Response to an Opinion article by George Soros

In a response to an Opinion article by George Soros, published on October 26, 2010 in Wall Street Journal (WSJ), John J. Coleman, PhD, Assistant Administrator (retired), U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, writes:

The issue of marihuana legalization is subject to many interpretations and Mr. Soros in his recent Opinion piece in the WSJ (Oct. 26, 2010) presents several that appear to be overstated or even outright false. Many of the shibboleths that he cites have become the agreed-upon reality of the left as it strives to pass Proposition 19 in California.

Let’s look a little closer at a few of them. According to FBI data, in 2008, an estimated 14,005,615 arrests occurred in the United States, of which 1,702,537 (12.2%) were drug arrests. Most (82.3%) were for “possession” of drugs and, yes, as Mr. Soros tells us, a sizable proportion (44.3%) was for possession of marihuana. This, however, is where his facts end and the myth begins. Mr. Soros implies that all the marihuana arrests were “for possession of small amounts of marihuana….” This is not true.

In fact, Mr. Soros, the FBI, and I have no way of knowing how many of these arrests involved the possession of small amounts or truckloads of marihuana. The FBI collects arrest statistics from fingerprint cards submitted by about 18,000 law enforcement agencies. Each card lists the state or federal code violations for the arrestee but provides no details about the quantity of drugs involved. Moreover, a 2004 study by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) found that statistics do not “reflect how many…(marihuana)…arrests involved other, more serious crimes, or how many…(marihuana)…arrests actually led to incarceration.”

In other words, a person arrested for a serious crime, say assault or vehicular homicide, and who also is found to possess marihuana likely would be charged with both crimes, even though the marihuana offense would not have been discovered on its own. A more informative and useful statistic is the incarceration rate for arrestees charged only with marihuana possession. The ONDCP study found that less than one percent (0.7%) of state prison inmates were serving time for marihuana possession only. The study was unable to discern how many of these cases involved prior offenders or persons who may have violated their probation status.

Another questionable hypothesis by Mr. Soros states that “Regulating and taxing marihuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually.” This also happens to be a campaign promise being made by supporters of California’s Proposition 19.

Consumption taxes work well for gasoline, whiskey, cigarettes, auto tires, and other commodities too complex to produce in one’s garden or basement. By comparison, marihuana is a plant that can be grown in a flower pot on one’s windowsill. If Mr. Soros truly believes that taxing marihuana is a viable way to raise revenue, then why stop with marihuana? Why not tax homegrown tomatoes, turf grass or flowers? By the way, since marihuana will remain an unlawful drug under federal law, who in his or her right mind would agree to pay or collect a marihuana tax and thereby risk being identified and arrested by the feds? The answer, Mr. Soros, is no one and, therefore,

no revenue.

Incidentally, in 1969, when the Supreme Court ruled that portions of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act were unconstitutional, the court noted that, among its other deficiencies, the act raised very little revenue over the course of its three decades in the tax code. The court also noted that illicit marihuana consumption increased dramatically during the same period. Would a 2010 Marihuana Tax Act in California fare better? Probably not.

Mr. Soros theorizes about the violence taking place in Mexico by warring drug cartels. His is a remarkable position, especially coming from someone who has made billions of dollars betting on the right side of free market forces. Perhaps Mr. Soros can provide us with an example of when, if ever, suppliers of a commodity having significant demand (e.g., marihuana) were ever deterred or “weakened” by increasing the demand for their commodity. Such a thesis falls of its own totally counterfactual weight.

Crime, like business, is rational and adapts or changes, as necessary, to optimize its interests vis-a-vis the external environment. Increasing the number of Americans harmed by “legal” marihuana will not reduce the violence in Mexico and, indeed, may very well create an environment in which it moves north to exploit the expanded market. As for the future of California, unable to enforce a faux supply monopoly, it will discover that marihuana, taxed or untaxed, is a fungible commodity and, therefore, able to enter and occupy the same market.

In his arguments for marihuana legalization, Mr. Soros cites the views of three former presidents of Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, as well as a declaration by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy. Just a cursory knowledge of history reveals that each of these leaders presided over his respective country during a time when its indigenous drug problem largely was ignored and when cartel leaders, some posing as legitimate business entrepreneurs, roamed freely and were allowed to expand their illegal enterprises. Now, these same leaders can do little else but blame today’s victims for their own past failures.

Mr. Soros recognizes California’s “national leadership in 1996 by becoming the first state to legalize the medical use of marihuana…” but he neglects to note that provisions in the 1996 proposition that were specifically intended to restrict medical marihuana to patients with serious diseases have never been enforced. In October 2009, the Los Angeles district attorney initiated a crackdown on an estimated 700 to 1,000 so-called medical marihuana “dispensaries” in the county because, he said, they were operating illegally and not in accord with the 1996 law.

More recently, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill to decriminalize the possession of one ounce or less of marihuana by adults. Henceforth, such infractions will be treated as civil offenses punishable by a fine of up to one hundred dollars. In signing the bill, the governor cited dwindling public safety resources to justify his action. If, as the governor suggests, resources are inadequate to meet today’s public safety needs, and if, as we already know, there has been little or no enforcement of the safeguards in the 1996 medical marihuana law, one is moved to ask where the resources will come from to enforce the safeguards in Proposition 19? The simple and irrefutable answer is that, if Proposition 19 passes, there will be no enforcement, no safeguards and virtually no prohibition of marihuana for anyone, anywhere, at any time, and for any reason, within the state of California.

Passage of Proposition 19, in effect, will replicate in California the de facto legalization of marihuana characteristic of how nations south of the border handled this drug for most of the last century. De facto legalization did not solve their problems and de jure legalization surely will not now solve California’s problems. For all of the above reasons, and more, Mr. Soros is wrong on his facts, wrong on his history, and wrong on his predictions.

An abbreviated version of this article has been published in Letters i Wall Street Journal.