Democrats Abroad (DA) is the overseas branch of the Democratic Party. We're considered one of the 56 'state' parties by the DNC and are one of the 6 non-state 'states' (along with Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.). Our members live around the world and come from every US state.
We held our annual global meeting recently (April 24 ~ 26) in Washington DC and, in addition to doing things like our DC doorknock and sharing ideas for increasing voter turnout among Americans overseas in 2010, we considered a number of resolutions, including one (text below), calling for the regulation of marijuana and for treating it in the same manner we treat alcohol.
It was, as you can imagine, a somewhat controversial resolution but I'm proud to say that our members tackled the issue head-on and passed the resolution without modification fairly easily in the end. If you think the so-called 'war' on marijuana should be scrapped and would like to confront this issue in your own state party, read on.
The resolution was initally introduced by me in my local Democratic organization, Democrats Abroad Japan, which is basically the equivalent of a county party in the US. I decided to introduce it for a number of reasons:
- I believe we need to address the growing drug cartel violence in Mexico in the only manner we know can succeed: ending prohibition just like we did with alcohol in the 30's when the gangs that controlled the alcohol trade terrorized American cities.
- We need to address our massive prison population in the US.
- We need to acknowledge the reality that the war on marijuana is a complete & utter failure and that rather than put money into the hands of violent drug cartels, we should instead regulate marijuana & put the money into the hands of states in the US (thru taxation)
- I wanted Democrats Abroad to tackle commonsense issues that rarely get discussed higher up the political food chain primarily because of cowardice, but where the logic was simply undeniable. I guess I wanted to push the envelope :-)
After putting together the resolution, we asked our membership (thru our mailing list) for their thoughts and, as I expected, the membership was overwhelmingly in favor of it for a variety of reasons: to defund the drug cartels, to stop wasting money on something people don't consider a serious 'crime', etc. The few objections we got to it were based on what I call the optics of the issue; namely, a small percentage of people were afraid that our opponents would latch onto this issue and use it as a club with which to beat Democrats. Even most of the opponents though said they didn't disagree with the thrust of the resolution. After feedback was gathered locally, the officers voted on it and it passed.
Once the resolution passed our country committee, it was put on the agenda with the rest of the DA resolutions for consideration at our global meeting in DC. A couple of members of the leadership of DA seemed to think that this issue was not an area of 'core competence' for our organization and questioned vigorously whether we should be considering any resolutions that contradicted President Obama's position at all. Our primary function as a part of the DNC, according to the opponents, was to support the President and his agenda and to help elect Democrats. Implicit in their argument was that this issue would somehow hurt the Democrats and Obama though no evidence was ever presented to backup that assertion.
Since I knew this was going to be controversial and that I'd need the support of our members to encourage their Committee Chairs to get on board, I started mailing our global e-mail list about the resolution and attempted to explain why I think this is an issue that should be discussed and why we should support marijuana regulation. Once again, as expected, the response was largely favorable. And once again, the few people who were against it were against it because they thought it would make DA & the Democrats look bad and that it would hurt Obama. Again, no one ever bothered to actually support these assertions - it was simply accepted as an article of faith that this was a losing issue, just like it was 20 years ago.
Prior to meeting everyone in Washington DC, I started directly mailing everyone who would be voting on the resolution asking for their support with one more lengthy explanation about why the issue should be considered and why I didn't think the issue would be nearly as toxic as they think it might be. I was pleasantly surprised to receive supportive e-mails from many of them so I felt reasonably optimistic going into the meeting.
In DC, I printed out documentation from a variety of sources about the 'war' on marijuana for people's reference and all of the e-mails I sent out about the issue prior to the DC meeting were larded with links to a variety of sources to back up my case.
When it came time to discuss the resolution, I was given 4.5 minutes to make the case. It wasn't enough time to give my entire spiel, but it was enough to hit the main points and I was pleasantly surprised to get a round of applause after my speech. The floor was then open to opponents and there was only one who spoke up & who said the same thing the opponents had been saying all along: that he didn't think this issue wasn't one of our core competencies. The other people who spoke up, spoke up in support of the resolution, including one of our members from Mexico who pointed out how serious the problem of drug cartels is down there. Other members pointed out how much money is spent on the 'war' and how much savings could be realized if we stopped criminalizing marijuana. One person suggested we remove the last clause, which would have turned it into a simple medical marijuana resolution (which wasn't what I was after) so I interpreted the suggestion as a proposed friendly amendment and indicated my intention to reject the amendment. Since I had already used my allocated time, I indicated my intention to reject the friendly amendment by shaking my head vigorously so everyone would know that I wasn't seeking a run-of-the-mill (though always important!) medical marijuana resolution.
It was then time to vote on it and while the vote was close enough that we needed to take one more count to be sure, the margin was significant enough in the end that it was clear on the 2nd voice vote that there were more than enough votes to pass the resolution.
It's interesting to note that in all of the time I spent trying to get support for the issue, no one ever even bothered to defend the status quo on it's merits. This sort of proved a point that I have long been aware of: it's very difficult to find hard-core drug war warriors. Most of the American public, in my experience, realizes that the war is a costly failure and, as far as I can tell, those who would choose to continue the status quo are either making money off it (prison operators, federal & police agencies, PR firms, etc.) or are the type of people who mindlessly accept the anti-marijuana propaganda they have been spoonfed and probably would have chosen to continue alcohol prohibition 75 years ago.
I know there are some who view this issue as a waste of time. But if you have been paying attention over the past couple of months, it's becoming very common to see discussion - outside of Washington DC - on the issue of marijuana legalization. Mexico, which recently spent 3 days discussing this once 'taboo' subject in it's own Congress, is practically begging America to at least discuss the issue. Mainstream commentators and publications have been calling for legalization and some Congresspeople have finally come out in support of legalization in hopes of stemming the drug cartel violence on our border. I'm typing this in a Portland coffeee shop and am a bit out of the newsloop just now but apparently The Governator called for some sort of legalization just yesterday.
The percentage of Americans who support outright legalization stands at around 41%, which, interestingly (if you ask me) is almost the same percentage of Americans who support full gay marriage rights. It's estimated that 1/2 of the adult American population has tried marijuana in the past (including our past 3 presidents) and 25,000,000+ Americans (almost 8% of the US population) tried it at least once in the past year alone. Incredibly, teenagers report that it's easier to get marijuana than it is to get cigarettes. The reason, of course, is because cigarettes are regulated and businesses that sell to minors stand to lose their business license whereas marijuana is completely unregulated and dealers are generally willing to sell to anyone, including minors.
It's also worth noting just how ridiculous the war on marijuana is on its face: it's an attempt to criminalize a highly sought after plant that grows almost anywhere. That's clearly not something that will ever succeed and most people know it. We now have to show our representatives in Washington that we realize that and that we'd like them to scrap the status quo.
Please make your voice heard on this issue and feel free to use the text below to propose your own resolution in your own state party!
I believe the tide is finally turning on this issue. We need to demonstrate the type of leadership we seek in our leaders in DC if we want them to ever deal with difficult issues.
This is a wall that is waiting to be pushed over.
End the costly, catastrophic failure we call the 'war on marijuana'?
YES WE CAN!
Resolution text:
Resolution on Regulation of the Use of Marijuana
Whereas,
The Obama Administration has wisely stopped Federal prosecution of marijuana sold for medical purposes in a manner compliant with state regulation, thus alleviating the suffering of cancer patients and others who would benefit from medical marijuana.
Only thirteen states regulate the sale of marijuana for medical purposes.
Criminalization of non-medical uses of marijuana continues to contribute needlessly to organized crime at home and abroad, illicit drug trade, overburdening of the criminal justice system, and diverts valuable criminal justice resources away from more serious crimes.
The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy heavily criticized U.S. drug policy and called on the U.S. to decriminalize marijuana in a report coinciding with increased drug-trade violence in Mexico;
The dominant argument against liberalized marijuana regulation, the gateway theory, has been consistently disproven, most recently by a RAND Corporation study commissioned by the British Parliament;
According to a World Health Organization survey conducted in 2008, the United States of America has the highest rates of marijuana use in the world.
In the Netherlands, where adult possession and purchase of small amounts of marijuana are allowed under a regulated system, the rate of marijuana use by both teenagers and adults is lower than in the U.S.
55% of Americans believe possession of small amounts of marijuana should not be a criminal offense, according to a 2005 Gallup poll.
In the U.S., almost 90% of more than 9.5 million marijuana-related arrests since 1995 were for simple possession – not manufacture or distribution.
BE IT RESOLVED that
We praise the Obama administration for its bold step to make marijuana
available for medical purposes,
We call upon states that do not yet provide the reasonable regulation of medical marijuana to do so as soon as possible, to alleviate suffering wherever possible.
We recommend replacing the current policy of marijuana prohibition with a taxed and regulated system modeled on how alcohol is treated in the U.S.