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Wednesday, October 13, 2010
News Study about legalizing pot needs a re-do
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 10:41 AM
The RAND Corporation conducted a study aimed at discovering whether legalizing pot in California will have any impact on the outrageous level of murderous violence in Mexico. Read it here.
Their study found legalizing pot in California won't make much of an impact on Mexico. On the up side, at least people are looking into what it will actually mean to legalize pot ... even if this study is seriously flawed.
First of all, the study focused on California, not the entire country. So what if California residents comprise 1/7 of the country's pot users? All that means is 6/7 of American pot users live in other states. I'm no math wiz, but I think 6/7 is a larger percentage than 1/7. And, I'm pretty sure sampling the entire population would be much better than sampling a fragment of it. Am I right?
Second, it focused on how legalizing pot will affect Mexico's drug cartels. It could have also looked at how legalizing pot will affect local, state and our federal governments' budget. Because, this is what I guarantee: If it's fiscally advantageous for us to squash the cartel violence in Mexico, we'll do it. At the root of nearly every argument in our country, you'll find dollar bills.
Third, the study made a lot of assumptions. Most notably, it assumed the proposed ballot initiative in California is intended to quell violence in Mexico. It's not. It's intended to legalize pot in that state.
Also, they assumed all of the pot in California comes from Mexico. It doesn't. A great deal of it is grown in the state, and many people are buying local ... not imports.
So, take the study for what it is: Flawed. Here's hoping more thorough studies follow.
From the Associated Press:
Californians, who make up one-seventh of the U.S. marijuana market, already are farming marijuana at a much higher rate than in neighboring states and tend to buy domestic rather than smuggled marijuana, the study found.Tuesday was harvest day on a medical marijuana farm in Northern California, where dozens of volunteers cut, trimmed and processed hundreds of shopping bags full of freshly snipped buds.
"We're already growing our own in California, and what happens in California so goeth the nation," said Valerie Corral, who helped found and runs a Santa Cruz medical marijuana collective. "Legalizing marijuana might undercut Mexican marijuana sales, but it isn't about to derail the cartels. It will just shift their focus."
RAND found that less than $2 billion of those profits come from marijuana and that losing the California marijuana market would cost cartels about $180 million — or 3 percent — of all the money they make exporting drugs to the U.S.
Read the entire article, by Martha Mendoza, here.
There are many reasons to legalize pot, most of which don't have anything to do with Mexico — though it would be great if the cartel members would find real jobs. Here are a few reasons why pot should be legal nationwide, from everyone's favorite pot head, Bill Maher (circa 2002):
Rhiannon "Rhi" Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes snarky commentary on Creative Loafing's CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. Additionally, she's on the steering committee for the Greater Charlotte Society of Professional Journalists. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.
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