what they would do to marijuana to make it super addictive? It wouldn’t even be marijuana anymore; the product would be some Frankenstein herb that is meant to take your dollars instead of providing comfort, recreation, and relief. Marijuana is a cottage industry, and I really hope it stays that way forever. I love going to different areas and seeing what their stuff is like. If it was just bland budget weed sold across the nation, it would really make me sad.

 

I picture some slick talking tobacco executives sitting down with members of Congress. The executives explain that they can grow marijuana on an enormous scale, that it would all be under the close watch of the government, and that they can provide tax dollars out the wazoo. They give the politicians large sums of money in exchange for marijuana becoming legal. On the surface, marijuana consumers are stoked because the marijuana plant is finally free. They don’t care how it happened, they just know that they have been waiting for this for a long time. It will only be after they see what big tobacco has done to the beloved marijuana plant that they realize the whole thing was f’d since jump street.

 

The alcohol industry is a better representation of what I think marijuana regulations will look like after legalization. There will still be large companies trying to corner the industry, much like Budweiser and Coors do today. However, there will also be a large cottage community producing marijuana, like the micro brew industry. Large companies will produce massive quantities of low grade product, much like Coors and Budweiser do with their beer. But, people that actually like flavor and quality will go for the cottage industry products, much like people go for a micro brew. Instead of making regulations to cater to the top companies, regulations will be more flexible to accommodate the small businesses. There will be more wiggle room for entrepreneurs to enter into the market as a result, and consumers will benefit from the buffet of deliciousness that will result.

I think the big debate that people run into when they get into this conversation is not necessarily the regulation structure for large and small businesses, so much as the age requirement. If marijuana is regulated like tobacco, it would have an 18 or older age requirement. Of course, if marijuana is regulated like alcohol, it would have an age requirement of 21 or older. Again, marijuana is smoked, so people naturally gravitate toward the 18 year old requirement. However, marijuana is an intoxicating substance, so this has to be considered. Marijuana doesn’t impair a person nearly as much as alcohol (unless they are a total rookie), so I personally think that an ‘in-between’ age would be sufficient. Whether that is 19 or 20, I will let the policy makers decide. Somewhere there is a recently graduated high school student praying that it is 19 instead of 20 – my prayers are will you buddy! I remember what it was like to be too young before I got too old to be hip ha ha.

What do TWB readers think? I know there will be a bunch of you that say ‘it should have NO regulations!’ That would be great in a perfect world, but politics is an incremental game, and getting a grand slam straight out the gate might be asking for two much. We are going to have to give a little in order to get what we want in return. With that in mind, what is an appropriate age to start consuming marijuana legally? Would you prefer that large companies get into the movement in order to speed up legalization? Or do we want to keep those fascists out in order to keep things pure, even though it might take an extra election or two as a result? Do you want marijuana to be regulated more like tobacco, or alcohol, or something else, like grapes!? I look forward to the discussion.

Colorado Alliance Files Initiative To Tax And Regulate Marijuana

Graphic: Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol

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Denver-based activists have filed a ballot initiative with the Secretary of State that they say would regulate marijuana in Colorado in a manner similar to alcohol.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol must now gather 86,105 signatures before August 6, 2012 to qualify for the November 2012 general election ballot.

The proposal requires the Department of Revenue to tax and regulate marijuana and directs this new revenue source to the public school capital construction assistance fund.

It would allow people 21 and older to buy and possess up to an ounce of marijuana. They would also be allowed to grow up to six plants and to possess all the marijuana produced by those plants, reports Scot Kersgaard at the Colorado Independent.

Photo: Denver Westword

Mason Tvert: “Parents should support this”

​ The initiative’s backers are long-time Colorado marijuana policy reformers Brian Vicente and Mason Tvert of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. Supporting the effort are SAFER Colorado, Sensible Colorado, the Marijuana Policy Project and the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA).

“Parents should support this,” Tvert said, pointing out that, under the black market, marijuana is already more available to teenagers than is alcohol. “This will shift from a prohibition paradigm to a regulation paradigm.”

“This is a very exciting time in Colorado,” Tvert said. “We are leading the way around the country by bringing forth perhaps the strongest most sensible marijuana law in perhaps the entire country.”

“This will allow the state to control the use of marijuana,” Vicente said. “It will take it out of the hands of cartels and gangsters and will move it into a strict state controlled system.”

“Once again Colorado is at the forefront of the national movement to reform our ineffective marijuana laws,” said Art Way, Colorado drug policy manager of the DPA, an organization advocating alternatives to the War On Drugs.

“The responsible regulation of marijuana is a crucial first step in undoing the harms associated with the failed drug war,” Way said.

Recent ballot initiatives and legislative advocacy in Colorado have decriminalized marijuana and established one of the most expansive medical marijuana regulatory systems in the country. Recent polling shows that more than half of the voters in Colorado support ending marijuana prohibition, while 46 percent of Americans nationwide support making marijuana legal.

A decade ago, only one in four Americans supported cannabis legalization.

A report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy released last month suggests the legalization of marijuana as an affirmative step to end failed drug policies that fuel a violent black market.

Marijuana is at the center of the U.S. Drug War, as more than 800,000 Americans are arrested for marijuana offenses each year and are subsequently labeled as criminals, overwhelmingly due to low-level possession for personal use.

“Our wasteful, punitive marijuana laws sustain a massive, increasingly violent underground economy, make criminals out of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens, waste scarce law enforcement resources, and rob taxpayers of billions in potential revenue,” Way said. “Whether by the hand of lawmakers or a fed-up electorate, these laws are going to change.

An opposing group, calling itself Legalize 2012, says the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol wouldn’t really legalize marijuana. Even as the Campaign was holding its press conference in downtown Denver, Legalize 2012 was handing out info sheets detailing what they believe is wrong with the proposal.

The flyer referred to the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol as a “sentencing reform initiative,” because possession of more than an ounce of pot would remain illegal and subject people to arrest. One of the leaders of Legalize 2012, Laura Kriho, actually referred to Tvert as “my opponent” in a recent public appearance, reports the Colorado Independent.

Beer Companies Join Law Enforcement’s Fight Against Legal Pot

Daniel Rhoades/A Life Of Absolute Gangsterism

Man, I really hate to tell you this. But if you’re a cannabis user in California, you should stop drinking beer, unless you are into donating money to continue being busted for pot.

The second biggest contributor to the main group opposing Prop 19 marijuana legalization in California — behind only law enforcement organizations — is the trade association for the state’s beer distributors, according to Steve Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project, co-author of Marijuana Is Safer.

On September 7, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors made a whopping $10,000 contribution to a committee opposing Proposition 19.

“Unless the beer distributors in California have suddenly developed a philosophical opposition to the use of intoxicating substances, the motivation behind this contribution is clear,” Fox said.

“Plain and simple, the alcohol industry is trying to kill the competition,” Fox said. “They know that marijuana is less addictive, less toxic and less likely to be associated with violent behavior than alcohol. So they don’t want adults to have the option of using marijuana legally instead of alcohol.”

“Their mission is to drive people to drink,” Fox said.

Graphic: Cracked.com

With the alcohol industry now working hand-in-hand with the law enforcement community to keep marijuana illegal, the California Police Chiefs Association has given at least $30,000 to the “No On Proposition 19″ campaign, while the California Narcotics Officers’ Association has thrown in $20,500 of its own.

This partnership underscores the rank hypocrisy among law enforcement officers who are opposed to Prop 19, according to Fox.

“Members of law enforcement have argued against Proposition 19 by asserting, ‘We have enough problems with alcohol, we don’t need to add another intoxicating substance to the mix,’ implying that marijuana is just as bad as alcohol,” Fox said.

“But the truth is that a legal marijuana market would not add another dangerous intoxicant to the mix; rather it would provide adults with a less harmful legal alternative to alcohol,” Fox said.

“In their campaign to defeat Proposition 19, members of law enforcement and the alcohol industry have joined together under an umbrella group calling themselves ‘Public Safety First,’ ” Fox said. “Sadly, by fighting to keep marijuana illegal and steering adults toward alcohol instead, they are putting public safety last.”

The biggest supporter of Yes On 19, which has collected about $500,000 in donations so far, is Oaksterdam University and its affiliated businesses, founded by medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee, reports Jacob Sullum at Reason.

The legalization campaign has attracted other prominent donors including Manor Hotel President Robert Field and Men’s Wearhouse CEO George Zimmer, a longtime supporter of drug policy reform.

Yes On 19 has far more individual donors — hundreds of people contributing amounts from a symbolic $4.20 to thousands of dollars — than Public Safety First, which reports only three individual donors.

The Drug Policy Action Committee, also supporting Prop 19, has raised another $100,000 or so, mostly from Adam & Eve founder Phil Harvey, who built his business empire on sex toys and adult videos.