The Next Front in the Marijuana Battle

While the battle to allow marijuana for medical use is still being fought across the nation, the forward edge of the war for acceptance is pushing further: towards ending prohibition altogether. Campaigns to regulate rather than prohibit marijuana are catching fire around the country. The residents of Oakland, California – which already has legal medical marijuana dispensaries, will soon vote on whether to permit marijuana sales to all adults as a way to eliminate street dealing and fund city services.

On June 29, county officials qualified the Oakland Cannabis Initiative for the November election. Supporters of the initiative had turned in over 32,000 signatures. "It would require the City of Oakland to develop a system to tax and regulate adult sale and use of marijuana as soon as possible under state law," says Joe DeVries, a board member of the Oakland Civil Liberties Alliance, which supported the measure. "And until state law makes it possible, it requires that the Oakland police treat adult use and sale of marijuana as the lowest policing priority."

The Oakland Cannabis Initiative is one of several similar measures intended to show local support for statewide marijuana law reform legislation. Medical cannabis is fully legal in only nine states.

"We want Oakland to be at the forefront of a new trend. We have had inquiries from in and out of state to follow Oakland's language and use it elsewhere," says Dale Gieringer, president of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which backed the initiative. Gieringer says West Coast cities north of Santa Cruz, California are ready to tax and regulate marijuana. "A couple of local cities in the Bay Area are interested, they are waiting to see what happens in Oakland," says Gieringer, who adds that a group of San Diego activists also contacted the Oakland campaign.

National drug law reform groups – the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) – supported the Oakland campaign. But DeVries says half the funding came from local residents like himself who believe that regulated marijuana sales will make the drug less available to young people. Tight controls on youth tobacco use have resulted in a drop in teen smoking, whereas drug war tactics have not lowered the number of teens smoking cannabis. A study released in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 21.9% percent of teens reported smoking cigarettes within the last month while 22.4% smoked marijuana.

"By not having any regulation, young people are just using marijuana and putting themselves in danger and then moving on to other drugs," said Oakland resident Jane Coast, 53, who added her signature to the Oakland Cannabis Initiative one Sunday morning. Settling into a nearby cafe for brunch, Margaret Clasing, 24, also signed but took a different view. "If they use it responsibly I don't think its harmful at all,"said Clasing. "But I think it's safer to regulate it and take it off the street."

Initiatives Throughout the Nation

MPP executive director Rob Kampia says his organization put out a call a year ago looking for activists to run local marijuana initiatives. One initiative in Gainesville, Florida, which sought to make adult marijuana use the lowest policing priority, folded after organizers gathered only a small number of signatures. But a similar measure is expected to make the November ballot in Tallahassee, Florida.

In Michigan, a Detroit medical marijuana initiative has qualified for the August 3 primary ballot. Another in Ann Arbor will be put to voters in the November election. One local ballot initiative in Columbia, Missouri takes a decriminalization approach, removing penalties and arrest for persons possessing up to 35 grams of marijuana and allowing only a civil fine. Massachusetts activists are still collecting signatures for up to a dozen non-binding local ballot initiatives which advise legislators to support marijuana law reform.