And Republicans have been very good at the same technique as well.  Usually defensively -- shout your homophobia to the world so that no one will notice those white stains on your cheek, shirt, or jeans when you leave the men's room.  (As someone who has had many similar white stains, I am not criticizing  Republican gayness but their hypocrisy.) 

But some have started using it as a technique on offense as well.  Ann Coulter is particularly good at making outrageous, easily refutable statements that get her headlines, get people curious if 'she really said that' and buying her book.  And the people who do find her usual piles of equine excrement -- but ones that have gone unexamined by the media and bloggers as they attack her where she has chosen the battle.  (GODLESS was a prime example, as we all remember the battles it caused over some of her statements about liberals -- but no one attacked the -- equally absurd -- case she made in favor of creationism.and I'm sure a lot of her readers -- even those who read her as a 'freak show' -- had never studied the question and found her arguments on the topic plausible.)

But I don't recall offhand any previous example of the tactic being used on legislation before.  So Jeff Sessions, you've earned your membership in the Magic Circle, the Thieves' Guild, or the MWA.  And, sadly, your 'stooge from the audience' that fell for your sleight-of-hand was someone who's usually one of the more intelligent Senators, Pat Leahy.

You knew that everybody would catch the 'death penalty' Amendment and scream about this -- and rightly so.  I'm sure you realized that it would cause enough comment that it would be stricken in conference, and everyone would be complimenting the conferees at 'ducking a bullet.'  Meanwhile you slipped your -- I assume -- real 'poison pill' into the legislation and even got Sen. Leahy to agree to it.

All it does is destroy the essential idea of the bill, make the proponents look as if they are doing just what their opponents are accusing them of doing, and possibly threaten the constitutionality of the bill.  Nice work, Jeff!

One criticism that 'hate crimes' legislation -- and almost every piece of pro-gay legislation -- receives is that it gives gays 'special privileges,' or makes them a 'protected class.'  It's not a valid criticism, but it has been made so often that drafters of hate crimes legislation have very carefully crafted it to ward against such legislation being taken in such a way.

Hate crimes legislation -- even the anti-lynching legislation that was the first example -- does not create 'protected classes' -- and if it did might be of dubious Constitutionality.  Yes, blacks were the most frequent -- but, especially during the period of the 'second Klan,' not the only -- victims of lynching.  But it was the act and the motivation that was the center of such laws, not the victim.

The same principle has been carried on to the current legislation.  If someone attacks me because I play my tv loud, or because he hates my cats, or just to rob me, the fact that I am gay is irrelevant to the incident and no hate crime legislation will give me any more protection than it does the rabbi next door.  But if some bigot gets his addresses confused, and attacks Rabbi Zvi, thinking he is gay -- or me, thinking I'm the rabbi, or even Jewish -- the fact that the person attacked is not truly a 'member of the group' is irrelevant to the 'hate crime' part of the act.

Let me repeat this.  No hate crime legislation, properly drawn, creates a special 'protected category.'  No such legislation punishes someone more severely because they attacked a gay, or a black, or someone Jewish.  It only punishes someone whose action is designed to intimidate a group by singling out a member of it -- or a supporter of the group.

(It also does another thing.  It tells certain types of violent bigots, lynchers, gay bashers, and even wife-beaters -- 'domestic violence legislation' is another type of hate crime bill -- that previously tolerated or overlooked actions will now be prosecuted.  There might be no need for hate crimes legislation if the legal system had not -- in practice -- treated these offenses as minor and even understandable.)

This WAS true, until the Sessions Amendment, which, by making 'servicemen' in fact a 'protected category,' casts doubt on the entire reasoning above, and makes the legislation much more open to Constitutional challenge.

This Amendment -- sadly accepted by a 92-0 vote -- provides "

It would make it a crime if someone "knowingly assaults or batters a United States serviceman or an immediate family member of a United States serviceman, or who knowingly destroys or injures the property of such serviceman or immediate family member, on account of the military service of that serviceman or status of that individual as a United States serviceman, or who attempts or conspires to do so."

It was precisely this type of 'status' legislation that the drafters of the original legislation knew was dangerous, wrong, and would give ammunition to those who protect their freedom to hate.  (And, interetingly, if you Google 'hate crimes servicemen' the first references you find are articles from Steve Sailer, VDARE and the "Romanian National Vanguard News Agency."  And if Focus on the Family -- who repeated the same myths - is not a hate group in the sense these others are, it has never been at the forefront of preaching tolerance.)

It will be easy to stop the 'death penalty' Amendment.  And I'm sure Sen. Sessions knew it would be strpped from the bill.  It's that other, unanimously adopted, 'non-controversial' Amendment that is the true 'poison pill' -- and it's going to be a lot harder to get it out.  But calling or writing Senator Leahy or other proponents will help.

But April 17^th was when this should have been all over the blogosphere.  Two reasons: April 17^th is the Annual Day of Silence held by the students of many schools in support of gay students and gay rights in general.  And April 17^th would have been the birthday of Carl Walker-Hoover.  Only he didn't see his birthday.  He had been mercilessly taunted by his fellow students for being gay, and, eleven days before his birthday, he hung himself.

There are two other facts that make the story more poignant.  One is the fact that there is no evidence that he thought of himself as gay or was gay - which really doesn't matter but which might open the hearts of some homophobes.

The other is the fact that, on April 17^th, 2009, Carl Walker-Hoover would have turned twelve years old.

Think about it.  I don't have to ladle on the horror.  You can all picture your son, or nephew, or grandson, or even the neighbor's kid, dangling from the electrical-cord noose he made for himself.  You can see the look that will permanently be in the child's mother's eyes, can even look in a mirror and see it in your own eyes if you imagine being the one to find the boy.

I won't even be the one to draw the obvious lessons - except for one minor one.  But the greater lessons will occur to each of you, and will, hopefully be the basis of any discussion this receives.  How do we make sure this stops here?  How do we make sure, not just that the school Administration is punished, but that no other school ignores this sort of complaint?

But I have to include one smaller point.  There have been commenters, some of them generally progressive, and usually young, in various blogs who have defended the use of the word 'fag' or 'faggot' as an epithet on the grounds that it has become so 'generalized' it has lost its specific anti-gay connotations, much like 'c*cks!ck*r' has.  (And that, it's true, was once an anti-gay or anti-woman term.)

But maybe Carl Walker-Hoover will remind us that it still has specific sting to its venom.

Their supporters had been pushing them for months, and liberal blogs and commentators, puzzled by what these people were trying to say, helped get the word out.  This would really matter!

Estimates of attendance across the country has ranged from 25000 to 100000.

Class A Minor League baseball is the lowest level of professional baseball.  The players are young, usually unknown to fans who don't assiduously follow the game, or readers of local newspapers.  The games are played in small cities and usually don't get much publicity out of the area -- and none nationally.  A team located near a major league city gets it's games barely mentioned in two inch stories.  Wednesday was an average day, most of the 'home openers' were completed, schools are not yet out in the areas.

There were 36 games played in 29 parks on Wednesday -- one game was rained out, there were seven doubleheaders.  Total Attendance?

Totalling the figures given in the box scores:  58,722.

Comment by me is unneccesary.

Glass half empty -- another example of authorities used by an influential local to prosecute a  local blogger critical of him.

Glass half full -- we're approaching the liklihood of a Peter Zenger case for bloggers. 

The pastor made claims of some petty offenses supposedly occuring at his church that, he claimed, had occurred after the blog began.  To quote the paper "The Rev. John Blount,  executive pastor of administration, said he contacted Hinson directly regarding increased "vitriol" on the blog about the same time mail was stolen from the Brunson home and someone was surreptitiously photographing Brunson's wife. Also, someone had contacted vendors lined up for the church's annual pastors' conference and made critical remarks about Brunson to them, Blount said."

This complaint enabled the investigator to get a warrant that forced Google to reveal the name of the blogger.  (Two other bloggers were also investigated.  Apparently, their names have not been revealed, they did not focus on the Church, though they may have linked to the main 'target of the investigation.')  The policemen never contacted any of the blogers, and reported that there was no evidence of criminal activity. 

At this point, despite the questions of conflict of interest, it is possible to argue that nothing had been done over the line.  Certainly a polie department has the right to investigate breaches of the peace, and I don't think any of us who have seen some of the dangerous blogs of religious terrorists, home and abraod, would want a flat-out ban on such investigations.  Of course, looking at what I have seen of the blog, a further case can be made that the investigation should have been dismissed about .279 seconds after the complaint was filed on the grounds that the blog was merely critical and hardly inciiting.

But that moves the question to 'where do you draw the line' -- worth investigating, but the next step was clearly so far over it that we can defer that discussion to a later story.  Because, having discovered and reported that there was no evidence of any criminal activity, the policeman then reported the blogger's name to the pastor.

Now, fortunately, the only action taken -- at least so far -- against the blogger has been an order of trespass against him keeping him and his family from the Church they had attended for many years.  There has been none of the type of police action taken in my last post, none of the danger that AKMuckraker was placed in.

There is much more to the background that is findable in either of the cites listed above.  I will repeat none of the charges against the pastor that the blog made, but I will quote two statements on it.  First the blogger's explanation for why he chose to remain anonymous:

Why anonymous blogging? I preferred to blog anonymously so as not to draw attention to myself, or make the discussion about me personally. I decided to focus on what I saw and heard, and to give a voice to those things I considered abusive. I never wanted the blog to be distracted by who I was, or make myself the issue. And of course self-preservation played a role - some who criticize my anonymity have anonymously called that "cowardice" - but if not wanting my wife and kids to feel the pain of having their husband and dad ridiculed as a troublemaker at their beloved church is cowardice, then so be it.

And then some of the local politics (and intertwining of religion, politics and business) that he sees behind it:

As it turns out, as I have learned in very recent days and as reported by Jeff Brumley, the lengths to which the church has gone to identify me and intimidate me and silence me confirmed my fears! The church leadership did indeed seek to silent a vocal dissent - a man who saw questionable things going on at the church and demanded accountability and demanded answers on a blog caused all of the power and influence that was at the disposal of the big church downtown - the wealthy pastor, the retired and respected circuit judge, even a few long-time staffers and even JSO officials who go to the church - they all rose to action to find out who this blogger was. It was well known in the congregation that Mac wanted to know my identity so the blog could be shut down, and they had finally had enough and wanted to shut it down.

Again, so far as the most prominent recent cases go, the bloggers, seem, at initial look at least, to be 'in the right.'  Certainly AKM's blogging has been provably right in all of her attacks on The Baroness Munchhausen, there is certainly evidence that the police corruption the Phoenix blogger exposed was real, and the tone of the current blog is hardly the angry tone or over the top language that could be used as an even slightly justified cause for the complaint against him

That doesn't matter.  This is getting to be too much of a pattern, and someone, perhaps one of these bloggers, will have to become the Peter Zenger of blogging.  Perhaps it would even be better if it wasn't one of these, but someone whose blogging is less credible, even provably less accurate.  (After all, both Zenger and the Minnesota paper that led the way in extending the freedom of the press to the states were not defended on the grounds of accuracy, nor, perhaps, could they have been.)

I'd like to ask those people reading this a simple question, since discussion is even better than recommendation.  What line would you draw?  If there is going to be a 'Zenger decision for bloggers,' what should it be?

(In the previous post I discussed specific statements of Mark Kleiman's.  In this one I want to try and deal with the expressed fears behind Mark's refusal to back legalization.)

           Mark fears a 'marijuana industry' which he sees as an equivalent of the alcohol industry, spurring people on to consume their products by advertising, branding, etc.  (It is irrelevant to this discussion, but I think Mark overstates the effects he sees, even for alcohol.  Even there, I could make a case that most advertising is for market share, not market-building, but even if Mark is closer to right than I am, it doesn't affect my rebuttal.)

          Mark's picture of the 'drug business' seems to be a unified, vertically integrated business, controlled from the top, an equivalent of the old 'trusts' except that no one group has unified control of the industry.  And this business model seems to fit the cocaine industry, and maybe the heroin industry - which I know almost nothing about.

          It does not fit cannabis, it has never - in the forty years I have been smoking, buying marijuana, talking with people on various levels of the business, observing and reading about the topic - fit cannabis.  And there is a very strong reason why it is never likely to be true about cannabis.

          Marijuana has never been an integrated industry anywhere along the line.  (Even the smuggler interviewed on Marijuana, Inc. demonstrated this.  He was bringing in a huge amount of marijuana, yet he was just an importer, with no control over his product after he off-loaded it.)

          In fact, while "Marijuana, Inc." was a great name for a tv show, in reality 'there ain't no sech animal.' The business model for marijuana is a very familiar one.  A large number of independent buyers, a large number of independent sellers, low capital to get into the business. (I twice was a low level 'street' dealer - in fact a dealer to my co-residents at two large--cheap - hotels.  In both cases I got into business with less than $100 in my pocket - or bank account, in both cases I was moderately successful for a time, enough to cover my own supplies and a little extra.)  Buyers choosing sellers on grounds of price, quality, reliability, or convenience.  (I could probably double the length of this with anecdotes - the family, father and three sons, all dealers who lived and dealt from the same place, but the father and the older son had one 'wholesaler,' the younger sons had another - and better - one.  Or the dealer who worked out of the same hallway, every day from 10A.M. to 2 P.M., rain or shine, except for a yearly month-long vacation in Puerto Rico, for at least fifteen years that I know of.  Price high, quality uneven, but exceptional reliability.)

          I am not denying that there may be small 'local monopolies' but even there a buyer only needs to take a subway or bus a couple of stops, or drive to the next town, or talk to a friend at work, if he doesn't want to do business with them.

          Beginning to sound familiar?  Marijuana is one of the few businesses that operates under the classic pre-corporate economics that people like Smith and Marx wrote about.

          And there is a reason for this, a reason why there will never be the sort of 'corporate takeover' that Mark envisions, or the sort of advertising and market manipulation he is afraid of.  Let me ask you a question.  What brand of carrots do you buy, or regularly see advertised?  Or lettuce?  Cucumbers?  How about fresh tomatoes?  Beef?

          None of you probably can answer these questions.  Okay, some of you might get Foxy Lettuce, but carrots, you buy them loose, or don't notice the name on the bags, or get them from a local farmer or grow your own.  The same, only more so for tomatoes.  (I grew up in Jersey, and one block I grew up on produced enough tomatoes each year that everybody was looking for someone to give them to.)  And does anyone buy prepackaged cucumbers.  (Those carrots and cucumbers and tomatoes you buy loose DO have brands, but you'd never know it if you didn't see them being uncrated.)

          But unprocessed agricultural products - and marijuana is an unprocessed agricultural product -- don't lend themselves to the kind of corporate exploitation that Mark fears.  The exceptions, Dole pineapples, Chiquita bananas and various teas and spices, all share common traits.  They are imported products grown in a relatively small area, and the market dominance of certain companies was established during the time of an economic imperialism not likely to be repeated.

          There is simply not going to be an Anheuser-Busch of marijuana.   Not just because the product doesn't lend itself to this sort of corporatism, but because if there was 'big corporate money' to be made in marijuana, it would be legal by now, or, at the very least, marijuana reform organizations would be much better funded, and there would be politicians fighting for its legalization - not the Ron Paul or Dennis Kuchinich types, but veteran and respected Congressmen.

          Think a minute.  In the forty years I've been smoking, there have been several periods where the 'magic words' on Wall Street were 'diversification' and 'acquisition.'  People have been expecting legalization for years.  How many feasibility studies must have been done on the potential profits to be made from it?

          But if any of these had shown the profit was 'worth the gamble' - at a time when Wall Street loved gambling and gamblers, wouldn't a corporation have done its best to secure these profits?  And how better to secure the profits than to influence the time of legalization, so the day the bill is signed, the company is ready to go into production on its corporate marijuana?

          Any mega-company even considering getting into the business would have started by running publicity campaigns, by backing existing reform organizations or, more likely, starting one of its own.  And - certainly in the Eighties, it was *ahem* not unknown for companies to suggest courses of action to friendly Congressmen that would benefit the companies.

          There has been none of this, not in the 80s, not in the 90s, not now.  No corporate funded research on marijuana that emphasized its relative harmlessness.  Not sudden influx of corporate money into existing organizations, no new, highly funded pro-legalization organization.  No publicity campaigns moving the country towards accepting legalization.  No corporate-connected Congressmen making impassioned speeches on the floor suggesting they have reconsidered.

          There could have been.  The arguments for legalization have always been out there.  Even Conservatives had the 'cover' of Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater.  The silence demonstrates clearly that none of these feasibility studies showed enough profit to interest even some of the wilder risk-takers in Corporate America.

          And if they didn't try to be the first into the pool, they aren't going to want to enter a business where they are competing with any farmer with a few spare plots of land, with small sellers who keep selling once its legal, with cooperatives. 

There will not be the sort of ads Mark worries about.  The most that can be expected are low-key spots from regional 'grower's associations' fighting for a share of the market for their region, the way California and Florida fight over the orange market.  ("Don't say marijuana, say California marijuana"  "Remember what real Hawaiian was like.  Refresh your memory with the greenest of the green."  "Kansas, marijuana with heart from the heart of the country."  "Try New York Diesel and say 'fugheddaboudit' to all the rest.")

          There will be corporate money made in the marijuana trade, but not by selling the product itself, which will always be limited primarily to small growers and trade associations.  But there will be several attempts to start Starbuck's-like chains of marijuana cafes, at least one of which will be successful.  The import-export business will be big, but the company that stresses export is the company to back.  Burpee Seeds or their competitors will probably establish a major hold on the seed sales.  And if anybody tries to get you to invest in a chain of nurseries selling half-grown or full-grown plants - and they check out when you investigate them - do so.

          So, Mark, relax, chase the chimeras away, take a moment to think about how marijuana prosecution interferes with other drug-control methods, how condemnation of marijuana hurts the credibility of any other anti-drug campaign.  Maybe you'll find yourself more comfortable over on this side - and you'd certainly be an asset.

          And on most things political I am reasonably close to Mark.  We may disagree on minor matters but - to disappear into fantasy - were we to be Senators, Mark from CA and me from NY, our voting records would probably wind up being pretty close to identical.  Even on drugs other than cannabis we probably are close.  Mark is hardly a 'drug warrior' and has as much contempt for the breed as I do.  I too do not favor legalization of other drugs but prefer, in most cases 'steps short of legalization.'  (In fact, while I don't recall Mark speaking of these in particular, I may be to the right of him on some drugs.  I don't see any way of dealing with methamphetamine or 'date-rape' drugs except the 'drug warrior' position - one reason why I tend to criticize the 'what right has the government to tell us what we can do with our bodies' argument.)

          But, on cannabis, Mark is, simply, wrong.  His overall position, his 'legalization without commercialization' is not a bad policy, but it is impractical and unnecessary, mostly because Mark's basic fears - which seem to come from a mistaken belief that a business model that works well for cocaine is transferrable to the marijuana business - are 'chimeras.' 

I had started a long post in reply to one of Mark's a couple of weeks ago, but medical problems and domestic necessities kept me from finishing it.  I will probably cannibalize some parts of this if Mark is willing to turn this into a dialogue.  (Btw, for those who are curious, my medical problems are mostly orthopedic, a torn rotator cuff, a misplaced disc, arthritis in my ankles and a problem with the hinge of a knee.  None seem to be the result of my marijuana smoking, unless you blame it for making me work harder and longer than I might otherwise do and thus having worn out various parts.)

          However, yesterday Mark <a href="http://www.samefacts.com/archives/drug_policy_/2009/03/cannabis_legalization_as_economic_stimulus_a_pipe_dream.php> posted </a> an article on 'legalization as an economic stimulus,' calling it a pipe dream and treating it as almost beneath contempt.  Since this is my own favored argument I feel almost required to respond.  (Afaik, I was the first person to use it -- as contrasted to the 'tax it for revenue' argument.  I did a cursory google search and didn't find an earlier cite If someone used it earlier, I would appreciate seeing knowing of it.  I'm very curious to find out if anyone used similar reasoning.)

Mark makes a number of statements in his five points against the 'stimulus' argument, and I have to dispute or question almost every one.  Let's start with a simple 'statement of fact.'  According to Mark, the 'current average' price for marijuana is $300 an ounce.

          Now Mark doesn't footnote this, nor does he describe what he means by 'average.'  It is possible - though (see below) highly unlikely - that Mark has accurate statistics on the whole of the marijuana market, that those statistics are so complete and are broken down so carefully that he is able to figure the proportion of marijuana sold that is various levels of premium compared to the amount that is 'commercial grade' and that he has mathematically totaled up the weighted figures and come with a mathematical average of $300 an ounce.  If this is true, I am hoping he will share that information with us.  Those figures would be invaluable in refining my taxation policy and my calculations of the stimulus effect.

          On the other hand, if he uses 'average' to mean 'ordinary' he is simply wrong.  (If he had spent time on various pro-marijuana boards and forums reading discussions of prices from people who are discussing their own experience and have no reason to lie -- as I did before I began these articles - he'd know that.)  $300 an ounce is actually a relatively unlikely amount to pay for an ounce.  Most premiums are more expensive than that, and the price for commercial is surprisingly consistent at $160-175, occasionally up to $200.  There have been times when Mark's statement would have been accurate, particularly in the 80s, but in each case, classic market forces brought the price down considerably.  (I was surprised to find that what I have been paying is consistent with the national average, since I am a New Yorker, but it is.)

          Mark also makes another statistical claim, which he repeats in his last two posts on the subject, that "the illicit cannabis industry in the U.S. generates revenues of about $10 billion per year."  He gives no source for this, and if he has one with a shred of reliability, I would be interested in seeing it.  In fact, though, it seems unlikely to be accurate, based on two distinct calculations.

          First, if we take $200 an ounce as a real 'average' weighting in a certain percentage of premium, we get 50 million ounces per year.  3 million pounds plus - but this seems low.  I've seen figures ten times this, and cut that in half for my own figuring.  (Again, Mark may be right, but I'd like to see the figures.  And, of course, if Mark's 'average' is correct, or if there is more premium being sold, or more half-ounces - or even smaller quantities where the mark up is higher, and one source suggests that people are buying $25 bags more frequently than I would have expected -- the figure would drop considerably.)

          But working my way through the partial statistics I have seems hopeless - even if I knew how accurate the surveying was.  Is it on the level of tv ratings, or does it have any semblance of plausibility?  However, there is another way of looking at it.

          The proprietor of a legal, 'medical' 'marijuana café' was interviewed on Marijuana, Inc.  In passing, he stated that he paid Federal Income Tax of $500,000 a year, and state Income Tax of $300,000.  Now people don't usually exaggerate the amount of tax they paid - IRS inspectors might look more closely at someone who boasts like that - but let's say he doubled it, that he really paid $250,000 in Income tax.  Let's assume he is the 'sole proprietor' of the café, and that all the profits go to him, that he is paying at the highest rate with few deductions, that his tax represents a third of the profits from the café, that only half the income from the café comes from direct marijuana sales - the rest from t-shirts, marijuana containing products like cooking oil, cookbooks, etc., and let's assume that his profit margin is 50% on the marijuana.  (All are extreme cases, and each works to lessen the sales of marijuana from that café.)

          $250,000 income tax means $750,000 income.  If half the income comes from marijuana, and there is a profit margin of 50%, these cancel out, so the amount of marijuana sold at ONE café is $750,000.  But that was low-balling every figure.  If we assume he was telling the truth about his taxes, that he takes enough deductions that this represents a quarter of his income, that 75% of the profit comes from marijuana, and that his profit margin is 40%, this would put the upper limit of his sales at about $3,750,000 - from one - admittedly very successful - café.

          If Mark's figures are right, that one location represents between (rounding up a bit for easy figuring) 1 and 4 ten-thousandths of all the marijuana revenue generated by all sellers in every state of the Union.  Does this seem plausible, no matter how 'up-scale' the location (and price) is?   

(But even taking Mark's figures as accurate, Mark continues to treat this as a trivial amount.  Okay, it is maybe 1/30^th of the money spent on new automobiles, but it exceeds the money spent on frozen foods and is just below the amount spent on chocolate in all forms.  Both are substantial parts of the economy, hardly 'rounding error' as Mark refers to it.)

          Let's quote Mark directly.  He has five numbered 'bullet-points.'  The first is :" 1. The illicit cannabis industry in the U.S. generates revenues of about $10 billion per year. If you're keeping score at home, that's less than 1/10th of 1% of GDP. We're talking rounding error here."

          Hardly.  If what Mark is trying to argue is that the stimulus effect will not solve the depression, he's skewering a nice strawman.  (Of course, Mark shows he doesn't understand the stimulus argument in a later point, but we'll get to that.)  I certainly never claimed that it would single-handedly turn things around.  I merely pointed out that, using my figures, there would be a stimulus effect of $2 billion a month, and tax revenues of $5 billion per year.  Even taking Mark's figures, the stimulus effect would be $400 million a month and tax revenues of $1 billion per year.  Say the truth were somewhere in between, it still wouldn't 'solve the crisis' but it would be one of the few stimulus efforts that would simultaneously increase government revenues rather than shrinking them.

          Mark's second point is quite complex, and starts out accurately: "2. To legalize cannabis we would have to withdraw from a treaty, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. (No, of course cannabis isn't, properly speaking, a "narcotic." But that's the name of the treaty.) Doing so requires six months' advance notice. And of course there's the little matter of getting that change in the law through the Congress, and through the 50 state legislatures, since cannabis is currently illegal under state as well as federal laws. And it would take some serious work up front to develop whatever tax and regulatory structure would replace the current prohibition. If the President declared his support for cannabis legalization today, and had the political muscle to push it through, the current recession would still be a memory before a legal cannabis industry came into being, or we're in much worse trouble than I think we are."

The point about the treaty is an interesting one.  I'd like to know if any lawyer has discussed this, but, as far as I can tell, we are actually in violation of the treaty by accepting a medical use of marijuana when the treaty declares it of 'no medical benefit' - that's the key to the definition of the treaty's Schedule Four.  And, whatever the support for legalization, the support for medical marijuana - even in 'Red States" - is very high and I have no doubt the movement will spread to more states that the current 13 or 14.  (Is Maryland's 'affirmative defense of medical need' enough to put them in the column?  Maybe yes, maybe no.) 

Mark fails to point out two facts about the treaty.  Treaties CAN be amended, though this one would apparently take some complex reworking, and, more importantly, it has been the United States - over several Administrations - that has been pressuring countries to keep marijuana illegal.  Without this pressure, I have little doubt the treaty would be - officially or tacitly - amended.

          In fact, Mark's beloved 'grow your own' policy would also require amending the Treaty and, since it would involve a new concept of 'legalization without commercialization' such an amendment would be much harder to pass.  Mark himself admits that one weakness in the policy is that it provides no government revenue, which makes it less attractive to politicians here.  But on the world stage we are probably among the less corrupt.  I can easily imagine "10%" Zardari supporting an Amendment that would permit Pakistani hash sales - but one which wouldn't give him any opportunity for growers to 'show their gratitude'?  Not Bloody Likely.

          (I have asked some lawyers on the Net if there are any readily available articles on how such an Amendment would work.  If I get a reply, I'll include it in an update.  And I repeat my request here.)

          The Amendment is a valid point, but I am surprised Mark made the other points, because he should know better.  There was no organized attempt to change (Alcohol) Prohibition until the Depression set in.  (There was a little noticed article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on this that is available <a href="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/search/print_518872.html"> here.</a>  It deals with the factors that the author sees as causing Repeal, particularly the need for Federal Revenue, and is very worth reading.)  But once the bill was passed through Congress in February - despite the fact that it was an Amendment that required ratification by the states - it took until December for it to be ratified.  A simple law could pass in two weeks, if politicians were less afraid of bringing it up.  (President Obama would not support such a bill, but if it passed with considerable support, I don't see him vetoing it.)

          "All 50 state legislatures?"  Mark, prohibition was ended on a Federal level in 1933, but States were free to keep it themselves - as I permit in the draft legislation I included in my first post on the subject. (In fact, 'commercially importing marijuana into a state where it is prohibited' would remain a Federal crime, and while the Federal penalties would be low, states could be as Draconian as the Constitution permits.)  The last state to abandon alcohol prohibition was Mississippi - 28 years later, and Kansas didn't permit 'sales by the drink' or public bars until 1987.  This didn't mean that the Prohibition Repeal Amendment was useless - or that the effect on the tax revenues was reversed because it took some states a while to come aboard.

          (Ironically, the stimulus effect would still apply to a lesser extent where marijuana remained illegal, particularly in states or regions of states adjoining legalizing states.  Dealers would still have to drop their prices to remain competitive.  A 'marijuana moonshiner' in WV isn't going to be able to keep selling commercial at $160 or premium at $400 an ounce if his customers can drive over to Virginia and buy legal marijuana for a third of that.)

As for the 'serious work' on the tax and regulatory structure, not so much.  Each state would be setting up its own regulations, and while the decision to legalize and those regulations might be complicated, each state that chose to legalize would be 'encouraged' to get a system in place fast so as not to lose business to a quicker neighbor.

On the Federal level, there really aren't that many questions to be wrangled over.  I included a draft framework for legalizing that could serve as a starting point.  Then there would be the following major questions:

1)    Amount of tax and where levied, whether at point of sale, or on the grower, or elsewhere?

2)    Flat tax per ounce or a sliding scale based on chemical tests or variety?

3)    Standardizing variety names - by a commission

4)    Tariff on imported cannabis?  If so, how much?

5)     Import and export regulations

6)    How to handle hashish, tax at approximately the same rate as marijuana per ounce - which favors hashish importation (from states who could use the economic boost) - or by gram

7)    Farmer's market/roadside stand exception?  (Do you handle direct 'grower to consumer' sales differently?)

8)    Tax for immature and mature plants? 

9)    Amnesty - and quashing of convictions --for currently incarcerated prisoners whose non-violent offense involved medical marijuana and an amnesty board set up for other prisoners

10) Penalties for selling or importing untaxed marijuana and for importing (commercially, not for  personal use) of marijuana into states where it is forbidden

11) Confiscated marijuana - burned or auctioned off, and who would be part of the auction?

12) How to handle marijuana currently being grown on Federal lands such as National Parks

There may be a couple I missed, though I doubt it.  If so, please list them - again, Federal rules, not State Regulations.  It's a long list, yes, but not a complicated one.  Does anyone doubt that a week of hearings could bring consensus on many of these?  In fact, if the Senate invited a panel of bloggers who have written on the subject to prepare a list of suggestions, and subpoenaed them to appear in two weeks, which of us would not have a fully developed presentation on all of these?  (My own draft legislation covers most of them, though I still have no idea about #12.)

The controversial and difficult questions on age, where smoking is permitted and how marijuana could be sold, DUI questions, etc., would and should be State matters, and there would be considerable experimentation before the best ways of handling them became obvious, but that can be one of the glories of the Federal system.

          Mark might argue 'Do we really want the sort of patchwork quilt mess we got after Repeal?"  Mark, compared to what?  We already have an Award-winning quilt pattern of laws, both as to medical marijuana and marijuana enforcement in general - not to mention the relative degree of enforcement.  (For example, even my eyes bugged out when I saw what Washington State considers a reasonable '60 day supply' of medical marijuana.  24 ounces!  I smoke a lot, but I wouldn't go through that in a year.) 

          But states are much more used to cooperating now than eighty years ago, and cannabis is a much simpler product than alcohol.  I think most states will reach a consensus on most of the questions.  If they don't, it still will be an improvement over the current situation with the corruption, the variations in enforcement, and the disrespect for laws.   

          Mark's third point is : 3. Legal cannabis, even taxed, would presumably be way cheaper than the current illicit product. Other things equal, that would mean that the legal cannabis industry would have lower revenues than the current illicit industry. That wouldn't stimulate the economy: just the reverse. Of course it would move those revenues from criminals to (at least nominally) honest businessmen (or rather, make hones businessmen out of today's criminals). But the convention that excludes criminal earnings from GDP is just that: a convention, of no descriptive significance when it comes to determining the actual level of economic activity. That's not to deny that there would be economic gains: consumers would gain by getting better product at lower price and with less hassle, producers would gain by not going to jail, taxpayers would gain from the tax revenues and the reduction in enforcement spending. But all that is gain in welfare, not stimulation of economic activity.* The effect on economic activity would be negative.

          This misses the point so incredibly that the only charitable explanation I can give is that Mark heard the phrase 'Legalization as an economic stimulus' and was so sure he understood what it meant that he never bothered to actually read the articles proposing it.  (Mark, if you are reading this and preparing a reply - as I hope you are - please read the first piece on this blog before you do.)  Mark seems to think that the stimulus comes from moving the money spent from 'illegal channels' to legal ones.  That is nonsense, agreed, but nobody I know of is arguing that way. 

          The price drop does not lessen the stimulus effect.  The price drop IS the stimulus effect.  Economic stimulus comes from putting money in the hands of people who will spend it - that is why the Republican Hooverism is so absurd.  All the effects Mark lists will be important, yes, but the fact is that when a person who has budgeted $200 for an item per month suddenly pays $50 for the same - or a higher quality - item, that gives that person an additional $150 to spend on other things in the economy, all of which cause stimulus.  (Yes, even if they increase their consumption of cannabis or the quality they buy, as a legal product it is still providing the same multiplier effect.  But they are more likely, in the current conditions, to use most of the money on other things.

          (Mark - and others - might disagree with my argument that this is a true stimulus and not merely a transfer, that the savings come because the initial high price includes mark-ups which represent a form of 'self-insurance' against the catastrophic effects of law enforcement, and thus are countable as 'cost' not profit.  But someone who enthusiastically supports Obama's stimulus proposals and end to the Bush tax cuts - as we both do -- would find it less easy to argue that this point matters.  And of course there is a third way of looking at it, that it represents simple market economics, that legal sellers simply need to spend less to produce their product, and that the savings are passed along to the consumer, which is again, not a 'transfer' but a representation of market effects.  If someone cuts the price on a laptop by $100 because he has discovered a way of making them more cheaply, we don't say this is an unimportant transfer taking money from the old sellers and giving it to the new.  We point out that the buyers now have more money to spend.)

          In fact, that stimulus is quantifiable, at least roughly - precision depends on the tax structure, the actual size of the marijuana market, and the percent of the marijuana market that is taken up by 'premium, specialty, and luxury' varieties.  (Even if there is a tax on a sliding scale based on quality, these varieties will still show a much higher qualitative drop and a greater stimulus effect. Thus if 'purps' - no, "Prup" doesn't come from that, and I only heard the term some years after I chose the acronym of my nom de blog - cost $400 an ounce, and the tax is so high that they sell legally for $150, this still gives a stimulus effect of $250 per ounce of purp sold, compared to $100-$140 for commercial.)  And this gives legalizers a chance to demand opponents quantify the specific harm they see legalization causing and show that it substantially outweighs the stimulus effect, and the other benefits that even Mark accepts.

          So, Mark, will you please describe in detail and quantify the  negative effects you foresee.  (And please don't say 'read my book' as you did in personal correspondence.  It was written over 25 years ago, and while it may have been updated, I'd prefer as recent statistics as you can give.) 

Because you are right that there will be negative consequences, of course.  Any change brings positive and negative consequences.  (And any person on my side who argues that there are only benefits can be ignored as a fool.  The benefits might far outweigh the negatives, but there will be both - and the fool who denies this is liable to be exposed the first minor negative becomes apparent.  Sadly, those negatives will rebound against everybody on his side unless he is disavowed.)

So give us your negatives.  But then, put them in the balance pan and let us all see the scale tipping - if it does.

          Oh, and Mark.  You are a person I know to be fair and intellectually honest.  Now it is obvious that some of the 'new users' you worry about will choose marijuana instead of alcohol.  Others will switch from alcohol to marijuana.  Certainly not all, but there will be at least some lessening in the amount of alcohol consumed and the number of consumers.  I would like your estimate on this, and how much it adds to my side of the scales.

[continued in the next post.] 

Advocates for legalization -- which range from HIGH TIMES to Milton Friedman -- frequently point to the tax revenues legal marijuana might generate, to the better utilization of police and judicial time, to the savings on incarceration -- even to the reduction in plea bargaining and early release that the unclogging of court calendars and prison systems would bruing about.  All of these are perfectly valid arguments.  (I would argue the civil libertarian arguments, that people should have a right to consume a mostly harmless substance, especially when such more harmful substances as tobacco and alcohol are legal, while valid, are more likely to 'convince those who don't need convincing.')

But, afaik, no one has noticed the economic stimulus effect that legalization would produce, and it is major -- my calculations give a stimulus effect of $2 billion dollars -- a month.

The argument isn't a difficult one.

But there is another way of creating stimulus.  If the price drops substantially on a widely used product, and that price drop is the result of a reduction in cost to a producer or a middleman, the differential between the old and new price represents a stimulus -- and even if some or most of that money is spent on increasing consumption of the same product, or in purchasing a higher quality of it, this still puts money into circulation -- as long as the product is legal.  (Spending it on an illegal product might also keep the money in circulation -- after all, for example, prostitutes may still have to buy cat food, pay rent, buy diapers, or eat lunch.  I believe there is an equation comparing the 'multiplier effect' for legal and illegal expenses, but I don't know what it is or where to find it, and help will be gratefully appreciated.)

The key to the argument is the underlined phrase above.  Several people have objected that 'you aren't creating stimulus, you are just transferring money from producers to consumers.'  With many products -- whose prices are generally too inelastic to permit such a drop -- each step of the way creates a mark-up that is 'addition of value' as well as profit.

But for marijuana, profit and 'value added' (drying, transporting, packaging, etc.) are minor parts of the mark-ups.  The rest is 'assumption of risk' and this is a legitimate cost.  These mark-ups represent 'insurance' against the quite real risk that action by law enforcement could, at the least, result in loss of substantial quantities of 'product' and could, at worst result in totally uncompensated loss of the business, plus the possibility of a period of incarceration.

And this same risk, and thus this same cost, produces a mark-up at every stage of the business.  Growers, transporters, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, at any time could lose every bit of product they currently possess -- and, theoretically, an arrest 'down the line' could threaten the businesses up-line.

Thus 'assumption of risk' is a valid cost to the business -- though I have no idea how many marijuana businessmen actually calculate, or even realize this.  They just give a traditional mark-up without realizing why it exists.

However, remove the risk, you remove the 'assumption of risk' and eventually and rather quickly the mark-ups associated with it.  On the other hand, this is somewhat, but only partially, counterbalanced  by a tax that would almost certainly be placed on the now-legal product -- and the costs of record keeping, etc, connected with the tax.

I have gone into detail on the basis of the calculations in the original article.  I'll just give the results -- and these are based on 'good commercial grade' marijuana.  (I simply don't know enough about the premium, specialty, and luxury types to estimate either the amount of price drop -- certain to be much larger numerically than the commercial -- or the percentage of the market they represent.)

Cost of one ounce of illegal marijuana to user = $160 (this is the most common price around the  states according to marijuana user forums -- who have knowledge and relatively little incentive to lie)

Cost of one ounce of untaxed legal marijuana to user (including the remaining legitimate 'value added' markups) = $10 to $20.  (Marijuana is relatively easy to grow, prepare, ship, and even package.)  Take the higher price.

Add a proposed $10 an ounce federal tax, an equivalent state tax, plus costs for record keeping, tax preparation and filing, FICA, sales tax, maybe raises to employees, etc.  Lets estimate these additional costs at $20 an ounce -- which seems high, but makes the math easier.

$20+$20+$20 = $60 as the new cost to consumer.  Please note, to save yourself reading several interminable comments by a 'wm. emba', that I do not consider taxes as part of the stimulus.  In fact they cut down the stimulus more than they raise in revenue.

The stimulus effect is $100 per ounce of marijuana consumed.  Which is how much?  I took the only estimate I could find -- again, any better one would be appreciated -- of 31 million pounds of marijuana.  Since this was by a long-time advocate, I cut it in half -- both advocates and opponents have incentives to 'err on the high side.'  This converts, approximately, to 250 million ounces a year, or 20 million ounces a month.

This converts -- assuming all marijuana in the US were legal and taxed and ignoring the 'premium' varieties -- to a stimulus of $2 billion per month.

The other arguments for legalization are good ones, and I am sure that the public is ahead of the politicians on this one.  But in our current economic climate, this might be the clincher, the snowball that starts the avalanche that is waiting to happen.

For further details, see http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/02/guest_post_marijuana_as_an_eco.php

But I want to append to this something that appears as the second comment to the article, a proposed framework for a law federally legalizing marijuana.  {Comments in brackets}

Draft Bill for the Federal Legalization of Marijuana:

1.0 Effective on passage of this Law, all Federal Laws criminalizing the sale, possession, growth or importation of marijuana and hashish shall be repealed except as noted below. However, the transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of marijuana or hashish, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. {Copied from 21st Amendment}

1.1 As soon as Administratively feasible, all persons federally convicted of possession of less than 4 oz. of marijuana, and all people who can demonstrate that their marijuana-related offense was directly connected to a Medical Marijuana program legal in the State where the offense was convicted, shall be released from incarceration, and their convictions shall be quashed and expunged from their record.

1.1.1 A Board shall be set up in the Department of Justice with authority to review all other marijuana-related federal convictions and, at their discretion, to suggest to the relevant court that such convictions be canceled, sustained, or that prison sentences shall be commuted to 'time served. {It is necessary to include some form of adjudication because 'marijuana-related' offenses could include violent acts.}

1.1.2 Such board shall also make recommendations to the AG concerning the return of or restitution for assets seized in cases involving no offenses other than those against marijuana laws. {I know you'd prefer this to be extended to other cases, and so would I, and I'd expect it would be, but it will be hard enough to get this through as is.}

2.0 All marijuana and hashish sold within the United States shall be subject to a one-time tax of $10 an ounce. While such tax would be normally paid at the point of retail purchase, a retailer, wholesaler, or distributor may 'pre-pay' such tax and label such marijuana as 'tax paid.'

2.0.1 Marijuana or hashish used as an ingredient in other prepared foods shall be taxed at the same rate and such taxes shall be paid by the preparer of such. {From here on, to save time, 'marijuana' refers to 'either marijuana or hashish.'}

2.0.2 Such taxation shall not be considered to preempt the right of any state in which marijuana is legal from imposing such taxes as it sees fit, including both specific marijuana taxes and sales taxes.

2.1 Fradulent use of such a label, or selling untaxed marijuana shall be subeject to a fine of ... and confiscation of all marijuana currently in the offender's possession. {I want the fine to cover marijuana previously sold over a period of, say a week, and to be 'per oz' but I am not sure if such a provision is acceptable.}

2.2 The importing of marijuana, even if tax has previously been paid on it, into a state where it is illegal, either from another state or abroad, shall be illegal and any person imprting more than a pound of subject to a fine of $50 an ounce, as well as confiscation.

2.2.1 Such penalties shall be in addition to any state penalties and shall not be considered to preempt such penalties.

2.2.2. No penalties shall occur if marijuana is transhipped through such a state in sealed containers, provided the shipper can show a consignment order to a legal marijuana provider in the state of destination.

3.0 Marijuana imported into the United States shall further be subject to a tariff of $20 per ounce. {For reasons of encouraging the growth of a hashish industry in areas where it is traditional, and because of their foreign policy importance, as well as being unaware of any domestically produced hashish, I have deliberately set the taxes on hashish low -- hashish is customarily sold by the gram, and a comparable tax to that of marijuana would tax one gram of hash at the same rate as one ounce of marijuana. I have also not considered the question of taxing 'premium, specialty, and luxury marijuanas' -- which sell at 2 1/2 to 6 times the price of 'commercial grade' -- at a higher level. A comittee considering this legislation should explore this as well.}

4.0 Effective with the signing of this legislation, all marijuana currently growing on Federally-owned land ... {And here I am stumped. Technically it should become the property of the Federal Government -- see 5.0 below -- but at the same time it seems unfair not to figure out some form of compensation for those who had put in the work. One alternative would be to provide some sort of 'time window' effectively letting the growers harvest it. But all of these seem administrative nightmares -- how do you prove that's your marijuana patch -- and 'forced harvesting' could, at wrong time of year, waste a majority of the marijuana, as well as impacting the market. Perhaps it should be claimed by the government, divided into segments, and simply auctioned off while it remains in the ground, since I see no reason for prohibiting future leasing of federal land for marijuana growing. It is not, afaik, in any way harmful to land to have marijuana grown on it.}

5.0 Any marijuana confiscated by the Federal Government according to the provisions above shall not be destroyed, but shall be auctioned off at regular intervals to people authorized to distribute or possess marijuana in their own states. {Which could get interesting once corporations enter the marijuana business. I would personally favor an auction that would be weighted in some way to small retailers and even users, but don't know if this could be accomplished.}

------

Since I wrote this I have become convinced that there should be a provision limiting any state tax to no more than the federal tax, but I am looking for amendments and corrections from all of you.