The public is ready to engage in a serious discussion regarding marijuana policy. It's unfortunate that their elected officials are not. The recent defeat of House Bill 103 on the Louisiana Senate floor epitomizes this divide between public sentiment and political action. Senators narrowly voted down this moderate reform measure, which sought to lessen criminal sentences for marijuana possession convictions from five years in jail to two (for second offenders) and from 20 years in jail to five (for third-time offenders).
Further, prior to voting down the measure, several senators in the chamber could be heard "inhaling and exhaling," according to media reports. Others chuckled and rolled their eyes.
While such juvenile behavior might be expected in the halls of junior high schools across America, we should expect better from our elected officials. Yet lawmakers' schizophrenic attitude toward pot and the public policies that punish the plant's users are, unfortunately, par for the course.
On the one hand, lawmakers act as if it is perfectly appropriate to publicly roll their eyes and crack jokes about cannabis on the Senate floor. Apparently, in their minds, marijuana -- and the criminal prosecution and jailing of those who use it -- is something to make light of. But on the other hand, lawmakers vote to uphold a public policy that maintains that the hemp plant is so potentially dangerous to society that it warrants incarcerating repeat offenders who consume it for up to 20 years in prison.
So which is it? Is pot just one big joke or is its possession and consumption criminal activity that warrants draconian sentences? Louisiana lawmakers apparently just can't make up their minds.
But a majority of the voting public has clearly done so. An April 2013 national survey commissioned by the Pew Research Center reports that 72 percent of Americans now believe that "government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth," and a May 2013 Reason Magazine-Rupe nationwide survey -- conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International -- reported that more than nine out of 10 U.S. adults say that people who possess or consume small quantities of cannabis should not face any jail time at all. Moreover, recently published scientific surveys by respected pollsters Gallup, Pew, Quinnipiac University and Public Policy Polling all find that far more Americans now favor legalizing marijuana for adults than believe in its continued prohibition. Why? The answer has become obvious to virtually everyone but our elected officials.
The ongoing enforcement of cannabis prohibition financially burdens taxpayers, encroaches upon civil liberties, engenders disrespect for the law, impedes upon legitimate scientific research into the plant's medicinal properties and disproportionately impacts communities of color. Furthermore, the criminalization of cannabis simply doesn't work.
Despite more than 70 years of federal prohibition, Americans' consumption of and demand for cannabis is here to stay. Voters' recent passage of cannabis legalization measures in Colorado and Washington acknowledges this reality. These new, voter-approved laws intend to stop ceding control of the marijuana market to untaxed criminal enterprises and, instead, seek to impose common-sense regulations governing cannabis' personal use by adults and licensing its production. Unlike the federal government, which continues to define cannabis as an illegal commodity that is as equally dangerous as heroin, most Americans now recognize that a pragmatic regulatory framework that allows for limited, licensed production and sale of cannabis to adults but restricts use among young people best reduces the risks associated with its use or abuse.
Marijuana legalization is no longer a matter of if; it's a matter of when. It's time Louisiana lawmakers to get serious -- and to get with the program.
Paul Armentano is the deputy director for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and is the co-author of the book, "Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?" (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009). He is based in Vallejo, Calif.