Pot breaks the age barrier

Pot breaks the age barrier
Legalization might be a bigger issue for boomers than for others.

March 29, 2010|Sandy Banks-LA Times
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  Los Angeles Times

Its name might be its strongest asset: The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, a marijuana legalization effort that goes out of its way not to say the word "marijuana."

I suspect its organizers learned something from the failure of predecessors -- like the Inalienable Rights Enforcement Initiative, a name that sounds like it was dreamed up by a bunch of guys passing around a bong.

The Cannabis Act, which qualified last week for the statewide November ballot, ran its first radio ad Sunday: a former Los Angeles deputy sheriff explaining "why cops support Tax Cannabis 2010, the initiative to control and tax cannabis."

Never mind that the state's law enforcement organizations are already lining up to oppose it.

Supporters, bankrolled so far by an Oakland marijuana dispensary owner, plan to spend as much as $20 million to convince California voters that legalizing marijuana will help solve the state's budget woes and blunt the reach of drug cartels.

The initiative would move the battle over marijuana modestly forward by making it legal for anyone 21 and older to possess an ounce of marijuana and/or grow whatever can fit in a 5-by-5-foot plot. It would allow cities and counties to decide whether to allow sales and tax the proceeds.

That feels to me like a natural progression of California's cannabis policy, which essentially decriminalized possession 35 years ago -- an ounce gets you a $100 fine -- and in 1996 deemed pot to be medication.

The premise of the proposed law: Marijuana has more in common with alcohol and tobacco than with heroin and cocaine.

Or: Is there much really much difference between going home and smoking a joint and going home to a glass of Merlot?

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Polls suggest that mothers in their 30s and 40s -- who are likely to have teenagers at home -- might side with law enforcement against the proposal. I understand that reflexively. It's hard to say yes at the ballot box when you've spent years telling your kids to "just say no" to marijuana.

But the reality is that any 18-year-old with a hankering for pot and $100 can head to Venice Beach and be legally smoking within an hour.

Acne, anxiety, an ankle sprain -- virtually any ailment qualifies for treatment with medical marijuana.

"It's easier now [for 18-year-olds] to get cannabis than booze," said Dale Sky Clare, spokeswoman for the cannabis campaign. "Our current policies have failed to keep cannabis away from our kids or to educate them about the dangers of dependence."