ACLU OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation 1 MARIJUANA It’s Time for a Conversation MARIJUANA It’s Time for a Conversation A Guide to Understanding Our Marijuana Laws and Th eir Impacts Written by Alison Holcomb Drug Policy Director ACLU of Washington Foundation 901 Fifth Avenue #630 Seattle, WA 98164 Kathleen Taylor, Executive Director For more information, please visit www.MarijuanaConversation.org. American Civil Liberties Union of Washington Foundation, 2008 Fourth edition, updated September 2010 . Table of Contents I. It’s Time for a Conversation ...........................................1 II. Washington State Laws ..................................................2 A. Direct consequences ..................................................2 Th is guide is a companion to the half-hour television program Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation. It provides additional B. Additional consequences ...........................................3 information about state and federal marijuana laws in the United III. Th e History of Marijuana Prohibition ..........................4 States, their origins, and the multi-billion dollar impact they are having today on hundreds of thousands of Americans. We encourage A. Th e Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 ................................4 you to discuss the information in this booklet with others and to B. Th e LaGuardia Report ..............................................6 consider whether these laws are working for society’s benefi t. C. Th e Shafer Commission ............................................6 D. State laws ..................................................................8 Th is guide is not meant to provide legal advice – individuals seeking legal advice on how marijuana laws apply or do not apply to them IV. Marijuana as Medicine ..................................................9 personally should speak with their own attorneys. A. How many states have medical marijuana laws? ........9 B. Washington’s medical marijuana law .........................9 C. Medical marijuana and federal law ..........................14 V. Use of Public Safety Resources ....................................17 VI. Consequences for Communities and Personal Freedom .........................................................19 A. Consequences of the “War on Drugs” .....................19 B. Home searches ........................................................22 C. Loss of property ......................................................23 D. Drug testing ............................................................23 VII. Frequently Asked Questions ........................................25 Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation 1 I. It’s Time for a Conversation In 2008, state and local law enforcement made 847,863 marijuana- related arrests nationwide. Th is number represented fully half of all drug arrestst combined, and 89% were for simply possessing marijuana, not for growing or selling it.1 Such arrests cost Americans billions of tax dollars every year, stress our courts and jails, and divert public safety resources away from violent crime and property crime. Th e majority of Americans believe the “War on Drugs” has been a failure,2 yet we continue to wage the war at a cost of several billion dollars each year. It’s time for Americans to have an open and informed conversation. We need to rethink whether our marijuana laws are working for us or creating a new set of problems. If we conclude the current laws are misdirected, then we can begin to talk about creating more eff ective and just policies. We hope the information in this booklet will provide a starting point for that discussion. 2 www.MarijuanaConversation.org Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation 3 II. Washington State Laws A. Direct consequences B. Additional consequences In Washington state, possessing any amount of marijuana is a crime. Th e Marijuana convictions result in criminal records. Criminal records are possession of 40 grams (roughly equivalent to two packs of cigarettes) or public information made available to anyone who seeks it,12 including less is a misdemeanor crime and carries a mandatory minimum sentence employers, landlords, loan offi cers and law enforcement. In addition of a day in jail plus a $250 fi ne for the fi rst off ense.3 Sentences can go up to the embarrassing stigma and possible discrimination, the following to 90 days in jail plus a $1,000 fi ne.4 can result from a single marijuana conviction or even the suspicion of marijuana use: Possession of more than 40 grams of marijuana is a felony.5 If convicted, a person faces up to 5 years in prison and a fi ne as large as $10,000.6 Loss of employment 13 Loss of housing 14 Growing any amount of marijuana, even a single plant, is a felony that carries the same penalties.7 Th is is also true for the “delivery” of Loss of voting rights 15 marijuana, a term that includes sharing any amount of the plant, with or Loss of federal fi nancial aid for college 16 without the exchange of money.8 Seizure and forfeiture of property 17 Th ese sentences can be doubled for second off enses, or any subsequent Termination of child visitation rights 18 off enses following a conviction.9 Deportation, even of legal permanent residents19 Th e use or delivery of marijuana paraphernalia (pipes, rolling papers, etc.) is a separate misdemeanor that carries a mandatory sentence of a day in jail and a $250 fi ne, and can go up to 90 days in jail with a $1,000 fi ne.10 In addition to jail time and fi nes, marijuana convictions frequently result in probation, additional court costs, and a mandatory substance abuse evaluation at the individual’s personal expense. Th ese evaluations often lead to additional expenses for classes and/or drug treatment, plus random drug testing.11 4 www.MarijuanaConversation.org Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation 5 III. The History of Marijuana that “the insidious and insanity producing marihuana has become among the worst of the narcotic banes, invading even the school houses of the Prohibition country . .”25 In colonial times, marijuana was cultivated for rope, canvas, paper, soap, Against this backdrop of growing hysteria, Harry J. Anslinger, a federal oil, and other goods. Until the early 20th century, marijuana was known alcohol prohibition offi cial, was appointed commissioner of the new in the United States either as “hemp,” the English term describing this Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) created in 1930.26 Anslinger lobbied fi brous plant, 20 or “cannabis,” its botanical name. It was included in state legislatures to adopt both the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act and the U.S. pharmacopoeia in 1870, prescribed by American doctors, and an optional provision making marijuana illegal. He initially had little dispensed by American pharmacies.21 “Mariguana” or “marihuana” was success with local lawmakers, who did not want to assume the expense the Mexican slang name for the plant, one that American journalists and of enforcing a new state criminal law.27 So, in late 1934, Anslinger and politicians began using in the early 1900s when they wanted to denigrate the FBN jumped on the “marijuana menace” bandwagon,28 harnessing the use of the plant by Mexican immigrants.22 and contributing to the media’s anti-marijuana propaganda and tales of “reefer madness.” By 1937 the FBN had succeeded in convincing A. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 half the states to adopt the version of the act that included marijuana prohibition.29 Th e fi rst anti-marijuana laws passed in the United States were enacted between 1915 and 1933 in the western states, where prejudice against Ironically, Anslinger’s anti-marijuana campaign may have worked Mexican newcomers was common. As authors Richard Bonnie and too well for his comfort. He was hesitant about introducing federal Charles Whitebread noted, legislation that would ban marijuana outright due to concerns about its constitutionality.30 But his campaign against marijuana had taken on a Whether motivated by outright ethnic prejudice or by simple life of its own. In 1935, members of Congress introduced a pair of bills discriminatory lack of interest, the proceedings before each proposing a federal prohibition on the shipment and transportation of legislature resembled those in Texas and New Mexico in cannabis in interstate or foreign commerce and requested the Treasury 1923. Th ere was little if any public attention and no debate. Department’s position.31 Responding to the pressure for federal action, Pointed references were made to the drug’s Mexican origins, the Treasury announced no objection to such legislation.32 Th e bills did and sometimes to the criminal conduct which inevitably not pass in that session, but the stage was set for a national law. followed when Mexicans used the “killer weed.”23 In 1937, the Treasury Department itself proposed H.R. 6385 – the During these years, newspapers throughout the country began printing Marihuana Tax Act. Rather than directly prohibit marijuana as a infl ammatory and often racist accounts of marijuana’s eff ect on its users. criminal matter, the Act created a “prohibitive tax”: all manufacturers, For example, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver reported that marijuana importers, dealers and practitioners were required to register and pay was “used almost exclusively . by the Mexican population employed in the a special occupational tax that, theoretically, would allow them to beet fi elds,”24 and several Hearst newspapers published an editorial claiming distribute