Legalize It!

The costs of criminalizing marijuana are far greater than any cost society would bear if it were legal. The medical costs, economic costs (in the way of lost taxes and tariffs), and the cost of enforcing marijuana laws are all due to its criminalization. Prohibition of marijuana stimulates crime, diverts resources that could be used to deal with violent criminals, and by its nature, criminalization threatens individual civil liberties and destroys the social fabric of poor neighborhoods. Because the greatest societal costs of marijuana come from its prohibition, we must legalize pot at the federal level.
The prohibition of marijuana is the result of paternalism run amok. Originally banned by Congress in 1937, with no medical or scientific testimony supporting the ban, marijuana has not been demonstrated to be more harmful than alcohol, tobacco or pornography, for that matter. In fact, while many individuals have died as a result of enforcement of the prohibition against marijuana, evidence of deaths due to marijuana use is practically non-existent (Nadelmann, 1989; Christiansen, 2010).  The ostensible purpose of anti-pot laws is the paternalistic mantra of preventing harm to oneself and others.  Yet, the only “victim” of marijuana use is consensual, in fact desires to engage in the activity, and is in no danger of harm from the use of pot.  The potential that a marijuana user may be harmed as a direct consequence of enforcement of the prohibition, on the other hand is much greater. A pot user could be forcibly arrested, jailed, fined, and in the wrong circumstances injured or killed.  Prohibition mandates the use of physical force against people engaging in what is, basically, a nonviolent, consensual act involving only the user.      

Moreover, prohibition has obviously failed. Marijuana use has not ceased. In fact, American teenagers use marijuana at a greater rate than teenagers in Europe. When compared to the Netherlands, for example, with its rather lax drug laws, “twice as many residents of the United States have experimented with… illicit drugs” (Husak, 2002, p. 159). In fact, marijuana is the third most popular recreational drug used in America today, after alcohol and tobacco (Duncan, 2009).  Prohibitionists argue that marijuana use causes societal harm in the way of drug related violence and the creation of a “black market” for pot. Yet, they fail to separate the harm caused by marijuana, per se, from the harm that is caused because pot use has been criminalized. For example, if a person smokes marijuana in California today, prohibition would not have prevented any of the harmful consequences to him or her—consequences that would occur even if marijuana was decriminalized, taxed and overseen by the Food and Drug Administration.  There is no harm or cost to society from such use, regardless of legality.  However, if the same person is arrested and subjected to criminal court processes, all the costs and financial burdens borne by the individual and society are harm due to prohibition of marijuana.  Christiansen notes that

“A disconnect also exists between marijuana policy and some of the government's own research regarding the detrimental effects on users themselves. There is no evidence marijuana causes any more harm to its users than many other legal drugs. In some ways marijuana may even be less harmful” (2010, p. 233).

Studies have shown that marijuana is less addictive than either alcohol or tobacco (Duncan, 2009).

Such paternalistic disregard of the consequences of prohibition, as opposed to marijuana per se, further results in the trampling of individual liberties. The fervor with which authorities pursue their anti-marijuana agendas has caused resulted in the disregard of what are typically considered fundamental rights. If a person is believed to have smoked pot, he or she may be subjected to urine tests, strip searches, civil forfeiture of personal property, school locker searches (without probable cause), car searches, or even detention.  Such governmental trespasses into the realm of personal liberties are a direct consequence of the prohibition of marijuana. Decriminalizing pot would serve to lift these burdens on our human rights.

It’s been noted that because marijuana offenses are usually hidden from police view, and there are rarely complaining witnesses, law enforcement personnel must invade the private lives of persons they merely suspect of drug use (Witsosky, 1987).  Wisotsky goes on to say that drug prohibition

“is producing a politicallegal context in which drug enforcement constitutes an exception to the principle that laws must comport 'with the deepest notions of what is fair and just.' In drug enforcement, most anything goes…” (Witsosky, 1987, pp. 925-26).

Often, any evidence to prove guilt in the context of a marijuana violation is not obtained until law enforcement officials have already intruded on an individual’s liberties.  Thus, the rights and privacy of many innocent people are violated because of marijuana prohibition. 

When a person’s rights are violated by being forced to not engage in activities he or she desires to engage in, the individual experiences a loss of control over his or her own life.  The individual’s own judgment has been replaced by that of others.  Further, because the individual does not value the judgment with which his own has been replaced, he or she has been displaced from “the realm of action and [put] into mere motion" (Rothbard, 1981, p. 93).

Marijuana prohibition, by wresting judgment from individuals and substituting it with that of the state, thus reduces individual responsibility.  While it may be commonplace to assert that with freedom comes responsibility, it is the inverse that is true:  responsibility requires liberty.  Without the freedom to use one’s judgment to make decisions, one cannot be expected to act responsibly, since one can’t be responsible for things outside his or her control. By co-opting individual judgment, as the government does in punishing marijuana use, it takes responsibility away from the individual by way of reducing the time and energy spent in dealing with the aspect of life now controlled by the government (Rothbard, 1981). 

While prohibition of marijuana has deprived many individuals of a choice, it has provided an opportunity to others:  drug dealers. Many poor, under-educated youth in inner cities today turn to selling marijuana, and other drugs, out of economic necessity, which in turn, invites violence and other crime into their communities. As Duncan notes,

“Given the costs associated with prohibition and the meager results obtained thus far, there is ample evidence to conclude that we are wasting our money…. Drug policy in general, and marijuana policy in particular, falls most harshly and most unfairly on racial minorities and the poor. Prohibition is not only ineffective, but highly inequitable as well” (2009, p. 1721).

If marijuana were decriminalized, corner pot dealers would no longer be needed. Much of the billions of dollars spent every year on enforcement, coupled with the potential for tax revenue from legal pot sales, could be diverted back into education and development projects in the neighborhoods that were tainted by prohibition-related crime.

Over the years, the government has wasted billions of dollars on marijuana prohibition. The costs and effects of prohibition on society due to the paternalistic usurpation of individual judgment far outweigh the harm done by marijuana per se.   Marijuana prohibition has resulted in deprivation of personal liberties, loss of individual responsibility, crime, and community harm.  It’s time we stop wasting taxpayer money on prohibition of marijuana and trust U.S. citizens to be responsible adults.

References

Christiansen, M. (2010).  “A great schism: social norms and marijuana prohibition.”  Harvard Law and Policy Review, Vol. 4, p. 229.

Duncan, C. (2009). “The need for change:  an economic analysis of marijuana policy.”  Connecticut Law Review, Vol. 41, p. 1701.

Husak, D. (2002).  Legalize this!: the case for decriminalizing drugs.  New York: Verso.

Nadelmann, E. (1989). "Drug prohibition in the United States: costs, consequences, and alternatives." Science, Vol. 245, no. 4921.

Rothbard, M. (1981).  “Frank S. Meyer: the fusionist as libertarian manqué.”  Freedom and virtue, the conservative/libertarian debate. Carey, G. (ed. 1984).

Wisotsky, S. (1987). “Crackdown: the emerging ‘drug

exception’ to the bill of rights.” Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 38, p. 889.

Minnesota Takes Steps Toward Employment Reform

Effective January 1 of this year, employers in Minnesota will not be able to ask about a prospective candidate's criminal history on the initial application. While this is a small step in a country that incarcerates more people than any other nation on the planet, it is significant. 

With each passing year, a greater percentage of Americans come in contact with the criminal justice system. This can leave otherwise-qualified candidates out in the cold when it comes to employment. In cases where restitution or monetary reparations are involves, stumbling blocks to employment not only hobble the ex-incarceree, but also limit victims' ability to be compensated for the crime. 

The newly-expanded "Ban the Box" law now covers private employers in the state of Minnesota. The new law requires public and private employers to wait until a job applicant has been selected for an interview before asking about criminal records or conducting a criminal record check. It makes it illegal for employers to disqualify a person from employment or to deny them a license because of their criminal background unless it is directly related to the position.

While the new law doesn't prevent an employer from throwing up a roadblock at the interview, it at least gets a resume or application in front of a hiring manager. This is definitely a step in the right direction -- especially in a job market that still suffers from post-recession softness.

Am I Losing It? Does It Matter?

I was in prison camp for a grand total of 56 weeks -- just shy of 13 months. I saw my kids every few weeks, and a steady flow of family and friends made the trip for visiting days. I have had jobs that I hated more than my routine at FPC Duluth.  It was the not going home at night that was the problem.  I would rather do my 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. routine at federal prison camp than be stuck in cube with a 3-foot tether attached to my head, helping whiny lawyers who don't want to do their own work, as long as I could leave at the end of the day.

I was lucky -- I knew it then, and I know it now. But I worry.

As much as I missed my kids, and in spite of getting divorced from my wife of 16 years, my time in prison camp was enlightening and a game changer. I got in shape, I achieved a lot of clarity about what my life is and what I want it to look like, and the stuff that is actually the most important -- my kids, experiences, making uncomfortable decisions -- all crystallized for me in a way that I believe some people never get to see.  I honestly think that I may live longer, getting that year -- and then some -- back because of the experience.

But now, almost a year later, I find myself in traffic, stressed, sweating the small stuff, worrying about bills and jobs and time... things that a year ago I knew were inconsequential to the actual quality of real life. I still know it and am able to talk myself down. But I worry.

What if I get caught up in the everyday stress, all over again, blink, and then I'm 60. I will have wasted 15 years after spending a whole year realizing that life is precious. Too precious to waste being angry because the douchebag in front of me is driving too slow (doesn't change the fact that he's a DB; I just don't have to be worked up about it).

That kind of answers the questions I get asked about this blog. Why embrace the experience? Why keep picking the scab? I especially get these questions from my friends -- and I made some real, true friends (another of life's surprises!) -- who were in Duluth with me. Practically everybody I met was there longer than I was. I was a part-timer, white-on-white tourist at the camp. My right to complain about much of anything was pretty inhibited. So they wonder why I won't let go when I was barely there.

But I think it's because I realized early on in my sentence that I was still alive. That each day I woke up in the morning was a day in my life... and I was not going to get it back if I didn't spend it in a way that contributed to the quality of my life. No matter where I was. So, I kept busy. I walked, wrote, drew; I took classes, I thought. Near the end of my time at FPC Duluth, as anxious as I was to leave, I experienced pangs of panic... I was worried that I didn't have enough time to finish a number of projects that I undertaken. I literally thought, on occasion, "I need more time..."

Thoughts such as those occurred to me because I had come to realize that a year off with little worry -- my children have a great mother, and I knew that they were well cared for -- is a gift. I flippantly began referring to my post-prison camp life as Trent 2.0. In time, I began to take the moniker seriously, as I believed that a permanent change was necessary and a new version imminent. And upon my release into the halfway house, it was true.

But real life began to set in.

Working jobs on someone else's schedule, carving my entire schedule around my children's, jumping through hoops thrown at me by various institutions from U.S. Probation to Normandale Community College has weighed on me. It has threatened to return my life to its former state: a routine.

Fortunately, I am still self-aware enough and took good enough notes to remember the experience. A year away from my kids is too much. Living as a slave to the modern American economy of consumption is not necessary. It's a trap... one that squeezes tighter the harder you resist. Rather, you have to be willing to relax and simply let go. Unhinge yourself from the societal constraints that make you feel stressed and find what makes you happy and do it. Because you and I are going to die. Soon. Too soon. And I want to spend as little of my time left on this earth in a cubicle as possible. I choose instead to roll on the ground with Sam and Sarah, walk in the water and find a palm tree with a sunset.

So, when I find myself not driving with Aloha, and becoming increasingly angry at the slow-moving douchebag off my bow, I think of Walt Whitman. Old WW has so much to say on the way to live our lives. I find some of his transcendentalist messages so powerful that I felt compelled to read the following to a theater of 150 semi-befuddled, fellow federal prisoners:

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
 Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. 

To their credit, I think they got it -- although I was called into an office by BoP staff and told that I would need to "dumb it down" in the future -- most men I met saw their sentence as a life-changing experience.

So, I may be losing it a little bit. And it does matter. Because I know that I have to contribute a verse. It may be imperfect, poorly executed and sloppy. But it will be my verse, and I will die better knowing that I tried a little harder to write it due to the experiences I've encountered.

Aging prisoners' costs put systems nationwide in a bind

(Kevin Johnson and H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY  10:37 a.m. EDT July 11, 2013)
Link to Original Story on USA Today website.

ANGOLA, La. — For decades, the Louisiana State Penitentiary has taken great pride in its vast farming operations, as well as its reputation as one of the toughest lockups in America. The crops and cattle raised by prisoners on the remote 18,000 acres ringed by razor wire have long gone to feed Angola's 5,000 inmates, with enough left over to stock the novelty hot sauce and jelly products sold in the prison museum.


Aging, sick and disabled prisoners are seriously limiting the numbers that can be deployed to tend the land.

Of the 1,000 who typically work the fields, Cain said he's lucky if 600 to 700 are physically able to do the job. After all, a third of all inmates are older than 50, and many are so debilitated that the state spends north of $100,000 per inmate to care for them. "This place was not built to accommodate people like this," Cain said. "I'm telling you, we're really feeling it."

So are the rest of America's vast, aging prison populations. The fiscal, legal, social and political challenges of housing this country's graying inmates have arrived with full force at precisely the time when states, and the federal government, are looking to rein in spending. A problem swelling for decades has become "a national epidemic," according to a 2012 report by the American Civil Liberties Union. Yet efforts to address an issue that will only worsen with time have largely floundered, ensuring that even incapacitated inmates ridden with tumors or paralyzed by Parkinson's disease live their last days in prison hospitals.

The enormous medical costs required to maintain this status quo will inevitably sap money from other areas of government that affect residents who will never set foot near these penitentiaries. Nearly a quarter-million inmates in state and federal prisons — enough to fill the Rose Bowl nearly three times — are classified as "elderly" or "aging," according to the ACLU report. The designation applies to inmates age 50 and older whose aging process, according to the National Institute of Corrections, is often accelerated by general poor health before entering prison and the stress of confinement once there.

At least 15% of the prisoners in 20 states are 50 or older, according to the ACLU report. In West Virginia, 20% were at least 50. The costs of confining such prisoners are about double — $68,270 per year — the $34,135 annual cost for the average younger inmate. Although at least 15 states and the District of Columbia have some provision for the early release of geriatric inmates, a 2010 study by the Vera Institute of Justice funded by the Pew Center on the States found that authorities rarely used the exceptions because of "political considerations" related to public safety policy and a lengthy review process. To accommodate the number of aging and disabled, Connecticut officials won approval in March to begin transferring some offenders to a privately run nursing home. Last month, California prison officials announced the dedication of an $839 million complex in Stockton to provide "mental health and medical services to the state's sickest inmate patients." California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Jeffrey Callison said the first of the 1,722 inmate-patients will begin arriving this month.

The facilities are the result of a lengthy legal fight in the federal courts over the quality of health care in the state's 33 prisons. The changes were prompted by lawsuits, filed more than a decade ago, alleging substandard medical and mental health treatment. Secretary of Corrections and Rehabilitation Jeff Beard said in a statement that the 54-building complex on 200 acres helps show that "we are serious about the health and well-being of inmates entrusted to us.'' Groups advocating for reductions in prisons said the facility represented a failure of state officials to address its problems years ago. "If the state had taken common sense steps to parole the elderly, the terminally ill, the medically disabled, would this prison hospital have been built?" said Mary Sutton, a spokeswoman for Critical Resistance.

A HIGH NATIONAL PRIORITY
Each year, the Justice Department's inspector general ranks the agency's "top management challenges." And each year since 2006, the federal prison system's growing and aging prison population has ranked among such urgent priorities as safeguarding national security and enhancing the nation's cyber-security defenses. "Housing a continually growing and aging population of federal inmates and detainees is consuming an ever-larger portion of the department's budget," the inspector general's 2012 report said, adding that the burden is "making safe and secure incarceration increasingly difficult to provide and threatening to force significant budgetary and programmatic cuts to other (Justice) components in the near future." Since 2006, the number of inmates has grown nearly 14% to about 220,000. Of all the corrections systems in the nation, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons houses the third-largest number of offenders who are 50 or older, according to numbers compiled by the ACLU. "We are on an unsustainable path here," Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in an interview with USA TODAY.

In April, Horowitz highlighted that concern in a scathing review of the federal system, concluding that the program allowing for the early release of offenders with terminal illnesses or other debilitating conditions was so "poorly managed" that some inmates languished and died before their release requests were acted on by prison authorities. Inmates who qualify for discharge under the program could be released to the care of family members at home or in facilities where some would probably qualify for public assistance. But of 208 cases reviewed by the inspector general from 2006 to 2011 in which inmate requests for so-called compassionate release had been approved by lower-level Bureau of Prisons officials, 28 offenders died while awaiting final action. In one case, an inmate's request in 2006 for early release was denied even though the offender had suffered a massive stroke and was in a "near vegetative state."

The inmate, serving a life sentence for cocaine and heroin distribution, required a feeding tube, bathing, bed-pan and repositioning every two hours to avoid bed sores. Though he had "no hope for recovery," Justice officials rejected a recommendation for early release because his life expectancy could not be determined. The inmate remains in prison. Though his condition has improved somewhat, the entire right side of his body is paralyzed, and medical authorities say he cannot speak and "needs total assistance with his activities of daily living." In addition, Horowitz's report determined that the BOP did not track the costs related to caring for aging and sick inmates who may be eligible for release. "You would think you would want to know what the potential cost savings (related to the early release of ill inmates) would be," Horowitz said. The cost information that the agency did track showed that the BOP paid $28,893 per year to house the average inmate, while it cost $57,962 per year for each inmate housed at one of its medical centers. Costs at the BOP medical centers increased 38% from 2006 to 2011. By the end of last year, 7,464 inmates were in federal prison medical facilities. Under provisions for required spending reductions within the federal government, known as sequestration, $1.6 billion was cut from the budget of the Justice Department, which manages the BOP.

The cuts so threatened the operations of the BOP that Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the transfer of $150 million in other funds in March to avoid the furloughs of thousands of staffers.
$100,000 PER INMATE
Of the more than 5,000 prisoners housed at Angola, 34% are at least 50 or older. Among the 10 age groups tracked by prison officials, the largest number of offenders in any one category — 859 — are 55 to 64 years old. Assistant Warden Cathy Fontenot said the prison houses about 130 offenders whose annual medical costs exceed $100,000 per inmate. The costs are associated with treating some of the same and most serious conditions that exist in the free world: cancer, HIV, hemophilia, liver disease and chronic renal failure. Some of the sickest and oldest of Angola's residents are housed in the prison hospice unit where the staff includes fellow inmates who provide the constant care required. Jimmy Johnston, 71, serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, has bone cancer and occupies one of the beds in the large, busy open ward. A resident of Angola since his conviction in 1978, Johnston has been treated for tumors on his spine and head. He has endured chemotherapy and radiation treatments. His prognosis is not good. "I probably will be buried here in a few years," Johnston said, referring to the cemetery on the prison grounds. Nearby, Ernest Wadlington, 88, a convicted sex offender, could barely speak.

Louisiana State Penitentiary inmate Ernest Wadlington, 88, was bedridden and served out his sentence in the prison nursing ward until he died Jan. 29.(Photo: H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY)

Wadlington was completely bedridden; his condition had gradually worsened after his Parkinson's disease diagnosis in 2008. Asked whether he expected to die at Angola, Wadlington expressed faint hope that his family could secure his early release so he could spend his last days at home. "I have a place at the Abbeville cemetery," he said, referring to his Louisiana hometown. Cathy Duhon, one of Wadlington's three daughters, said the family had tried to secure her father's release "several times" as his condition worsened. "He represented no harm to anyone but himself,'' Duhon said, adding that they had planned to place him in a nursing facility near the family's Abbeville home. "He required constant care. We told them (prison officials), 'Let us take him home, because he is costing the state prison system more than if we were allowed to care for him.' '' Duhon said the family sought the help of attorney Ricky LaFleur. Wadlington did not survive the effort. He died Jan. 29 at Angola, a few days after the family's last visit. "It was never a question of whether he did or didn't do it (the crime)," Duhon said. "It should have been about making sure that the people who needed to be in prison are in prison."