A poll about a month ago told us that almost half of Americans believe marijuana should be legalized and taxed. Via Economist.com. They go on to predict that "it can only be a matter of time before laws start to change, at least in the more liberal states."
In the meantime, the drug war rages on, and in Montana there's a battle going on about medical marijuana which is legal in the state. A patient or caregiver with a doctor's recommendation can grow up to six plants. Cooperatives were formed to grow pot for patients. But the law isn't clear about whether the person with the prescription can "farm out" the right to grow weed. The Feds decided that Montana law didn't allow that, and in mid-March they raided a farm and pulled up almost 1,700 pot plants. Sources: Helenair.com and Reason.com.
Aside: This sort of thing wouldn't happen if Obama was president.
Law enforcement and prosecutors have a tremendous amount of discretion on what laws to enforce. And while the police and prosecutors may want to enforce a zero tolerance in this area, the people seem much more tolerant. This played out late last year in Missoula, Montana, where prosecutors wanted to try a defendant for possession of a small quantity of marijuana. But during the voir dire many of the potential jurors said they wouldn't convict over such a small amount. The judge questioned whether they could get a jury out of that pool and called a recess, during which, the prosecutor and defense struck a plea deal. See the story at Blogs.WSJ.com. Don Boudreaux calls it jury nullification. He elaborates:
This prosecutor is mistaken to assume that the law is simply that which the state declares it to be. A great advantage of trial by jury – an advantage applauded by the likes of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison – is to enable the community’s evolved sense of law and justice to moderate, or even to nullify, government’s criminal statutes. As Edward Gibbon observed, “Whenever the offense inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.”
The war on drugs has cost a lot of lives and money, but there's so much money involved that the warriors on both sides want it to continue. It should be no surprise that the drug cartels were against legalization of marijuana in California last year.
As Economist.com says, "it can only be a matter of time before laws start to change."
Updated 5/2/11: Maybe not this time. AmericanIndependent.com reports that Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer said he would allow SB 423 to become law without his signature. That law would require all patients to get multiple doctors to sign off on their need for marijuana, it would shut down marijuana dispensaries, and it would limit caregivers to only three patients each and prohibit them from accepting any compensation from their patients.
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