FILE – In this Feb. 14, 2018, file photo, marijuana plants are displayed at a dispensary in Berkeley, Calif. U.S. health officials say a closely watched medicine made from the marijuana plant significantly reduces seizures in children with severe forms of epilepsy and warrants approval in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration posted its review Tuesday, April 17, of the experimental medication ahead of a public meeting later this week. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
AP
By Corey Friedman
Just in time for Independence Day, Virginia will stop arresting people caught with small amounts of marijuana for personal use.
The state legislature signed off on a bill to decriminalize cannabis, and Gov. Ralph Northam has pledged his support. Starting July 1, simple possession of marijuana will result in a maximum $25 civil fine rather than a misdemeanor charge.
Decriminalization is not legalization — pot is still against the law, but it will be treated more like jaywalking or speeding. Dealers can face jail time for selling the drug and trafficking it in large quantities, though it’s likely that buy-bust operations will be rarer as law enforcement shifts its resources to higher priorities.
The reform represents a middle course on cannabis, as state lawmakers rejected a push for full legalization in December. It’s still a watershed win for marijuana activists in the nation’s 12th largest state. Legislators throughout the Southeast will be watching the Old Dominion to see how successfully the law is implemented and whether it results in any unintended consequences.
“Virginia is spending over 100 million taxpayer dollars arresting and prosecuting close to 30,000 people every year for marijuana possession,” Jenn Michelle Pedini of the state National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws chapter told Virginia Public Radio. “This is just not a policy that Virginians support continuing.”
Long the target of moral panics, government smear campaigns and junk science, marijuana is having its moment in American public policy. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have legalized pot for recreational use, and 33 states allow medicinal use with a doctor’s authorization.
The sky isn’t falling as states embrace cannabis and deemphasize pot prosecutions. A 2019 study in the medical journal Addiction showed that traffic crashes and fatalities saw an initial spike after access to marijuana increased in Colorado, Oregon and Washington, but rates returned to normal after roughly a year.
Meanwhile, alcohol impairment remains a leading cause of fatal crashes, contributing to more than 10,000 deaths per year.
The federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance. Its listing in the most restrictive category has hampered researchers’ efforts to conduct large-scale studies that will determine the full range of the drug’s medical value and the effects of long-term recreational use.
With anecdotal evidence that pot can treat post-traumatic stress disorder, veterans groups including the American Legion have endorsed calls to reschedule cannabis, paving the way for more research.
Pot could emerge as an issue in the 2020 presidential campaign. Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to legalize marijuana within his first 100 days in office, and Democratic primary opponent Joe Biden, the former vice president, says he supports national decriminalization.
President Donald Trump has spoken favorably of medical marijuana, and his administration has taken a hands-off approach, leaving it to the states to regulate pot. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Reason magazine described as a “drug war dinosaur,” likely complicated any move toward loosening the restrictions. Attorney General Bill Barr is more in line with Trump, preferring to let states set their own policies.
A 2019 Pew Research Center poll shows two-thirds of Americans support legalization, a proportion that’s more than doubled in the past 20 years. Republicans are less pot-friendly than Democrats, but that reflects a split in the GOP’s coalition of social conservatives who oppose drug use and economic libertarians who support personal freedom.
Even Christians are somewhat divided on marijuana. Many theologians extrapolate Bible passages about drunkenness to apply to any kind of intoxication, while some pot-positive believers cite a verse in Genesis that states God gave man “every herb-bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth” to use as food.
The United States is nearing a tipping point. A 2019 Gallup poll shows same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision legalized in 2015, is 4% less popular than cannabis.
Without a landmark case before the nation’s highest court, it will take at least a decade to dismantle the tangled mess of federal, state and local laws banning marijuana use. Decriminalization could be the best approach to negotiate a tenuous truce between pot users and wary prohibitionists.
We can disagree on whether marijuana is good for individuals and for society. We should all agree that arresting and jailing people by the hundreds of thousands is a colossal waste of resources.
Corey Friedman is editor of The Wilson Times. In this weekly column for Creators Syndicate, he explores solutions to political conflicts from an independent perspective. Follow him on Twitter @coreywrites. To read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.