As Election Day Approaches, campaigns are making their closing arguments.
Last week, Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenhauer, a Democrat who represents Portland, made a trip to our desert town to support the passing of Prop 205.
He spoke in favor of the proposition on the University of Arizona campus, joined by local representatives such as Rep. Bruce Wheeler and Rep. Matt Kopec as well as Sunnyside School District Board member Daniel Hernandez, who is running for a District 2 spot in the state House of Representatives.
Speakers touched on several issues about why they intend to vote “yes” on Prop 205, giving a well-rounded perspective surrounding the support for the initiative. Hernandez opened citing reasons close to him as part of Sunnyside School District, focusing on the unequal effects that marijuana laws may have on minority youth.
“It becomes a cycle, where unless we do something to break that cycle, these kids aren’t going to have the same opportunities as their white counterparts,” Hernandez said.
There were 1,416 arrests for marijuana in Arizona in 2014, per the Arizona Department for Public Safety. Of those arrested, 13 percent were black and 46 percent identified as Hispanic, compared to Arizona’s demographic distribution being 4.8 percent black and 30.7 percent Hispanic, per the United States Census Bureau.
This suggests concord with a trend seen across the country in which people of minorities are arrested at higher rates than white people. The ACLU says that blacks are 3.73 time more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites.
Wheeler took a more ideological stance.
“I don’t think government should tell me whether I can smoke a joint or not,” he said. “Especially when you look at alcohol, which is legal and kills hundreds, if not thousands of people every day. Marijuana doesn’t kill.”
The alcohol comparison is drawn a lot in the argument for legalization for the very reason Wheeler stated. Thought opponents often try to link being high as an external factor in deaths such as traffic accidents, no one has ever died from a marijuana overdose. Trust me, Snoop Dogg has tried.
Stack that up against deaths related to and directly attributed to alcohol, and the argument has some legitimacy. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are 2,200 alcohol poisoning deaths per year. Taken with identical factors, it’s a far cry for marijuana to reach these kinds of numbers. Blumenhauer himself started off with the disbelief that ending marijuana prohibition has taken this long after voting for decriminalization in Oregon in 1973.
“If you would have told me back then that we’d still be fighting this battle today, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said.
He attributes the delay to Nixon’s initiation of the War on Drugs, a war that, by consensus, the drugs have won.
“The evidence is they are, if anything, more widely available,” Blumenhauer said. “The prices are lower in many cases. We can’t even keep drugs out of prison. We’ve destabilized Central American countries. The parade of unaccompanied migrant children fleeing Central America is in no small measure related to what we’ve done with this war on drugs.”
Immigration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras has risen more than from any other Central American countries according to the Migration Policy Institute. El Salvador had the highest spike in 1980 while Honduras began to rapidly increase in 1990. This is partially due to civil wars, but, more recently, to a shift in drug trafficking routes through Central America after the U.S. began targeting drug production in Colombia in the ’90s.
He also pointed out the absurdity that marijuana is classified as more dangerous than cocaine and meth on the Drug Enforcement Agencies drug schedules. Marijuana is in the same schedule as heroin, and, much like the alcohol argument, there are undoubtedly more deaths attributed to cocaine, meth and heroin than marijuana.
For the complete version of this week’s MMJ column, go to tucsonweekly.com
“The decisive edge will be with millennial voters, and it’s exactly like marriage equality,” he said. “Millennials, a decade ago, stopped obsessing over marriage equality and accepted it, and your generation drove acceptance. That’s what’s happening with marijuana.”
We’ve looked at this data before. (See “Youth Pot,” Sept. 15.) Pew Research Center found that 68 percent of millennials support marijuana legalization, nationally.
Blumenhauer cited recreational marijuana initiatives in Washington D.C. and Florida, where millennials turned out in higher numbers than usual.
“That is part of what needs to happen here over the course of the next 12 days,” he said. “Being able to get younger voters out to the polls, it’ll make a difference up and down the ticket … for personal freedom, for justice in the legal system.”
In large part, that’s the question that voters need to answer next week. Is the cost of arrests enough to outweigh an imperfect initiative?
Blumenhauer thinks so.
“Every state’s different,” he said. “Every pro
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2016.
What a pant load of tying population control in Central and South America to Nixon’s War on Drugs.
While not a sole will support this war. However the powers forcing recreational marketing of marijuana are giving some very false information out.
We have a congressman telling Arizona what to do withinside the state. Whereas that action championing the Federal classification is void from his federal responsibility. He wants to front for the Oregonian producers that will provide a multitude of products. basically stifling Arizona.
I have been to Oregon seen their recreational operation, However this Congressman has no understanding of the way Arizona want to frame this special Department. Why are we paying through a PAC like MPP to pay travel and office contributions for an Organian Congressman to come here, is the work all done in Oregon?
I see support inside my elderly community however not for 205. In my weekly card bridge and canasta games and saturday golf. The word is getting out I had an edible while out at San Ignacio Golf Club. Grandma gave it to me one patient to another with the promise to get the word out NO on 205
In the statement made here the Arrests for marijuana. We need to look at arrests for simple posession which is what prop 205 is about. Not about marijuana being present during other crimes and just an associate charge to force a plea bargain.
With prop 205 there are more felonies now associated with marijuana. Like Cold Water hash extraction would be a class 4 felony if 205 passed.
With each arrest then there is arrested and charged is not convicted. That would be a more accurate representation of how the Marijuana laws are enforced.
TASC a bogus drug counseling service contracted to do drug intervention for and to report the court. IF found guilty first time offences sometime and most the time a fine and away you go. If court ordered Drug Intervention program it’s not working and never has. This is still being sponsored by 205 I dont see why all drug dependency cost Alcohol, tobacco, prescriptions, all the illicit chemical drugs have to be paid for off the Recreational Marijuana and throwing the Medical to the curb.
Carpet Baggers – ” forcing recreational marketing of marijuana” – is that anything like the “mandatory gay marriage” Ted Cruz kept talking about before Obergefell v. Hodges?
Frankly, the strongest argument supporting legalization of marijuana is the fact that the anti-legalization forces clearly believe that the only way they can win is by engaging in overt lies and outrageous distortions.
Ive served as an elected District Attorney in Conservative Texas. Every DA is on a limited budget. We have to make choices. I believe in strict punishment for violent offenders and burglars. I rarely gave probation. Unfortunately we had to deal with all these annoying pot cases. Even when pot users got probation the understaffed probation officers had to make sure they were in by 10PM Id rather they checked on sex offenders.]
Revenues are another reason to legalize. The Washington Post reports for 2015 Colorado gained 18,000 pot-related jobs and $2.4 billion in revenue. 2016 will be much better.
Use among teens has not increased both according to surveys from the Denver Post and Federal Government.
Its best to vote Yes.
Jeffery Whatever? Ted Cruz? I dont follow delusional jabberings misinformation abounds just lies in and lies out so why vote to pass a lie
It is such a short time relief a good feeling and comfort to know the Medical Marijuana is still going to be with us and law for the foreseeable future.
Take a breath, take in what just happened, take time to reflect. What we will have from now on will be some of the most comprehensive general marijuana understanding ever.
About 100,000 mmj card patients. With the vote being 80,000 spread or 40,000 swing. I believe it is a very strong that 5% of MMJ card carrying patients educated themselves as to what the proposition said meant. Of that 5% that were passionate about how they conducted themselves with medication were appaled by this attempted rapeing of the MMJ program.
I honestly believe it is that 5 % of the mmj card carriers that influenced 4>5 vote around them. So if 5% of the card carriers who influenced 5 others not to pass 205. that would be 25 taken away or a 25 swing resulting in 50,000 for 205 it would have won.
ADA and the group take notice we are not all sheeps to the sheer.