“Welcome to California,” said the dispensary owner as he beckoned towards seemingly endless rows of green filled jars. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Welcome to California,” said the dispensary owner as he beckoned towards seemingly endless rows of green filled jars. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The year was 2008, and my best friend from high school had arranged for me to get a real look into her “life in Los Angeles.”
As a Virginia native, this all seemed highly suspect, but my friend and her USC pals assured me that this was de rigeur in California Since then, the issue of “legal marijuana,” whether used “medicinally” or otherwise, has been raised over and over again by the media. Whichever way my research took me, blurred lines popped up. What’s the deal with past raids on state run dispensaries? What does it all mean for state’s rights? Why is everyone in Colorado so damn happy all the time?
I digress.
Whether you choose to puff or pass, you’d have to make a concerted effort to NOT notice that the conversation surrounding marijuana has become mainstream in recent years. A few weeks back, the federal government finally made a stand when Attorney General Eric Holder told the states of Colorado and Washington that they’re free to create and implement initiatives that allow their residents to vote on marijuana laws.
Both of these states passed pro-marijuana initiatives at the polls this past November. Since then, there’s been some grey area as to what this actually meant by way of legality. Holder’s statement has bold implications. States are now free to proceed with their constituents’ desires regarding marijuana legalization. More importantly, states now have full reign over the establishment of taxation and regulation over the previously confused “industry.” Public opinion in favor of legalization has grown over the years, and the industry has thrived despite some raids. (Luckily for tokers, the president has “bigger fish to fry,” like going to war with foreign countries and supposedly overhauling the health care system.)
Many other states have taken steps to decriminalize and/or legalize the drug. In the very least, we should look forward to seeing how Holder’s statement will affect other states that have become hot spots in the realm of legalization.
Despite the veil of resolve, many questions remain unanswered, and we aren’t on the brink of any free-for-all hippie revolution. In other words, Colorado and Washington are free to regulate pot for the time being, but it is unclear what will happen in the future.
Deputy Attorney James Cole included several directives for prosecutors to keep an eye on. In all fairness, it seems ok to me that this includes rules such as the prevention of “revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels.” After all, one would hope that making this a legal trade will lead to decreases in drug violence and black market activity. In my opinion, it should be interesting to see the effects of this on our tax system.
What does this news mean for the state of Virginia? Unbeknownst to most, the possession of marijuana is legal for Virginians suffering from cancer and glaucoma, so long as they have a valid prescription. This has been the case since 1979.
You may wonder then why you’ve never seen a dispensary or heard of anyone picking up marijuana from the CVS on Cary Street. While it’s legal for cancer and glaucoma patients to possess it, there are no laws regarding the actual distribution of the drug. In other words, where did these 70’s lawmakers expect cancer and glaucoma patients to fill their heady prescriptions? Were they high when they thought of this?
I spoke with the Libertarian candidate for Governor, Robert Sarvis, as well as Ed McCann, the executive director of Virginia NORML, to try and gain some insight into the possibility of legalization in Virginia. Sarvis would like to “go ahead and legalize it (marijuana) entirely.” If that, for some reason, isn’t politically feasible, he’d accept the prospect of legalization for strictly medicinal purposes.
Both Sarvis and McCann expressed strong opinions in regards to the fact that people are already using the substance, and legalizing it would contribute positively to ending black market activity. Sarvis, a champion of civil liberties in true Libertarian fashion, would like to see “take the focus away from criminality and away from the drug war.” McCann noted that bringing the distribution of the “drug” into the legal forefront could “help raise near $100 million in tax revenues.” We agreed that it’s silly and pointless to have this law whereby cancer and glaucoma patients can use the drug for medicinal purposes, yet there’s no legal means of writing the prescriptions OR distributing marijuana.
A January poll from Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy showed that 53 percent of Virginians oppose legalizing marijuana for recreational use, while 40 percent support legalization. In regards to medical marijuana, 72 percent of Virginians support legalization while a mere 19 percent oppose it. Even in what Ed McCann describes as our “socially conservative” state, he predicts that VA may pass legislation akin to that of Colorado and Washington within 5-10 years.
