Conservative judge once again advocates decriminalization

Retired Judge James Gray has impeccable conservative credentials. I've posted about him previously. In a recent article in the Daily Pilot, he most reasonably suggests that most Americans would share most of the following goals:

1. Reduce the exposure of drugs to and usage of drugs by children;

2. Stop or materially reduce the violence that accompanies the manufacture and distribution of drugs, especially to police officers and innocent by-standers;

3. Stop or materially reduce the corruption of public officials, individual people and companies, and especially children that accompanies the manufacture and distribution of drugs;

4. Stop or materially reduce crime both by people trying to get money to purchase drugs and by those under the influence of drugs;

5. Stop or materially reduce the flow of drugs into our country;

6. Reduce health risks to people who use drugs;

7. Maintain and reaffirm our civil liberties;

8. Reduce the number of people we must put into our jails and prisons;

9. Stop or materially reduce the flow of guns out of our country and into countries south of our border;

10. Increase respect for our laws and institutions.

What is a good way to simultaneously further all of these goals? All we need to do is to treat the manufacture and sale of drugs "just like we treat alcohol." Consider #2 in more detail--attempting to curtail violence on the streets. Judge Gray offers a hypothetical:

Today if Budweiser has distribution problems with Coors, they don’t take guns to the streets to resolve them. Instead they file a complaint in court, and have it peacefully adjudicated by judges like me.

Consider also, common sense economics: if drugs were not punished with criminal sanctions, the price of drugs would fall and "drug addicted people would only need to steal half as much to get their drugs." The case for decriminialization is utterly compelling to anyone who takes the time to consider the sceop of the current problem. For instance, it's time to stop throwing 700,000 people into jail every year just because they use marijuana. Many of these people are (other than the marijuana offenses) peace-loving tax-paying citizens with families. It's time to stop the insanity.

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Conservative Judge: the most harmful thing about marijuana is jail.

Judge James P. Gray is a trial Judge in Orange County, California, a former attorney in the Navy JAG corps, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles; he has also been a civil litigation attorney for a private law firm. In these two videos, he talks about marijuana and our "failed and hopeless drug policy" in America. According to Gray, it's easier for kids to get marijuana than alcohol because alcohol is regulated by the government and marijuana is regulated by drug dealers on the street. These are excellent videos, caused by a thoughtful judge who is in a position to know. If we started treating marijuana as we do alcohol, we would see five immediate benefits:

California would save $1 Billion in state expenses currently used to prosecute marijuana offenses.

California would generate $1.3B in take revenue per year in California (marijuana is currently the number one cash crop in California, with grapes being #2).

We'd make marijuana less available than it is now, and the quality of marijuana would be better regulated than it is now.

The entire medical marijuana controversy would go away--the Federal government is currently acting like a "bully" harassing sick people.

The hemp industry is a viable industrial crop, more valuable than cotton. You can get more paper from an acre of hemp than an acre of trees, and it's much more environmentally friendly. The diesel engine was originally designed to run on hemp. The sails of the ship "Old Ironsides," The U.S. Constitution were made of hemp fibers. The original copy of the founding document, the U.S. Constitution was made of hemp. It is an extremely valuable crop that we fail to exploit.
. Why don't we treat marijuana like alcohol, even though the majority of people are willing to do this? Why does the federal government care? Here's Judge Gray's belief: At least 75% of everyone in the U.S. who uses any illicit substance uses only marijuana. By legalizing and regulating marijuana, the federal government would no longer justify our "colossal prison-industrial complex." Many government jobs depend on the "war on drugs." Two Congressmen have admitted to Judge Gray that "the war on drugs is not winnable, but it's imminently fund-able." He concludes that the federal government is "addicted to the drug war funding." For more on the harmlessness of marijuana, see this earlier DI post. These videos were produced by Lee Stranahan, a writer, photographer and independent filmmaker. He also blogs for The Huffington Post .

Continue ReadingConservative Judge: the most harmful thing about marijuana is jail.