The post 3 medical marijuana proposals on MO ballot: Compare and contrast appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>If you’re voting in Missouri on Nov. 6, 2018—and you are, aren’t you?—you’re going to find: not one, not two, but three proposals pertaining to legalizing medical marijuana. If you haven’t thought about them before you get to your polling place, you’re probably going to find them confusing. Each one has a different focus and a different tax rate attached. And you’ll have the opportunity to vote on all three of them. [Of course, you can vote on just one or two, or all three—or none of them, and your ballot will still count.]
So, how do you decide which ones to vote for, and which to vote against? Thanks to Nancy Miller, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan St. Louis, you can compare and contrast them. Miller has read each bill closely and has created a spreadsheet analysis of the three bills, spelling out what they propose to do, the tax level associated with each, the implications of each proposal, and the names of groups and individuals sponsoring them.
Having read her analysis, I’ve come to the conclusion that all three are flawed in their own way. But I’ve also come to the conclusion that, in the interest of getting the benefits of medical marijuana into mainstream medical practice in Missouri, we need to find one proposal that makes sense and at least opens the door to 21st Century medical care.
All three legalize marijuana for medicinal use only. All three regulate growing, processing and dispensing medical marijuana.
But there are other, significant differences between the proposals. Here’s my streamlined version of the information in Miller’s highly informative spreadsheet, supplemented with my own commentary:
What it would do: Change the Missouri Constitution to allow growing, processing and dispensing medical marijuana.
Administered by: MO Dept. of Health and Human Services; tax oversight by MO Dept. of Revenue; State Treasurer
Tax rate on sales: 4%
How much money it would raise from taxes: $18 million [$6 million for local governments] per year
Where the tax money would go: Veterans’ health care
Who’s sponsoring it: NORML, New Approach Missouri, Individual donations
Pro – Clearly states what medical marijuana production, distribution and sales would be. Clear explanation of where the revenue will go and what agency of government will have oversight.
Con – Revenue will go only to health needs of veterans, capital improvement of Missouri Veterans’ Homes, and other services for veterans.
What it would do: Change the Missouri Constitution to allow the use of medical marijuana; create licensing procedures for marijuana facilities.
Administered by: Brad Bradshaw, the financier of this initiative, who would be chairperson of the board of directors of a newly created organization [Biomedical Research and Drug Development Institute] to oversee medical marijuana in Missouri. Bradshaw would select the members of this board, who would issue regulations.
Tax rate on sales: 15%
How much money it would raise from taxes: $66 million per year
Where the tax money would go: Biomedical Research and Drug Institute
Who’s sponsoring it: Brad Bradshaw [Finding the Cures] – $1 million
Pro – Similar to Amendment 2 in the description on licensing and taxes; immunity of patients, doctors, facilities.
Con – A private individual will be in control of money from taxes paid by citizens. This individual [Bradshaw] will select the administrative board that will make decision concerning every phase of the medicinal marijuana operation. 15% sales tax would be the highest in the US.
What it would do: Change Missouri statutes [not Constitution] to remove prohibitions on personal use and possession of medical marijuana with a written certification by a physician who treats patients diagnosed with a qualifying medical condition.
Administered by: MO Department of Health and Senior Services, and the Division of Liquor Control.
Tax rate on sales: 2%
How much money it would raise from taxes: $10 million per year [$152,000 per year for local governments]
Where the tax money would go: Veterans’ services, drug treatment, early childhood education, public safety in cities with a medical marijuana facility.
Who’s sponsoring it: Rex Sinquefield, Missourians for Patient Care, supporters with ties to St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger; Pelopidas LLC – $1 million.
Pro – Worthy causes would receive the proceeds. Lowest tax rate of the three proposals. License fees will pay the cost of administering the program.
Con – ½ of 1% of the tax revenue would be split between the four beneficiary areas, a total of just $12,500 each. As a simple change in statutes, this law could be changed at any time by the Missouri legislature.
Here’s another confusing aspect of the marijuana ballot issues: Which one wins? We’re not voting for our favorite from a list of three. We’re voting Yes or No on each one separately. To pass, each requires a simple majority of the people voting on it. But what happens if all three get that majority? There’s actually a Missouri law addressing the question of what happens if two or more “conflicting” amendments or statutes are approved. The winner is the one that gets the most Yes votes. However, in this instance, two of the proposals [Amendment 2 and Amendment 3] are constitutional amendments, and the third [Proposition C] is a statutory proposal. Under Missouri law [as I understand it] constitutional law supersedes statutory law, so even if Proposition C passes, it can be superseded by one of the constitutional amendments, if one passes. Got that? Yeah, me neither.
Vote yes. Vote no. Just vote on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. Democracy is in the balance.
[Full disclosure: I’m leaning toward Amendment 2.]
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]]>The post Breaking marijuana taboos, one state at a time appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The 2012 election heralded many victories for the U.S., chief among them the re-election of President Obama. We’ve heard about the election of the first openly gay woman to the Senate, Tammy Duckworth. We’ve heard about the new, highly diverse Democratic Congress. And we’ve heard of the much anticipated return of Alan Grayson. Some exciting progress is being made with the war on drugs, though, and this is also something to discuss.
On November 6th, voters in Colorado and Washington approved of marijuana for recreational purposes, becoming the first states to officially break the taboo surrounding the plant. There are now 18 states (plus D.C.) that have legalized marijuana in some manner, usually for medicinal purposes:
States with medical marijuana laws on the books have faced some big hurdles. We have legally approved and regulated medical marijuana with varying degrees of success in nearly half the country, but federal drug law still poses a problem for dispensaries operating legally in these states. There have been a number of high profile cases in which federal courts have convicted legally operating marijuana growers and sellers of violating federal drug laws.
Via 1970’s Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is still classified as a “Schedule 1” drug by the federal government. Though it is legal in some states, growers and dispensaries are still susceptible to federal prosecution, especially if they are large scale operations.
Proponents of medicinal and decriminalized marijuana point to assurances from President Obama and AG Eric Holder that the federal government would not make prosecuting legal users of marijuana a priority under his administration. In an April 2012 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the president clarified:
What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical marijuana. I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana—and the reason is, because it’s against federal law. I can’t nullify congressional law. I can’t ask the Justice Department to say, ‘Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books.’ What I can say is, ‘Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing folks damage.’ As a consequence, there haven’t been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes.
That’s a great point made by the president. However, targeting and prosecuting legal growers and dispensaries limits the availability of legal plants for people who consume it—legally—for medicinal purposes. If it is not available by legal means, people will return to obtaining it by illegal means and that means more drug-related prosecutions and convictions, both on the state and federal levels.
There’s another roadblock, as reported here:
Federal law is such that the government doesn’t recognize the medical value of medicinal marijuana, and there is no distinction between medical use and non medical use… Without that distinction, the government can effectively exclude any evidence of medical use even if people being tried are in compliance with local and state laws.
So long as state and federal law are at odds, marijuana use will continue to be an activity that is criminalized. But which policy (legal or illegal) is the more logical one? Historical data offers some answers and perspective.
In 1936, the propaganda film Reefer Madness effectively scared Americans straight with dire warnings of suicide, rape, and murder as a result of marijuana consumption. However, though prohibition started shortly thereafter in 1937 with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act, the War on Drugs officially began in the 1970’s under anti-marijuana president, Richard Nixon. Nixon appointed the Shafer Commission to review and assess the country’s marijuana policy. and according to a book written by two men who worked for Nixon, he promptly and famously tossed it in the trash bin when the results weren’t to his liking.
The Shafer Commission’s report stated that marijuana prohibition and public opinion were based primarily on inadequate understanding of the effects of marijuana, unsubstantiated “lurid accounts of marijuana atrocities”, e.g. propaganda. The report concluded that, “Looking only at the effects on the individual there is little proven danger of physical or psychological harm from the experimental or intermittent use of the natural preparations of cannabis.”
That same Commission suggested a social control policy that would discourage marijuana use without prosecuting users. The report compared this idea of social control to marriage, stating that “We officially encourage matrimony by giving married couples favorable tax treatment; but we do not compel people to get married.”
Despite the Commission’s report, former president Nixon began an aggressive anti-drug policy that resulted in hundreds of thousands of drug convictions. He declared that drug abuse was “public enemy number one”.
Today, about 40% of Americans admit to having consumed marijuana at some point in their lives. That means almost half of us are [admittedly] aware of the actual effects of marijuana and may be responsible for changing public opinion. In 2010, an ABC poll said that 80% of Americans approved of legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. As more research is completed and more states successfully regulate its use, favorable public opinion of marijuana use increases.
Among mounting concerns of national debt and government expenditures, common sense drug policy should be a priority. In 2010, the federal government spent $15 billion dollars on the war on drugs; state and local governments spent around $25 billion that same year. An end to marijuana prohibition just makes sense and we are making progress, one state at a time.
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