If I could Grow Gold

In the history of humankind the quest to grow gold is a familiar theme. The Alchemists of old searched high and low for the secret to turning common metals into gold. Rumpelstiltskin – the fable by the Brothers Grim made famous the miller’s daughter snatched by the greedy King. The poor girl was held captive so she might spin gold for the King and the King alone.

What the Alchemists didn’t realize is they were working way too hard. All they had to do to turn a common thing into gold was get the King to prohibit it.

At least that is how it worked with drugs. Until prohibition came along, our relationship with these plants was relatively simple. The poppy plant; the cannabis plant; the coca plant; commonly grown medical herbs available for pennies. Grown at home or purchased for use as teas, tinctures or aroma therapy, humanity stayed healthy and grew strong using these plants.

Today, the relationship between mankind and these herbs is more complicated. The tobacco plant is regulated, heavily taxed and the marketplace tightly governed. In the case of tobacco, additives, curing agents and pesticides combine to make a sacred plant into an unhealthy soup of chemicals while slick marketers ply consumers with advertisements.

While regulated tobacco companies net record profits, despite increased awareness of the harm, they aren’t making nearly the profits black-market profiteers are making off plants that remain prohibited.

Cannabis, poppy, and coca are easy plants to grow. They are adaptable to a variety of climates. Thanks to prohibition they are also as valuable as gold, plutonium and uranium.

Gold, plutonium and uranium growing in the backyard is an Alchemists dream come true.

Back to our fable. Most fables for children keep it simple, one villain, one princess in need of rescuing and one hero. Like prohibition, our story isn’t so simple. In the fable, a local merchant lies – saying his daughter could spin straw into gold. The greedy King kidnaps the girl and under the threat of death forces her to spin gold. Rumpelstiltskin secretly helps the maiden meet the kings demand for gold but the price he exacts grows greater every day. More like prohibition then we might care to admit.

The US demand for drugs is insatiable. The King (federal agencies) has a vested interest in keeping plants prohibited and for four decades they have lied to protect their interests. The US appetite for drugs is matched only by our zest for war games. The War on Drugs has given us leave to spend an increasing amount of money on armed-interdiction, created special paramilitary police units and paved the path to a police state through an erosion of search and seizure laws.

In 1999, a Canadian report to parliament estimated the worldwide illegal drug trade accounted for $400 billion dollars of the economy. Or just under 1% of the world wide trade.

Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron has been tracking the cost of the war on drugs for a decade. In 2002, he published research funded by the Marijuana Policy Project stating the country could save 7.7 billion dollars a year by legalizing cannabis. That translated to over 5 billion in savings to the states and over 2 billion to the Federal Government. Over 500 US economists signed onto the Miron report calling for a discussion on regulating cannabis.

Major reports from the last twenty years have shown reducing cannabis penalties saves money and reduces the harms to society. The Connecticut General Assembly is acting on a study that shows the state of California saved a billion dollars in 10 years by simply changing cannabis possession from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Common wisdom seems to accept that we have spent 2.5 trillion on prohibiting a hand full of drugs since Richard Nixon declared drugs “Public Enemy Number One” forty years ago this month.

So while tax payers are spending billions each year to fight the war on drugs, profiteers on both side of the conflict are spinning gold. Federal and state agencies get their portion of the pie and anyone willing to break the law is growing gold. Quite literally, the price of high quality cannabis tended to track closely with the gold prices until recently.

The national cannabis market prices are affected by emerging legal markets. Legal cannabis in 16 states means the traditional illegal cannabis traders are pouring more product into fewer markets making cannabis prices lower then gold for the first time in decades.

Finally, we’ve discovered a way to undercut the illegal profiteers…better yet, we’ve rediscovered what our grandparents knew. Prohibition doesn’t work. Cops will tell you that when you arrest a bank robber, bank robberies stop, when you arrest a drug dealer another one (or more) pop up to take their place. Prohibition creates more dangerous criminals who are willing to do what it takes to protect their marketshare.

We have to take cannabis out of the hands of illegal drug dealers and people willing to do violence for their stake in growing gold. The only way to assure patients have access to this medicine and assure the unregulated market is controlled is to flood the market with legal cannabis. We can enact strong laws to regulate the growing, selling and public consumption. We can separate the drugs from the crime by prosecuting people who harm others regardless of their level or choice of intoxicant.

Drug abuse is a tragedy; it doesn’t need to be a crime. By allowing prohibition to turn common weeds into gold, platinum and uranium we encourage unscrupulous people to take advantage of the most vulnerable members of society and turn otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals.

The end of cannabis prohibition is just waiting for you.