It sounds like such a perfect compromise, an almost Clintonian exercise in 'triangulation.'  One side wants marijuana legalized, the other side wants it still criminalized.  So you 'split the difference' and set up a system where small amounts won't send you to jail, but will cost a small fine - thus pleasing those whose 'real' argument is "I want to smoke it without being hassled" - but which will still permit heavy jail terms for 'possession with intent to sell' or 'growing more than you can reasonably use' or 'importing the stuff.'  This keeps the 'stop the Devil Weed' crowd happy, since those evil dealers can still be sent to jail.

            And, as with DADT, 'Civil Unions, yes; gay marriage, no' and 'workfare' - the problems of which are now becoming apparent - 'decriminalization' is a supposedly 'pragmatic solution' that sounds reasonable, but becomes, in practice, a disaster, failing to accomplish even part of what it was supposed to, bringing not praise but justified criticism from both sides, and proving to be far too easily open to abuse.  (There are many reasons why these have proven to be failures, but surely the most obvious is that the 'compromise' accepts, silently, the Conservative position.   More on that later.)

Now the case against decriminalization, -- if tied to my argument on legalization as an economic stimulus, can be made in two sentences, with maybe two additional paragraphs of explanation.  "The whole argument is that legal marijuana would produce substantial economic benefits, both to the Federal Government - and the governments of those states that legalized it - and to the economy as a whole.  But 'decriminalized' marijuana is still illegal, and provides almost none of those benefits."

            Spelling this out is almost insulting to some of you, but bear with me.  Obviously, you cannot - realistically - tax an illegal product or service.  So the billions of dollars in tax receipts are gone.  Equally, a vendor of a contraband is, for the most part, unlikely to declare such income.  Say goodbye to the income tax revenue as well.  Since marijuana would be still illegal, there would be no argument for quashing the convictions of those already in jail for possession, so that savings disappears.  There would be small savings in police usage, and some less congestion in court calendars - but even there the savings might not be as much as expected.  Prosecutors are going to be much less likely to want to 'bargain down' cases from 'possession with intent' to 'simple possession' if this means that the best result they get is a simple fine.  And defense attorneys are equally unlikely to concede cases if they have a chance to argue 'personal use.'

            But most important of all, decriminalization will have no effect on the price of marijuana, and thus will provide none of the stimulus effect that is the basis of my whole argument.  As I demonstrated, the high cost of marijuana is almost exclusively a factor of its illegal status, and is the result of 'assumption of risk' not of 'value added.'  Decriminalization would lessen - but not eliminate - the risk for users.  But 'user risk' has never been a factor in the price.  And all those whose 'assumption of risk' adds to the price, growers, shippers, wholesalers and dealers, are every bit as much at risk as they were, so there is no incentive to lower the price.

But there is still a strong temptation to support decriminalization - the only bill in Congress recently has been a form of this.  Which is why it's worth the time to take the subject apart in this appendix, and see all the hidden problems in this form of 'triangulation,' - in advance this time rather than waiting to see them appear once the idea is put into practice.

I want to return to the earlier comparisons - to simplify, to my comparison with DADT.  First, I stated above that 'triangulation schemes' implicitly accept the 'Conservative' position - of course I am using 'Conservative' in the modern Republican sense, since many of these positions were explicitly rejected by 'classic Conservatives' like Barry Goldwater and Wm. F. Buckley.

            It's subtle, but it is there.  "Don't tell"?  Why not?  Why not, unless there is something wrong or questionable about gays serving?  Why not, unless there is an understanding that the 'right' of soldiers not to serve with gays - or, more frequently, I'd guess, the 'right' of parents not to have their sons or daughters serve with gays - is worthy of as much consideration as is the right of any American to choose to serve his country who can meet the requirements of a specific service.  (When the services were racially integrated there was no similar consideration for the 'rights' of segregationists, which why it worked so well.)

            Similarly, decriminalization includes the implicit value judgment that 'smoking marijuana is bad and should be stopped by government sanction' but that there is no need to punish users, just dealers, growers, and the like.  It also assumes that government sanctions can work in stopping, or lessening marijuana use.  I hope I don't need to spend several pages demonstrating the absurdity of that idea and the total failure of it in practice.

            (I would argue, in fact, that marijuana smoking has more benefits than drawbacks, but I don't need to make that argument.  The only point that needs to be made is that marijuana laws don't work, and there is no reason to believe that this change would suddenly, miraculously, make them effective.)

            Still, if DADT had worked as described -- "We won't ask your sexual orientation, all we ask is that if you are gay, you don't proclaim it openly" - it might have been, as intended, a first step towards acceptance of gays.  But it never worked that way, even under the Clinton Administration.  How it worked was much different - "If you are gay, you have to keep it a secret, and if we find out about it, that is prima facie proof that you didn't keep it a secret, that you 'told' and out you go" - which had the exact opposite effect.

            Decriminalization seems as easily abusable as is DADT.  100 grams is the limit for possession, one ounce for transfer - according to Barney Frank's Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008.  (This bill, not surprisingly given its author, is better than other proposals in that it eliminates federal penalties entirely, unlike most state proposals that retain fines for small amounts but eliminate jail time. )  But how easy it is to manipulate quantities, and, ironically it might be easier to pressure users  to 'roll' on dealers if they are 'just over the limit,' if they have a quarter-pound instead of 100 grams, if they transfer 1.01 ounce instead of .99.

            In fact, for those of you who celebrate the Medical Marijuana laws which -- except in California - are mostly just a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card for users, imagine a strongly anti-marijuana prosecutor in a state that permits people to possess medical marijuana.  He calls a grand jury and subpoenas several marijuana users - safe because of the Medical law - and asks them where they bought their marijuana.  They can't refuse to testify on self-incrimination grounds, and while it is legal for them to buy marijuana, it's illegal for whoever sold it to them, so he gets prosecuted.

            And, of course, the same thing could happen in a decriminalization situation.

            Other forms of abuse are easy to imagine.  Like this news story.  "Herman Mudgett, science teacher at Benjamin Harrison Middle School, was arrested today for possession of marijuana, but had to be released because the amount he possessed was below the legally permitted limit."  Perfectly legitimate news story, not a federal penalty being imposed, but if I were Mr. Mudgett, I'd be less than happy to see such a story, especially if I had to answer to an extremely conservative school board or principal.  And if I were an arresting officer with a somewhat elastic conscience, I might find ways of making use of that unhappiness.

            Which leads into two topics I only mentioned in the main article, which are, in fact, a general problem with drug laws and 'vice laws' in general.  (In fact, the problem with vice laws was best described in the following paragraph - from a House Resolution celebrating the 75^th Anniversary of the passing of the 21^st Amendment:

            Whereas passage of the 18th Amendment, which prohibited `the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors' in the United States, resulted in a dramatic increase in illegal activity, including unsafe black market alcohol production, organized crime, and noncompliance with alcohol laws...

results that were not exclusive to alcohol prohibition.)

            Specifically, police corruption comes from vice laws.  Few cops take bribes from burglars, or rapists, or murderers, and of those few, almost none started out there.  (I don't have a reference for this, but it seems obvious common sense.)

            And it isn't the user who is likely to bribe a cop, or that a cop will come to looking for a bribe.  (Circumstances like the ones Mr. Mudgett found himself in might make the temptation greater.)  It is the dealers, the truckers, the wholesalers and middlemen that are the targets for a hands-out policeman.  And decriminalization will do nothing to prevent this, because these people are still as liable to be prosecuted as before.

            And, as Radley Balko has recently pointed out (http://culture11.com/article/36436), police corruption can go both ways, either 'paid underenforcement' or 'overzealous overenforcement,' and each are debilitating, either to the respect given to the police, or to their respect for the Constitution they see standing in their way.

            But the ultimate answer to decriminalization may be the question of 'drug-related crime.'  Now some of this is unavoidable, since people will steal to get all sorts of things, legal and illegal.  And some of it comes from the fact that, since drugs are illegal, 'bad people' frequently get involved in the business.  But even more powerful an argument is the fact that people involved, at any point, in drugs, and let's return to marijuana specifically, whether buyer, seller, grower, whatever, are, in relation to that involvement, 'outlaws' in the strict sense.  That is, they are 'outside the protection of the law.'

            If a dealer sells you oregano - does anyone really do that anymore - or even cheap commercial that he claims is a luxury variety, you can't take him to small claims court, or in front of Judge Milian, to adjudicate the dispute.  If you are a dealer and somebody 'pays for his purchase with a gun' or breaks down your door and cleans you out, you can't have that person arrested.  If you are driving a load of 100 kilograms across country and you get hijacked, you don't have a legal recourse.  The same if you have spent time and money growing this nice crop and somebody harvests it before you can.

            You either 'take the hit' or you have no choice but to resort to illegal and potentially violent methods to protect your business.

            Again, even the Frank bill does nothing to change this.  There is no change in the status of even the smallest dealer.  You can buy an ounce and pass it on to a friend at no cost, and you are okay, but, technically, any profit and your immunity is gone.  And sell a joint at a profit, you are still criminally liable.  (Maybe I have too subtle a mind, but I can see an overzealous prosecutor arguing "But, Mr. Holmes, you claim the transfer was nonprofit.  But you admitted that, before you passed the ounce on to Mr. Boucher, you rolled a joint to smoke - to test it, you claimed.  But that means that you passed on less than you purchased, but you charged Mr. Boucher what you had paid.  Can you deny that that joint represented your 'profit' on the transaction.")

            (I will merely state the paradox that while it is permissible to possess that 100 grams, that it may be assumed that it is therefore legal to purchase it - though this is not stated in the law - it is illegal for anyone to sell it to you.)

But the 'outlaw status' problem remains for everyone but the user or 'helpful friend.'

So, we see some of the problems decriminalization fails to solve.  But is there any argument - other than political timidity - for supporting decriminalization over legalization?  I must admit I see none.

[A personal note.  Both of my original articles were reprinted in their entirety.  I've got no problem with that, and my ego is grateful that
I got full credit.  But I wish I hadn't accidentally stumbled on them.  Just guys, please, if you reprint the piece, let me know.]