Community groups, elected officials, educators, religious leaders, and doctors around the world agree: Taxing and regulating cannabis sales is the right thing to do.
This ordinance officially makes private adult cannabis (marijuana) offenses the lowest police priority. It should also direct the city or county to support changes in public policy to allow licensing, sale, and regulation of marijuana for private adult use. The purpose of this ordinance is to reduce law enforcement costs, eliminate criminal traffickers, keep cannabis off the streets and away from children, raise much-needed revenue for the city, and advocate for sensible changes to cannabis law at the state level, and other levels of government as necessary.
(1) The Oakland Cannabis Regulation and Revenue Ordinance "OCRRO" policy makes investigation, arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for private adult marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority, while continuing to enforce violations involving distribution to children, street sales and use, and motor vehicle violations.
(2) Calls on the City to establish a system to license, tax and regulate cannabis for adult use as soon as possible consistent with California law, with regulations to prevent access by minors, require good business practices and health and safety standards, prohibit sales near schools, limit public advertising, and license on-site consumption.
(3) Created a community oversight committee to monitor implementation of the ordinance and to monitor disbursement of funds raised through cannabis fees and taxes to ensure that they are being spent properly.
(4) Calls on the State (and other levels of government as necessary) for changes in law to allow Oakland and other communities to tax and license cannabis.
In January 2004, a public opinion poll was commissioned of 600 Oakland, California, likely voters. This poll found a whopping 90% of Oakland voters believe the federal war on drugs is a failure. A full 75% of respondents wanted the enforcement of private, adult cannabis offenses to be the lowest priority for law enforcement. In a July poll of 400 likely voters in Oakland, 70% supported the legalization of marijuana. When read the entire ballot language, 65% said they would support it, even after hearing arguments from the opposition.
In recent years, similar ordinances have passed in Seattle, Washington and Mendocino County, California. A recent article in the Seattle Times entitled "Marijuana Measure Called Effective by Supporters and Foes" reported that marijuana crimes are down since the measure was enacted. "The number of people prosecuted for pot possession has plummeted, and despite predictions of naysayers, there is no evidence of widespread public pot consumption as a result of the measure, which voters approved last year," it said.
It is politically safe in Oakland for elected officials to support cannabis law reform. When asked how they would feel about a politician who publicly supported changing cannabis policy toward a tax-and-regulate approach, 40% of likely voters said they would be more likely to vote that candidate, 39% said that it would make no difference in their vote, while only 16% would be less likely t
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Published: Los
Angeles Times, June 22, 2004 An alliance
of marijuana legalization activists in
Oakland announced Monday that they are
close to placing a measure on the November
ballot that would require police to
essentially look the other way when
dealing with marijuana possession by
adults. The measure also would require the city to regulate and collect tax revenue for adult cannabis use if the state ever allows it. The extra tax dollars would be earmarked for police* and other cash-strapped municipal services. (* For the record: The initiative does not earmark money for police, but for such vital city services as "schools, libraries, and youth programs.") Efforts to make marijuana use the lowest law enforcement priority mirror a similar initiative approved by Seattle voters last fall. But the push for marijuana taxation is the first such effort in the nation, backers of the Oakland measure say. "This law will keep cannabis off the streets, away from children and out of the hands of dangerous drug dealers, by making it available in licensed businesses, not on neighborhood street corners," said Dale Geringer, president of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. But foes say it is a misguided effort meant to foist a dangerous drug on an unsuspecting public. "I'm very concerned about the message this sends to the rest of the nation and world," said Richard Meyer, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman in San Francisco. "I think the marijuana lobby is trying to deceive the people again that marijuana use is harmless. That's far from the truth." Under state law, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana is a misdemeanor, while anyone caught with more can face felony charges. The possession of any amount of cannabis is prohibited under federal law. The initiative's authors hope the Oakland push will serve as a springboard for a broader effort to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana in California. The effort was launched by Oakland Civil Liberties Alliance, a newly formed coalition of local residents and national drug policy groups -- including NORML, the Marijuana Policy Project and Drug Policy Alliance, which is funded in part by New York billionaire George Soros, who is also financing efforts to defeat President Bush in November. On Monday, the coalition announced it had collected more than 30,000 signatures to qualify the initiative, nearly double what was needed to place it on the ballot. A pivotal selling point, organizers said, was the argument that police time was being wasted on arresting and investigating adults for cannabis use while other city programs were being cut, including parks and libraries. Backers also say they are tapping resentment over the Oakland City Council's decision to crack down on about a dozen medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. One section of town earned the nickname "Oaksterdam," a reference to the freewheeling Dutch city of Amsterdam, where marijuana is legal. "When the council reduced the number of cannabis clubs, it really ignited people and got them out there to get this initiative going," said Councilwoman Desley Brooks, who supports the November ballot measure. Brooks said police last week attempted undercover purchases at several of the medical cannabis clubs that hadn't halted their dispensary operations, underscoring the need to keep officers focused on more important crimes. "The whole federal drug war has been a joke at best," she said. "People realize that doesn't work and we need to look to some other solutions." Tom Riley, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, called marijuana's reputation as a relatively benign recreational drug a persistent myth perpetuated among adults who came of age in the 1960s and '70s, when cannabis use skyrocketed. "It's out of touch with the science," said Riley. "Until those sorts of public perceptions change, we'll keep getting misguided policy based on outdated information." Riley also said that the perception of local police exhausting their officers on low-level drug busts "is simply not true." More than 700,000
pot arrests are made in the U.S. during a
typical year. But most federal prisonehen
dealing with marijuana possession by
adults. The measure also would require the city to regulate and collect tax revenue for adult cannabis use if the state ever allows it. The extra tax dollars would be earmarked for police* and other cash-strapped municipal services. (* For the record: The initiative does not earmark money for police, but for such vital city services as "schools, libraries, and youth programs.") Efforts to make marijuana use the lowest law enforcement priority mirror a similar initiative approved by Seattle voters last fall. But the push for marijuana taxation is the first such effort in the nation, backers of the Oakland measure say. < |
