Time For Marijuana Legalization?

(CBS)  Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com.

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Apparently, it was nothing personal after all. Apparently, it was strictly business all along.

After generations of defending capital punishment and marijuana possession laws on moral, ethical and religious grounds, after years of declaring that the death penalty acted as a deterrent against violent crime and that pot smokers were more dangerous to society than, say, alcohol consumers, all of a sudden thanks to our economic crisis more and more mainstream powerbrokersare considering dramatic changes to our criminal justice system.

The New York Times today has a late-arriving pieceby Ian Urbina which posits that lawmakers in several states are considering abandoning the death penalty because it's just too expensive and cuts into other law enforcement priorities. State officials are beginning to acknowledge that they can more productively spend their budget funds on cracking unsolved cases or ensuring better police protection than on keeping pot smokers in prison or fighting for decades with capital defendants. This, Urbina writes, is forcing a sea-change around the nation:

"Last year, in an effort to cut costs, probation and parole agencies in Arizona, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey and Vermont reduced or dropped prison time for thousands of offenders who violated conditions of their release. In some states, probation and parole violators account for up to two-thirds of prison admissions each year; typical violations are failing drug tests or missing meetings with parole officers.

As prison crowding has become acute, lawsuits have followed in states like California, and politicians find themselves having to choose among politically unattractive options: spend scarce tax dollars on expanding prisons, loosen laws to stem the flow of incarcerations, or release some nonviolent offenders."

This trend toward releasing non-violent offenders naturally begs the question: what about legalizing marijuana possession and lowering the drinking age? A California lawmaker Monday introduced legislation that would legalize (and tax) pot there. In Colorado, as seen this past Sunday on 60 Minutes, the police chief in Boulder (which houses a raucous University of Colorado) made a compelling case for saving money by reducing the drinking age from 21. Better to have police officers tracking violent crime, the argument goes, than writing tickets for college kids who are going to drink no matter what.

These declarations, from the political and legal arena, are not just isolated voices shouting into the wilderness. Consider the late, great Milton Friedman, the Nobel Laureate, former Reagan advisor, and esteemed scholar associated with the very conservative Hoover Institution. He was among hundreds of important economistswho argue that pot should be legalized and taxed - and that the income from such taxation could generate billions in new revenues and billions more in enforcement savings. If you live in California, what would you rather have? Pot smokers whose cases are tying up the legal system? Or better health care and roads thanks to a marijuana tax. I'm just asking the question-and others are too.

Friedman and his colleagues first made these arguments years ago - before the economy tanked. Is it time to take his view more seriously with states facing huge budget shortfalls that threaten to curtail vital projects and policies? It is such a great leap from releasing prisoners from prison early to save money and not sending them there at all to save more? I would suspect a survey of police officials and prosecutors, and a survey of state budget officials, would indicate that the matter is being taken more seriously today than it ever has been.

It's not my place to advocate anything - so please don't write and accuse me of being Cheech or Chong. All I am saying is that the economic case for legalizing marijuana, and for lower the drinking rate, is as compelling as it has ever been and that, in a time of great changes in the interaction between government and the governed, it would not be the worst thing in the world to have a serious national debate on the topic. If we are going to lower state and federal budgets for criminal justice, if we are going to be emptying our prisons anyway to save costs, let's make sure we do it in a way that maximizes the opportunities available to us.

[charles12346]

Actually, we should legalize ALL drugs and make them available (government should provide this at no charge) in every public school in the nation. There is nothing wrong with pot, cigarettes, alchohol, prescription drugs, crack, heroine, methamphetamine, and any other dangerous substance. Our country is headed down the hill anyway. Why not legalize everything? Don't stop at pot. Legalize all gambling, pedophelia, bank robbing (in this day and age we are just being Robin Hood), gangs, corruption in politics, beating up your neighbor, driving over people on the sidewalks, etc., etc. There are already 10,000 ways to die, 20,000 pathways to hell, one more won't hurt our country a bit!

[AttentionDeficit]

if you seriously equate legal pot with assault and ripping people off, you have serious issues

[Jojo_Jones]

There is no biological, medical or chemical difference between legal drugs and illegal ones. The classification is entirely arbitrary, banning natural substances and protecting synthetic ones in order to protect the drug industry--not the public. You can find a longer explanation in Kindle book The Mental Health Scam and how to avoid it.

[RonPaul2012MOFO]

We all know the prohibition and existing laws are strictly designed to keep a cretin group of people in power and wallets fat. looking in your direction big pharm, and all the little piglets in washington sucking on the teats of mother money. THE GOVERNMENT AND BIG PHARM ARE DRUG DEALERS NO DIFFERENT THEN WHAT YOU FIND ON THE STREETS, THEIR JUST PROTECTED! END OF STORY

[wtw9]

Hemp growth, possession and non-commercial use is fully legal under the Law. Read The Book Of Divinity, Of LAW section. US Federal and State Law cannot compete, except through violence, and to do such, enforce a crazy law about growing or using/having a plant for one's personal non-commercial use by using violence and imprisonment, is evil.

[Noval53]

I hope common sense will one day prevail. Prohibition was a failure and so is the prohibition against marijuana. Who will lead the nation to finally do what makes sense. It looks like Ron Paul is the only one that can even hold a logical discussion on the matter and he will get my vote. Both ruling parties are on the wrong course. He scares the hell out both parties; and that's a good thing.

[oneStarman]

WE NEED to be SMARTER in how we approach Drugs in THIS Country and as part of FOREIGN Policy as Well. People growing a few Pot Plants in their Back Yard should NOT be of ANY Interest to A Government that has REAL Work to DO. On the OTHER Hand HEAVILY ARMED GANGS of Mexican Drug Runners and Afghan OPIUM which supplies almost ALL The WORLD Heroin should be Treated as TERRORISTS with Napalm ad Cruise Missiles and Extraordinary Rendition to GITMO and Let those Islamists go Home and start Democracies.

[drmaddogs]

Every one knows about how the Siezure laws were touted as being the just rewards to 'drug dealers' and has become the excuse to simply take what ever 'law enforcement wants'.
Newt the salamander is prepairing to bump up all penalty features of the 'drug war'. Going by 2009 figures, one person every 35 seconds is arrested for 'pot'. What shall it be??? Every 20 seconds?
The arrest procedure is what starts the long line... to having the 25% of the worlds incarcerated, in America, AND NEWT, thinks that is not enough.
His recent comments on child labor are transparent in demagouging race as the 'the poor'.
Certain Ethnics have born the brunt of The War on Drugs. Be prepaired, you ain't seen nothing yet.

[kevin_hunt]

Newt, an admitted former pot smoker, introduced H.R. 4498 in 1981, a bill which would have required the Federal Government to provide medical marijuana to the seriously ill. In 1997, he introduced H.R. 41 which would have provided the death penalty for those who "import 100 doses of a controlled substance to the U.S." This "100 doses" could be as little as an ounce of weed. Newt is one of the most evil flip-floppers to ever run as a presidential candidate. I am voting for Ron Paul or Obama. Anyone but Newt!

[RuinedbyBush]

The time for legalization was ...... say 2-3 decades ago, when I was a kid.

NO question: legalize it.

Fast forward to 2020......will we still be putting small time dealers in increasingly crowded prisons?

I hope not.

[drmaddogs]

1/2 miilion arrested for simple possesion every year...NOW. You don't have to wait for 2020. Chance are there won't be any room for the kids caught behind the gym toking up and caught, with NDAA set to bring the 25% of the worlds imprioned in America to a new high(sarc) anyway.

[fedup12]

No worse than Booze in my mind.

Lets just get this done so we can go on down the road. Quit spending millions stopping it and make millions selling (and taxing) it.

[stirringitup]

Come on - It's not illegal.....it's just undocumented....ar,ar
BTW...the last three Presidents have admitted to smoking weed.....unfortunately citing this fact may undermine the argument to legalize it (Um, er... I mean provide a path to legality)......which I support

[ClydeFroggel]

Re-Legalization and arrest the idiots that made these insane law in the first place. They are the ones responsible for all the murders that took place since the Drug War stated. What a bunch of schmucks.