Marijuana Policy Project

Should marijuana use be legal?

That's a question that will be debated in public now that Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) has introduced a bill that would remove federal penalties for personal marijuana use.

Speaking at a press conference Wednesday in support of the legislation, HR 5843, Frank said we "should not lock people up" or use federal resources to stop people from using marijuana unless they are harming someone else or engaging in excessive behavior.

The new bill would eliminate federal penalties for possession of up to 100 grams (about 3½ ounces) of marijuana, and for the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce of marijuana.

Representatives from the drug reform lobby, including the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (N.O.R.M.L.), the Drug Policy Alliance (D.P.A.) and the Marijuana Policy Project (M.P.P.), all support the legislation. But the Bush Administration does not.

Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of N.O.R.M.L. calls the legislation "the first time in a generation" that Congress is taking a "serious look" at reforming components of cannabis prohibition laws.

St. Pierre also praised Congressional Black Caucus members who took part in the press conference, Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and William Lacy Clay (D-MO). The two C.B.C. members argued that marijuana laws unfairly target African-Americans for arrest, and Clay blamed "a phony war on drugs" for "filling up our prisons, especially with people of color."

But representatives from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (O.N.D.C.P.) attended the press conference to rebut the claims that marijuana is safe, even for medical purposes.

Groups say marijuana is safe

Marijuana is the third most popular recreational drug in America, behind alcohol and tobacco, according to N.O.R.M.L. The group says nearly 80 million Americans have used marijuana and points to government surveys indicating that 20 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the past year.

"Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco," says N.O.R.M.L. According to statistics on the group's web site, more than 400,000 die each year from tobacco smoking and 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. But marijuana, on the other hand, is "nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose."

The federal government does not agree. "Marijuana is the blindspot of drug policy," said John Walters, director of national drug control policy. "Baby Boomers have this perception that marijuana is about fun and freedom. It isn't. It's about dependency, disease, and dysfunction," he said in a press release.

But cannabis users argue that marijuana can also be used to treat illnesses, including glaucoma, asthma, multiple sclerosis and H.I.V./A.I.D.S. Although 12 states allows medical marijuana use, the federal government does not, putting users in a position of legal limbo.

Rep. Lee said California law allows medical marijuana and criticized federal policy as "inhumane" and "immoral." The new legislation would allow people suffering from chronic pain or illness to smoke marijuana legally.

Talk show host Montel Williams agrees. Williams has spoken out about his own need for medical marijuana to deal with the pain associated with multiple sclerosis. He has said he takes nearly a hundred pills a day to treat his condition, and after serving 22 years in the military, he feels he should not be made to feel like a criminal just because he needs a drug to keep him healthy and out of pain.

Costs of enforcement

Supporters of the legislation also argue that enforcing marijuana laws costs taxpayers $10 billion a year. A marijuana smoker is arrested every 38 seconds, says St. Pierre.

Rob Kampia, director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said marijuana arrests outnumber arrests for "all violent crimes combined," forcing police to spend more time chasing nonviolent criminals than violent ones.

But the Bush Administration disagrees. Officials from O.N.D.C.P. issued a preemptive press release on Tuesday to show that "less than one half of one percent of inmates in state prisons are serving time for marijuana possession only."

But Rep. Frank responded to this argument at the press conference, "I never understood why people thought it was a defense of a law staying on the books that it was rarely used," he said.

Public opinion On marijuana

Marijuana use was outlawed in 1937 in the U.S., four years after the end of Prohibition. But pressure began to reform the law in the 1970s, according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

The Netherlands passed a law in 1976 that declared cannabis a "soft drug," which was not subject to "prosecution, detection or arrest" in certain amounts. And in 1996, voters in California approved Proposition 215, which allows sick and dying patients to use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

"The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government's business," Frank said at the news conference on Wednesday. "I don't think it is the government's business to tell you how to spend your leisure time," he said.

Although most Americans support efforts to reduce penalties or decriminalize personal recreational use of marijuana, they do not support legalizing marijuana altogether. A Gallup poll in 1995 found a third of Americans support legalizing marijuana, up from just 12 percent in 1969, but still not a majority.

Support for medical marijuana, on the other hand, is much higher, even among older Americans. A 2004 poll conducted for the American Association of Retired Persons (A.A.R.P.) found the overwhelming majority of seniors support legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. Sixty nine percent of those 70 and older agreed that adults should be allowed to legally use marijuana for medical purposes if a physician recommends it.

The issue of decriminalizing drug use may be controversial in a presidential election year when candidates are trying not to offend voters. But Rep. Frank's bill is not expected to come to a full committee vote until 2009.