Black Market and Cannabis

California Proposition 64, the California Marijuana Legalization Initiative, would legalize marijuana/cannabis for adults over the age of 21. The legalization measure only applies to the state of California, as federal law continues on its war on drugs/prohibition path. Proposition 64 was on the ballot in the November 8, 2016 federal election. Prior to passing this Proposition, cannabis was illegal, and possession of cannabis was punishable by law. This proposition would not only decriminalize but fully legalize, which means that individuals 21 years of age or older can and should grow their own or purchase from a local and licensed distributor rather than using the black market. In addition to legalization, which impacts the criminal justice system and the powers of law enforcement, the California Proposition 64 created a tax and regulate method of controlling cannabis. There are two new taxes created with the new law. Those two taxes include a tax on the cultivated crops, which can be considered a wholesale agricultural tax, and a retail or sales tax for when the prepared cannabis products are sold. California Proposition 64 also purportedly specifies exactly where the tax monies will be diverted to in terms of state programs and services: "Revenue from the taxes will be spent on drug research, treatment, and enforcement, health and safety grants addressing marijuana, youth programs, and preventing environmental damage resulting from illegal marijuana production," ("California Proposition 64 Marijuana Legalization (2016)"). Therefore, California Proposition 64 has two main components: the legal component which impacts the criminal justice system in the state, and also a financial component, which affects the state budget. Additionally, the law has several long-term implications. One is to increase the civil liberties of residents of the state of California. The other is a potential conflict between the state of California and federal laws that continue to criminalize cannabis.

I. b) Position/Thesis/Conclusion

It is my position that California voters did the right thing by passing this law, which should have been passed a long time ago. Suprisingly, California was the first state to prohibit marijuana, and the state has had a long history of infringing on personal liberties regarding drug use (Roy). Proposition 64 is California's chance to redeem itself after a century of poorly developed policy grounded in a manipulation of the media and its messages rather than on evidence. The main reason why I support Proposition 64 is because evidence proves that prohibition does not work, and in fact causes a tremendous amount of harm -- far more harm than cannabis itself causes. The harms of prohibition can be measured in lives lost to the prison-industrial complex; the lives lost to people who smoke too much cannabis are almost negligible. Furthemore, I support California Proposition 64 on the basis of human rights and liberties. Drug use is a universal and natural human behavior and should not be criminalized.

I. c) Fallacies in the candidate/issue viewpoint

There are no fallacies in my position's viewpoint, that of the "Yes" on California Proposition 64.

I. d) Premise 1: Prohibition of cannabis has been a failed and harmful policy because it helps black markets thrive. From this premise, I conclude that legalization is the only logical response. Decriminalization is too vague, and actually perpetuates one of the main problems with prohibition, which is the driving of cannabis production and distribution into the black market. Legalization takes cannabis out of the hands of international drug cartels and places it back in the hands of small, medium, and large business owners in the United States. This conclusion is deductive and has a high level of confidence because cannabis remains highly popular in California in spite of prohibition, which has enabled the black market to thrive, which is in turn why it is now absolutely essential to disempower that black market. The black market is the problem -- not cannabis.

Premise 2: Prohibition of cannabis has been a failed and harmful policy because it contributes to prison overcrowding for no reason whatsoever, destroying the lives of millions who have done no harm to the community. From this premise I conclude that legalization would end the harmful, evil practice of incarcerating people for non-violent drug offences. Tearing apart families and communities and destroying lives of not a sensible, effective, rational, humane, or in any way reasonable way of punishing a person for the possession or selling of a plant. This conclusion is deductive and has a high level of confidence because prison overcrowding is a major problem throughout the nation but especially in California, where it has reached a level of harm that is "appalling," "inhumane" and "unacceptable," and unconstitutional given the "cruel and unusual" clause of the Constitution (Mayeaux 1). Prison overcrowding is due in part to the unnecessary criminalization of cannabis and other drugs, and therefore logically, legalization of cannabis would reduce the numbers of persons in prison. Drug use is not inherently deviance; its deviance is socially constructed.

Premise 3: Prohibition of cannabis has been a failed and harmful policy because it costs a lot more than it gives back to the community, and from this premise it is easy to conclude that legalization takes all the money that already does go into cannabis and places it sqaurely into the hands of California growers and California consumers. This conclusion is deductive because a substantial amount of money is spent on the prohibition of drugs statewide as well as nationwide, but that drug war is unnecessary because cannabis is not a harmful drug. The war on drugs is a "trillion dollar failure," (Branson, 2012, p. 1).

I. e). Premise 1: Prohibition of cannabis has been a failed and harmful policy because it helps black markets thrive.

This premise is documented in the literature. The black market drug trade is estimated at $320 billion (Branson, 2012). Decriminalization alone would be insufficient to reduce the stranglehold the black market has on cannabis, because decriminalization only focuses on the law enforcement issues that reduce prison overcrowding and do not tear apart families and ruin lives. It is essential to take the law a step further by legalizing because this is the only way to stop international drug cartels from controlling the cannabis industry.

Premise 2: Prohibition of cannabis has been a failed and harmful policy because it contributes to prison overcrowding for no reason whatsoever, destroying the lives of millions who have done no harm to the community. This is the humanitarian appeal for the passing of Proposition 64. Prohibition causes a number of problems. The prison system is no place to put people who have drug problems, but cannabis users often do not have a drug problem to begin with. Those who tend to oppose legalization have somehow been led to believe that cannabis is harmful, or that people use cannabis and then get into car accidents and should go to jail, or that cannabis is addictive so it makes sense to put people in prison for it, or prevent people from getting high. These kinds of approaches make no sense, and have no grounding in science. Studies published in peer-reviewed science journals like Nature have shown that alcohol is actually the deadliest of all commonly used substances and that cannabis is "at the bottom of the list," not only 114 times less deadly than alcohol but also "the only drug studied that posed a low mortality risk to its users," period (Ingraham, 2015). Furthermore, the risk of getting into a car accident while high on cannabis is "significantly lower than that of alcohol-impaired driving," (CAMH, 2014). Therefore, there is no ground -- legal, ethical, or practical -- to criminalize cannabis.

Premise 3: Prohibition of cannabis has been a failed and harmful policy because it costs a lot more than it gives back to the community, and from this premise it is easy to conclude that legalization takes all the money that already does go into cannabis and places it sqaurely into the hands of California growers and California consumers. There is little literature yet to show how lucrative the pot business can be, but a 2015 article in Forbes magazine calls the legal cannabis industry the "best startup opportunity."

I. f) Alternative viewpoints

The alternative viewpoints usually focus on the perceived harms of cannabis, which have been definitively proven false by credible sources. None of the sources criticizing cannabis, on the other hand, are credible -- all use emotions and logical fallacies to construct their arguments. For example, one of Trump's new lackies has claimed, "good people don't smoke marijuana," also called the drug "dangerous," (Mcgreevy, "Weed's Legal in California"). The first part of his statement contains a logical fallacy called ad hominem, whereby a person makes a character assassination and tricks the audience into thinking that the position (such as legalization or Proposition 64) is wrong. Who cares what this man thinks about people who smoke marijuana? Whether the man thinks they are "good" or "bad" has nothing to do with what the law should be. Second, this Trump idiot claims that the drug is dangerous, which contradicts the science as it is widely deemed safe when used responsibly and is "the only drug studied that posed a low mortality risk to its users," period (Ingraham, 2015).