“Over the previous decades marijuana has been a veritable political minefield.”1 If recent statements and reactions to them by the current (as of this writing) attorney general Jeff Sessions are any indication, the political sensitivity of the issue of marijuana is unlikely to change in the near future. However, despite contention surrounding this subject within the political system, there has been little examination of the types of political issues people connect with marijuana and its legalization.
What little information we do have regarding general perceptions of the effects of legalization tends to focus on the criminal justice system—either helping to reduce crime by keeping marijuana illegal or by legalizing marijuana thereby reducing incarceration for drug crimes. In the following sections, these political issues are highlighted, as those competing political narratives were apparent in the respondents’ statements. This is perhaps unsurprising, since cultural references to these narratives are clear in both political discourse2 as well as popular culture.3
This chapter examines those primary political narratives and identifies some others that regularly came up during interviews. In many respects, this analysis involves tying together the previous two chapters on language and knowledge through the different participants’ particular approaches to the topic of legalization. Overall, the political narratives—especially those involving crime and criminal justice—have dominated the discourse on legalization. However, as legalization has become more widespread, other political considerations have arisen, and the political elements of these narratives are also considered.
Marijuana and Crime
Although a significant portion of the respondents considered marijuana a special category of drug crime (particularly in the case of law enforcement and lawyers), many linked use of marijuana to crime in other ways. For instance, a law enforcement officer suggested that marijuana legalization would lead to “more crime. Not so much violent crimes, but stupid crimes [like] trespassing.” Another officer agreed: “We’ll have more people arrested for doing stupid things when they’re high.”
A third officer suggested that marijuana was linked to crime in a different way: “They will commit crimes to get money to buy it [marijuana].” One of the respondents in the legal profession had a related comment: “There may be . . . more people arrested for other [marijuana-related] crimes.” Similarly, a respondent who is a judge stated: “They [marijuana users] commit crimes to get more. Then they end up committing some other crime and end up here [in court].” Even a marijuana legalization advocate allowed that “At the margins, there’s a debate to consider if someone’s committing crime because of dependence [on marijuana].”
All of these perspectives link marijuana directly to crime, either through its use, which causes behavioral changes, or through addiction, which causes related criminal behavior. These perspectives, in turn, align with media representations of drug users as “addicts,” which often drive peoples’ opinions about the development of related criminal activity or “drug-related” crimes.4 These opinions also rely on existing discursive frames—in this case a “safety” frame (e.g., violent crime would increase as law enforcement focused on marijuana enforcement) that are regularly drawn out in legalization battles like California’s Proposition 19 debate.5
Certainly not all respondents believed that crime would increase with marijuana legalization. Several respondents suggested that legalization would have no effect at all. A representative from the marijuana industry suggested that the effect of marijuana on crime is “none. I don’t think there is any, other than the fact that it’s illegal.” A different law enforcement officer than those mentioned earlier suggested that “legalization probably will not affect crime rates or the calls we respond to.”
However, a third perspective regarding the relationship between marijuana legalization and crime also is worth highlighting: some respondents maintain that marijuana legalization would decrease crime. One EMT, for instance, said, “We should legalize recreational marijuana because the crime rate would go down.” Other respondents agreed with that legalization argument. For instance, one of the cannabis industry representatives said, “you can lower crime [by legalizing marijuana]. You can get rid of the violence associated with it.” Though many respondents argued this perspective, others also believe it would reduce crime at the individual level. One student, for instance, said, “Legal marijuana does not lead to more crime. People who are high don’t want to commit crime. They just get mellow and happy.”
This trichotomy, that marijuana legalization will increase crime, that it will not affect crime, or that it will lower crime, frames a significant portion of the debate regarding legalization. Additionally, whereas the public debate tends to focus on whether crime increases or decreases, the lack of engagement in the marijuana legalization debate by many people may be in part due to their belief that legalization would not affect crime or other social phenomena. In turn, these perspectives on legalization rely on existing ideas in the discourse surrounding marijuana and other drug use—that addicts commit crime to get drugs, that people do “stupid” things when high, or that marijuana causes one to “chill” and not commit additional crimes.
Marijuana Enforcement as Social Ill
Contradicting the supposed link between marijuana and crime, which is generally considered a social ill, many respondents suggested that enforcement of current marijuana laws was the social ill and thus legalization would solve a problem. This is in line with what is generally a newer social frame for legalization that considers the social cost of enforcement.
Perhaps most emblematic of the new frame is Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness,6 which posits that drug laws are a key part of the control of minorities within society through mass incarceration. Although less focused on racial elements than Alexander, many respondents seemed to share the belief that the problem was not with legalization but with continued criminal penalties for marijuana use.
For example, one marijuana advocate said, “the other aspect of not just marijuana reform, but drug policy reform, is . . . how the incarceration of people destroys families and contributes to the arrested development of them as human beings, both financially and just the way they navigate the world.” Other respondents shared this perspective. Another advocate for marijuana legalization said, “I think we’ve got to get out of the business of incarcerating people for marijuana. You know, the overincarceration of America finds its root in marijuana. There are far too many arrests. There are 800,000 arrests every year for marijuana and for possession, as well, and that’s got to stop.”
Still a third advocate linked it more directly to race and incarceration, saying,
when we have a Justice Department that just overturned the previous administration’s decision on private prisons, when we’re seeing an administration that is openly flaunting increased enforcement against people of color [by officers] who may or may not have a legitimate suspicion of their immigration status, you know marijuana is going to be again and again and again used as another way for people to be [jailed], to put them into this system that fundamentally opposes them.
Interestingly, it was not just legalization advocates who acknowledged the problem of incarceration. One anti-legalization policy advocate said, “I think I understand more now . . . the negative consequences—even when you don’t go to prison—of an arrest or an arrest record [related to marijuana].”
However, it was not just professional advocates or industry representatives who felt this way. One of the respondents involved in the legal profession said, “The War on Drugs has become part of the prison-industrial complex. It is used to fill prisons and jails to keep those people [prison employees] employed.” Others, though not linking marijuana enforcement directly to mass incarceration per se did link it to social ills. For instance, one student said, “[legalization of marijuana] would crack down on crime and clear out prisons that are overpopulated for drug-related crimes.” Another student had a similar sentiment, stating, “There are too many people in jail and prison for having marijuana. Legalization would depopulate jails and decrease expenses. It’s mostly illegal for political reasons anyway.” One marijuana policy advocate’s assessment of the harms of enforcement of marijuana laws was particularly strong: “The harms of [marijuana] prohibition are far greater than any harms that come from marijuana consumption.”
This perspective—that the enforcement is worse than the social cost of legalization—is an important one for understanding the current status of the marijuana debate. Whereas earlier attempts at legalization, like Proposition 19 in California, did rely somewhat on the idea of the social costs of the War on Drugs, that frame has been refined, tieing together significant social ills focused around issues of race and mass incarceration, which was clear in the statements by many of the participants.
Tangential Enforcement Problems
Though many of the respondents suggested either that crime was a direct result of marijuana use or that the mass incarceration of drug users was a significant social ill, there were other issues that arose from respondents related to marijuana and its legalization that did not necessarily fall under these headings. For instance, one respondent, a lawyer, said,
People won’t stop using [marijuana] if it remains illegal. It’s like Prohibition. People wanted to drink and found ways to do it—the violence [was] associated with making it illegal. There was so much violence that we had to re-legalize it [alcohol]. Now there is little [violence]. The same pattern holds true for marijuana.
A marijuana reform advocate made a broadly similar point: “It wasn’t marijuana specifically that drew me in [to the legalization debate]. It was coming to understand the whole issue of the War on Drugs and drug prohibition, particularly the violence that’s associated with it.” Identifying enforcement as the source of violence is not new. This was an element used in the “safety” frame by those advocating for legalization in the Proposition 19 debate, which has been regularly featured in literature advocating for marijuana legalization for some time.7 Characterizing those against legalization as “marijuana prohibitionists” is an attempt to capitalize on these negative associations with the results of the prohibition of alcohol.
Violence, however, was not the only tangential problem identified by our respondents. Several respondents pointed toward more mundane social benefits to their positions. For instance, one law enforcement officer suggested that “we should make it [marijuana] legit and put the smugglers out of business.” Another suggested that it would reduce the paperwork required of the police due to the volume of marijuana-related incidents, thus allowing police to focus on other crimes. Similarly, a lawyer said, “legalizing marijuana would free up police resources, because we wouldn’t be spending time on finding pot smokers or those who are possessing.”
These responses imply that one of the tangential problems of maintaining criminalization of marijuana is that police are not able to focus on “real” crime. Thus, enforcement of marijuana laws, according to this perspective, actually increases the amount of “real” crime being committed or occurring without detection.
Lest it seem as if this is not a widespread perspective, the state of Washington’s recreational legalization initiative8 enshrines this basic perspective in its very first clause: “Sec. 1. The people intend to stop treating adult marijuana use as a crime and try a new approach that: (1) Allows law enforcement resources to be focused on violent and property crimes.”
Not all respondents agreed with this perspective, however. Some believed that marijuana legalization would increase enforcement, primarily through regulation. For example, one respondent who practices law foresees “lots of overcrowding as people are charged and have to go to court. Defense cases will go up. May lead to a lot of court overcrowding, and we may need to use other courts/diversion programs.”
Additionally, several respondents brought up the difficulty of enforcement for crimes like driving under the influence (DUI) in relation to marijuana. One educator, for instance, said “there is no way to test for being high, so it’s hard for the police—especially if someone is driving high.” A similar perspective was shared by an EMT who said legalization “might be tricky because of the current no-smoking laws and an inability to quickly test drivers [for marijuana use].”
Thus, though not universal, the perspective that current enforcement of marijuana laws represents a problem for overall crime enforcement holds significant power. This is perhaps unsurprising given the focus on the negative effects of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs mentioned in the previous section. In any event, many respondents seemed to agree that marijuana enforcement causes tangential problems for society, either due to additional unrelated crime or through the direct creation of violence.
Taxation and Resources
One area directly associated with politics is the taxation of (legalized) marijuana and how to distribute those resources. Of the responses from all respondents, the most frequent was that marijuana should be taxed if legal. For instance, one teacher said, “Marijuana should be taxed and the revenue used for schools. It could also be used to pay for infrastructure for the state or health care.” Another educator expressed relatively similar sentiments, “It [marijuana] should be taxed and the money should go to agencies that help. Any nonprofits, for example, but especially to groups that help children with diseases or who have cancer.”
Teachers were not the only respondents who felt this way. One law enforcement respondent said, “We should tax it and make money.” An EMT respondent said marijuana “should be taxed and . . . it would help create jobs in the state.” One paramedic respondent also stated that marijuana “should be taxed like it is in other states and the money given to the schools and also used to fix roads.” Another paramedic said, “The long-term impact of legalization is the increase in tax dollars to the local government. They would make a lot of money that can be used to improve the communities.”
In fact, across nearly all groups, the issue of taxation was one that was most agreed upon. Even many of those who did not believe in legalization for recreational use believed that medical marijuana should be taxed. There were even a number who did not think that marijuana should be legalized at all but who felt that if it was going to be legalized, it should be taxed. For example, relating marijuana to alcohol, one educator said, “Even a drink or two every day over a long time isn’t healthy. But it is legal anyway. The government taxes it and we make a lot of money . . . so I guess if we use that logic, marijuana should be legal. But I still don’t think it should be.”
A male respondent, after stating his support for marijuana to remain illegal, said, “In the next few years, marijuana will be legal in more states and there will be pros and cons for that. The pros are that we will have more taxes funding the government; the con is that there may be more people walking around high.”
A more nuanced view differentiated between medical and recreational use of marijuana. Several respondents said that medicine should not be taxed. One particularly good example of this was stated by a policy advocate who said, “You know, our PT director said it best. He’s like ‘look, we shouldn’t tax medicine period.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, cool. I could sell that.’ I believe that. It’s easy—you shouldn’t tax medicine.”
What is perhaps most interesting about the issues of taxation is not the widespread agreement between respondents that marijuana, if legalized, should be taxed. It is instead the underlying assumption that there is not only a social or political cost to marijuana remaining illegal, but that there is also a financial cost. The relative boon of a marijuana tax is assumed by nearly all those who suggested uses for the money, but few mentioned increased regulatory enforcement costs or increased bureaucracy that may be required to provide an appropriate framework for taxation and regulation. For some, this may be because they were reluctant to consider the consequences of legal marijuana in general, but for many it seems that the implicit balance between the potential social costs of marijuana and the financial benefits weighed in favor of the latter.
Role of Current Institutions
Throughout the conversations with respondents, one of the clear themes that arose in terms of politics was the importance of current institutions. This was represented in a variety of ways, and not all respondents viewed the current institutions positively, though nearly all respondents framed their responses to legalization in terms of the current institutional structure. For instance, one of the clearest examples dealt with medical marijuana. Many people who believed that medical marijuana should be legalized also believed that the current governmental structure—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—was sufficient to account for the needs of legalization.
This, in some ways, is an extension of the “marijuana as medicine” metaphor mentioned in the previous chapter. For instance, one anti-legalization advocate said,
Well, I mean, they should test it [marijuana] like they would medicine. We should know what’s in it. So yes the FDA should be determining what medicine is. I think that it [the legalization debate] is talking about medicine and getting a medical product through the FDA [which] regulates the trials is how that works and I think that should continue.
In another example of this perspective, a law enforcement officer said,
People are not allowed to make their own aspirin or antibiotic, why should they be able to grow their own pot? It should be sold at Rite Aid or CVS [drugstores] for a true medical reason, not [for] a stubbed toe or headache. It should have to pass FDA medical tests for specific uses, for specific ailments.
For both of these respondents, the current regulatory structure for medicine is deemed adequate for marijuana. In fact, respondents cited a number of political structures but none was universally suggested, even in the case of the FDA. For example, one legalization advocate stated, “Marijuana’s not a drug, it’s a plant, and so what are the implications of the FDA deciding how people are able to use a plant that they can grow inside their own house?” This response is interesting, because it indicates that the current FDA is not adequate for the regulation of marijuana, even if the concerns revolve around intrusion into personal life. This was not the only case of inadequacy of a current political structure. One state representative from a state considering legalization said, “There will be a committee to oversee the implementation of the law. The details of the law have not yet been worked out.” Another political respondent, a city manager, suggested that there was not yet infrastructure in place to monitor dispensaries if marijuana was legalized in his state, saying,
As a city manager, I may have to regulate dispensaries if the city wants them. The city council will have to decide if they want to allow them in the city, and if they vote “yes,” we will have to determine where they will be located, how many there will be, who will own them, and how to regulate them. The law is not clear on that.
On the whole, however, most respondents felt that the current institutions would be able to handle the legalization of marijuana—medical, recreational, or both. Although most respondents were not explicit, they regularly cited the FDA as a regulatory body and drew on alcohol as an example of a taxation scheme, demonstrating that most believe our current institutions would play a primary role.
State, Federal, or None
The current state of marijuana—legal in some states but illegal at the federal level—has been called a “constitutional crisis.”9 Three different perspectives emerged from our respondents’ general comments regarding marijuana legalization: that marijuana should be regulated at the federal level, the state level, or not regulated at all. It also should be noted many respondents believed that marijuana should be regulated at multiple levels.
One good example of a respondent talking about the level of regulation was from a marijuana rights group leader who said, “I think the federal government needs to retool how it looks at things. I think they got the necessity to take a real strong look at the Controlled Substances Act [CSA] and amend it so that it can comport with international law and take marijuana scheduling away from it [the CSA].” The focus in this comment was on deregulation of marijuana at the federal level. However, the same respondent also said, “Medicine has always been regulated at the state level. I see there’s no reason to bring in the federal government to regulate state-based medicine. I think that it takes [the decision] closest to the patients, understanding that it’s the patient that’s important.” Although this respondent spoke about federal regulation, it was in service to moving regulatory authority toward the states—at least in terms of medical marijuana.
Other respondents also supported primarily state-level legislation. One interesting example of this was from a cannabis industry lobbyist, who works at the federal level. He said,
So everyone’s worried that the feds are going to start enforcing federal law and that’s a big concern for us [the cannabis industry] and one of the things we’re working on is making sure these guys in [Washington] D.C. understand its important for your state. . . . The ultimate decider should be the states themselves and the voters of that state.
One reason the previous responses are interesting is because marijuana legalization historically has been a liberal issue.10 On the other hand, “states rights” issues tend to lean conservative, thus we see advocates for increasing states rights on a liberal issue.11
However, some respondents were proponents of regulation at higher levels. For instance, one anti-legalization advocate stated, “We have different penalties for all kinds of crimes depending on where you live, but the overall regulation and monitoring [ of marijuana] . . . transcends the states.” Another respondent said, “Legalization should be made at the national level and regulated by the government and not left up to individual states. At this rate, at least the pot industry would have the same rules and regulations across the country and be taxed the same [way].”
One particularly interesting response came from a scientist who works with marijuana and its effects. He said,
There needs to be some reconciliation of the disconnect between state and federal law. And the reason I say that is not because I think that we can’t have, you know, wishy-washy mixed messages, but rather because when you look at how things are handled and the important things—doing things the right way in terms of making cannabis available and legal—some of the major issues and concerns I have are that all of the regulatory bodies that control drugs, drug manufacturing, drug labeling, quality control, and medicine, those are all federal agencies. And the states don’t have the knowledge or the infrastructure to do this the right way, and that’s causing problems.
This response is particularly interesting because it deals with both the ability of current institutions to regulate marijuana, which was explored in the previous section, along with the federal-state question. This was perhaps the most explicit articulation of the federal-state problem—that the current differentiation between federal law and state law regarding marijuana was untenable—but as the city manager in the previous section mentioned, the law is still being worked out.
Finally, there was a relatively small group of respondents who believed that marijuana should not be regulated at all. In some cases, this lack of regulation was related to the idea that drugs in general should not be regulated—a more libertarian perspective—but in others it was directly related specifically to marijuana as a unique drug. Illustrating the first type, one respondent said, “I just understand that drug prohibition doesn’t actually work, and so bring it [use of drugs] out to the open; we can manage it better that way. That includes marijuana, obviously.” One example of the second type was given by a respondent who works in marijuana policy and said,
I would like to think that there’s a general trend among the vast majority of Americans toward less intrusive governmental policies and allowing people to have a lot more control over their bodies and minds as long as they’re not infringing on the rights of others. . . . And being willing to support the will of the people versus potential political backlash [for legalization] that’s unique to marijuana.
Assessment
So what are we to make of the myriad perspectives of the politics of marijuana legalization represented in this chapter? First, though legalization has been a politically contested issue for more than thirty years, there are still a significant number of different perspectives regarding the correct way to handle it. Not only that, but there is reason to believe—at least among our respondents—that the current regulatory system—with the exception of medical marijuana—is inadequate to take on marijuana if it is legalized for recreational use. Moreover, although many respondents believed that states are responsible for regulating marijuana, some participants believed that regulation at the federal level was more appropriate or that the states couldn’t handle marijuana regulation at all.
Outside these general institutional concerns, there was a larger social debate regarding the relative costs and benefits of the legalization of marijuana. Specifically, although many respondents felt that marijuana use contributed to crime, others believed strongly that the harms of marijuana enforcement outweighed any harms caused by consumption. This, in many ways, has become the central debate regarding legalization, especially as the movement against mass incarceration has gained momentum. In fact, the War on Drugs and its potential failure was used by some participants to argue for the legalization of all drugs, rather than marijuana specifically.
In addition, many advocates for marijuana policy liberalization or legalization cited instances of social disparity in enforcement or personal negative encounters with law enforcement over marijuana possession and use as their reason for becoming interested in advocating for legalization. This area of the legalization debate is hotly contested, and it’s worth noting that it intersects heavily with the previous two chapters. Those involved in the politics of marijuana legalization—which includes most of us who have an opinion about it and vote—rely on both specific sets of knowledge (e.g., either scientific or experiential) for our arguments and a set of metaphors to communicate this knowledge. Thus, much of what is contained in the politics of legalization depends largely on what underpins the narratives that each side constructs, namely those same knowledge constructs and metaphors.
Interestingly, although respondents represented different points of view across all of the issues mentioned in this chapter, there was more agreement than disagreement across political boundaries. In other words, though many have viewed marijuana legalization through the lens of partisan politics, that lens may be insufficient for understanding the current legalization debate. This is because, despite liberal elements involved in the marijuana debate, it has transcended traditional political boundaries.12 One reason for this is because marijuana legalization advocates use “states rights” to encourage traditionally conservative populations (like law enforcement, for example), while at the same time capitalizing on the generally liberal belief in the principle of using taxes for infrastructure. This was evident in the different reasons respondents gave for supporting legalization and can be seen in the previous sections.
What this means for marijuana legalization is unclear, however. Though the politics of legalization seem to be moving away from debates about the specific harms caused by use, which characterized an earlier era of prohibition, it is by no means certain that the debate has become fixed, nor that legalization will continue unabated. Recent political circumstances have also changed, making the position of the federal government vis-à-vis state government less clear.
Whether or not these changes will affect people like our respondents remains unclear. Although this chapter demonstrates the influence of existing narratives like those surrounding the War on Drugs and the reasons people give for legalization (or keeping marijuana illegal), what is uncertain is how quickly the narratives can change and how concrete they are once they are formed. As marijuana enforcement changes, if in fact it does change, it is possible that many of the rationales people give for legalization may fall to the wayside. What is certain is that although there seems to be a growing coalition across traditional political lines, there is still a strong resistance from some to the legalization of marijuana for any use at all.