The following is my submission for Mr. Hampton’s policy statement about the Drug War (specifically marijuana). While I am aware that most policy statements adhere strictly to descriptions of policy, I feel that marijuana is a very dense issue with a very intricate history. A history that must be taken into account if we are going to make an educated decision about an important issue.

You can vote on my submission here (it is titled “Legalization of Cannabis for the Good of our Citizens”) and read it below.

If you enjoy it, feel free to let @adrielhampton know on twitter.

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Fervor for liberty and hope for a new life, these were the driving forces for many early American settlers’ in their choice to leave all that they knew and had behind. Though passion may have filled the hearts of so many pioneers, it was ultimately the wind which filled their sails–as durable as their spirits–that delivered each man, woman and child onto the shores of a New World. These sails, of course, were made from cannabis.

Indeed, cannabis played an integral part of early American life, exploration, development, and economic activity. It was celebrated by patriots, grown by presidents, and utilized by Americans for the good of America. Unfortunately, for a plant so fundamental to the growth of our country, it would soon become the target of corporations who care more about their profit margins than the health of their nation. An information war was waged against this noble plant and it was soon victimized and made illegal by racially charged fears and ignorance.

In humility, our government would turn again to cannabis and launched its Hemp For Victory campaign during the Second World War, calling for patriotic farmers to grow cannabis in order to aid the war efforts. Years after the last soldiers were laid to rest and the last treaty was signed, the United States would once again turn its back on the plant that had helped it so dearly when Nixon ignored the advice of his own commission, which stated that cannabis should be re-legalized, and waged his war against a plant.

Though, this was not a normal war by any means. It was a war against capitalism and free-market competition. It was a war against nature in favor of proprietary goods. It was a war against information, science, and truth. It was a war against the fundamental, God-given right for an individual to manage his or her own health, body, and mind. It was a war against the very roots of our heritage, culture, and existence. In essence, it was a war against you.

To this day, perpetuated myths and fear-propaganda still taint the minds of so many Americans. Thankfully, however, advances in science and logic have allowed many to see just how helpful and safe cannabis truly is to a variety of people and industries. My friends, we are at a tipping point of freedom in this nation where we have the ability and momentum to right an enormous wrong in our past by RE-legalizing a plant that–by all measures–should be considered an asset of natural resource, if not a symbol of national treasure.

After elected, I vow to uphold my duty to protect the citizens of this great state by moving to legalize cannabis, thus ending the prohibition of reason and war on Californians. Our economy will be given a much needed boost as individuals responsibly and safely purchase taxed cannabis products in a much freer market; money that can be utilized to educate our children, expand our infrastructure, and focus on stopping real crime. Our prisons and legal system will be reserved for only those truly dangerous to the good of society, rather than filled and distracted by victims of social stigma and ignorance. Most of all, our children will be safer as legalization starves the black market of a majority of its cash flow and regulatory obstacles are put in place to truly restrict availability of cannabis products to adults.

Together, we can make a positive difference for the future of California. We can drastically reduce violence, power of organized crime, and costs related to the failed attempts at controlling human nature. We can fight for the rights of our farmers, our sick, our impoverished, and our families. We can support the progress of medicine and the hundreds of thousands of doctors in the United States who deserve the right to fully care for their patients. Best of all, we can do it all with the legalization of a single plant that has already done so much for us and was always there when we needed it. I think we owe it to cannabis, and I think we owe it to ourselves.

Activists are outraged over President Obama’s raid of Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic in San Francisco (http://www.mpp.org/states/california/news/ca/dea-raids-pot-dispensary-in.html), but they should not be surprised.

Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, had promised to end federal medical marijuana raids as conducted by the Clinton and Bush administrations, leaving alone dispensaries operating legally under state law (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/policy-marijuana-judge-2345186-lynch-department). Obama broke the spirit of the promise, but not the letter. The excuse for this last raid was state law violations — supposedly, sales taxes were being evaded. Now the feds will probably prosecute under federal law.

The state government was not agitating for a crackdown. Sacramento was not complaining about sales tax evasion. San Francisco had given a permit to this dispensary.

“It is disturbing that, despite the DEA’s vague claims about violations of state and federal laws,” Aaron Smith from the Marijuana Policy Project noted about the Drug Enforcement Agency, “they apparently made no effort to contact the local authorities who monitor and license medical marijuana providers.”

Furthermore, sales tax violations are rarely handled this way. The California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws points out (http://stash.norml.org/dea-raids-pot-dispensary-in-sf-over-alleged-sales-tax-improprieties/), “The normal process in such cases is for the Board of Equalization to audit the business in question, NOT for federal agents to enter like storm troopers and steal all of the business’s inventory.”

This episode should remind liberal pot activists of the potentially despotic power involved in tax collection. The power to tax is the power to destroy. Raids like this are unusual but not unheard of in mere tax cases. Presumably, if California’s marijuana industry were governed only by libertarian law — no violence, no theft, and no fraud (http://www.ca.lp.org/platform/Platform2006-2007.pdf)– there would be far fewer excuses for the feds to step in.

Short of exempting medical marijuana from sales tax altogether, how can future outrages be prevented? California should go on the offensive. It should legalize marijuana, leave its regulation to the market, and, for now, treat it like any other retail good in terms of tax law.

The state could do so by treating marijuana as a legal medicine, thereby protecting users and distributors from federal sanction, assuming Obama keeps his promise to the letter. California could make medical marijuana completely legal — like aspirin or cough syrup — and allow retailers of all types to sell it without license or prescription.

Marijuana could be sold in grocery stores and pharmacies as an over-the-counter treatment. It could be made available everywhere. This measure would make it much harder for the feds to raid facilities as though they were underground, barely legal operations. It would expose the contradictions in the DrugWar.

The Drug War is a total disaster (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123439889394275215.html). It has failed to significantly reduce drug abuse while violating personal liberty, serving as an excuse to shred the Bill of Rights, and being the major cause of gang violence, whether in our inner cities or on the border with Mexico.

If America ended drug prohibition, the Mexican border violence that has killed thousands over the past couple of years would end completely. Unfortunately, Obama is moving in the wrong direction, sending more troops to the border. Such state violence has forced the drug market underground, and every successful breakup of a dominant cartel only opens up a vacuum inevitably filled by other smaller groups violently competing over turf. The more the government cracks down, the worse it will get.

On medical marijuana, Obama was supposed to signify a shift in policy. His last DEA raid should put that myth to bed. By legalizing medical marijuana in 1996, California forced the issue over whether federal drug laws should supercede local standards. In terms of public opinion and political pressure, much has been won. It’s time to keep pushing.

In Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the Supreme Court’s five liberals all voted for federal supremacy over California’s medical marijuana laws, so more court cases might not be the answer. California should instead continue to liberalize its drug laws. Doing so will, at least, complicate Obama’s policy of federal raids and further undermine faith in the national government setting drug policy.