Efforts to legalize marijuana in Washington state today bear an uncanny resemblance to the movement to repeal national alcohol Prohibition in the early 1930s. Anyone who watched Ken Burns' "Prohibition" on PBS last week or read Daniel Okrent's "Last Call" on which it was based should have recognized the parallels.
By the time America abandoned its "noble" experiment, much of the country was obtaining booze by prescription. Everybody else was getting it on the black market or in speakeasies, fueling a wave of organized crime and public corruption.
With the economy in a tailspin, government was desperate for cash, and taxing alcohol was one obvious solution.
As long as booze was illegal, anybody of any age could buy it virtually anywhere at any hour of the day.
Sound familiar?
Prohibition repeal didn't happen overnight. It took shape one community at a time, not by nullification - the open defiance of federal law - but by the absence of concurrent enforcement. Instead of passing a state prohibition law and locking people up for violating it, local officials stepped aside while federal agents enforced federal laws. Eventually pressure mounted on the federal government to act.
Which brings us to Initiative 502. It would:
- Legalize possession of small quantities of pot.
- Set a legal age, 21 and older.
- Regulate the supply chain. Retailers, processors and growers would answer to the state liquor control board. The state agency also would limit inventories, operating hours and impose restrictions on advertising.
- Impose a standard against driving while impaired by marijuana.
- Levy a 25 percent state tax at each stage of the process - producer, processor and retailer. In all, it would generate about $215 million a year, $80 million of which would go toward the general fund. The rest would be earmarked toward substance abuse programs, research and preventing high school drop outs.
That's much different from earlier Washington initiatives aimed at merely eliminating criminal and civil penalties. Those failed to get on the ballot, and voters would have rejected them.
But I-502 is an initiative to the Legislature. If the campaign behind it can generate 241,153 valid signatures by Dec. 30, lawmakers will be asked to adopt its detailed provisions.
Failing that - or even if lawmakers opt to pass something else - I-502 would go on the 2012 general election ballot in November.
There's polling to suggest a narrow majority of Washington voters might be comfortable enough with its regulatory framework - and sufficiently disenchanted with a four-decade-long war on drugs that has filled prisons without stemming substance abuse - to approve. The measure has the support of Washington Democrats, a former U.S. attorney and the Seattle city attorney.
Should Washington voters decouple their state marijuana laws from the national standards, the feds might be compelled to devote an enormous amount of resources to enforce marijuana prohibition in the Evergreen State. Perhaps they won't.
Either way, Washington voters will have sent the most powerful message yet that it's folly to expect people to stop using marijuana simply by passing a law. As other states follow its example, Congress will eventually find the courage to lead.
Think it won't happen in 2012?
Neither did the prohibitionists in 1932. - M.T.
