Smokin' the Ganj

As I sat down at my desk today, tacitly to do some work, I happened to glance at ESPN online, where I noticed that Giant's ace (and 2008 Cy Young Award winner) Tim Lincecum had been busted for pot possession.

For me, the only real surprise this held was that anyone was surprised.

He's a career west-coast guy, grew up in pot-country, and went to UW as an undergrad. Besides which, have you seen the guy? Long hair. Squinty eyes. Fairly consistent goofy smile. He reminds me of That Guy from high school. You know; the guy who had been high since the 7th grade? He was probably at your school, too. He got around.

I'm not a huge believer one way or the other on the whole lets-legalize-marijuana thing, much the same way that I'm not a big believer one way or the other about the Jets vs. the Dolphins thing. Both sides have their attractions and selling points. Both sides have more than their fair share of zealous adherents. Both sides sometimes care more about hating the people on the other side than they care about the actual dispute, but I guess that's just human nature. And in the long run, I don't think either side of the argument is as strong as the proponents state. So I understand and accept that people are going to smoke the ganja in pursuit of a good time, and I think that such people should understand and accept that doing so is, in fact, still illegal, and that getting caught having such a good time means a criminal record, fines, and jail time. Or at the very least that the guys who caught you are going to give you a stern talking to, and a warning not to do it again as they confiscate your greenery for their own use.

All that having been said, I do think that the way this country handles the Mary Jane issue is nothing short of idiotic, based primarily on inter-/intra-governmental bullshit.

Generally speaking, enforcement of criminal codes within their jurisdiction is the exclusive purview of the individual states. States are free to make their own laws about personal conduct, and to enforce those laws, and are not bound by standards employed in other jurisdictions. For example: in California, it is possible to legally be a pothead, but you cannot legally purchase most firearms. In contrast, Arizona takes a hard line on the ganja, but you can legally own pretty much any firearm you want. Those states, as is their prerogative, take different stances on those issues, and within their boundaries, set their own laws accordingly, as they see fit.

But then, enter the Federal government. Historically speaking, the Federal government had almost no authority to prosecute criminal activity whatsoever, because the Consitution and Amendments thereto left the Federal government virtually no jurisdiction in which to exercise that authority. The Federal government's job was primarily to regulate trade and interaction between states, NOT within states, and so the primary job of the Fed's law-enforcement arm (the FBI), was to address crimes which crossed state lines: chasing criminals who moved from state to state either in the course of, or in between commissions of, their criminal endeavors.

Of course, history and human nature dictated that the Federal government therefor would be taking the lead in substance control, since their broad, multi-state purview placed on the Federal Government the burden of stopping interstate bootlegging and other smuggling operations. Necessarily so. As a matter of law, local cops cannot follow a criminal over state lines: their authority is limited to laws they enforce, which in turn are limited to the bounds of their own jurisdiction. It takes legal process (extradition) to forcibly move a person from one state to another, since neither state has authority within, or even jointly with, any other state. Cops have no jurisdiction across state lines. The jurisdiction of the Feds, on the other hand, is entered specifically BECAUSE state lines are crossed.

Slippery slopes being what they are, we progressed over the years to where Feds are now prosecuting all sorts of criminal conduct, which - in theory at least - should be the responsibility of individual states. Since the Fed and the states occasionally have different agendas, this leads to conflict. For example: so long as you have the right paperwork filled out and have gained all the right approvals and certifications, you can legally operate a pot plantation in California and under California law. Or Nevada. Or some other states as well. You can grow it, you can smoke it, you can sell it, and local law enforcement will leave you alone, even if they don't have anything else to do. The state - which is the primary doer when it comes to law enforcement - has decreed that so long as formalities are observed and taxes are paid, you are within the bounds of the law.

Of course, should you engage in that sort of behavior (or even substantially less offensive behavior, like smoking a doobie in your living room), your door might be kicked in at any moment by guys with guns coming to arrest you. Because even though California (or Nevada, or where ever) says it's okay, the Federal government says that what you are doing is illegal, and has it's very own branch of law enforcement to get you: the DEA.

So we have an interesting situation: local law says conduct is legal, while national law says that the same conduct is illegal. Federal cops will drag you away, while local cops are offended only insofar as you being busted means they will need to find someone else to buy from. But where the problem really arises is in the operation of the prosecutorial and punitive stages.

The Federal government has courts and prisons completely independent of the states. If you are busted by the DEA, you don't go in front of a state judge and then into a state prison, you go in front of a Federal judge, and into a Federal prison. And the Federal institutions are MILITANT. They were built to deal with serious interstate criminals: kidnappers, bank-robbers, serial killers, major drug traffickers, and so forth. The purview of the Federal criminal system was apprehension of interstate offenders, and interstate offenders tended to be Big Time. The Courts are strict, because they are used to dealing with serious crimes. The prisons are rough, because they are meant for and filled with serious criminals.

Now then. Federal efforts to police relatively minor drug crimes means that this same militant criminal system is being employed on less-than-hardened criminals. Think back to That Guy from high school; the one who had been blazing daily for the last three years, at least. Imagine him thrown into the shark-tank of a Federal prison. Or, more germane to today's discussion, rest assured that even a few grams' possession in front of a Federal judge would have landed Tim Lincecum a bit more than a $622 fine and a speeding ticket.

That's the part that I kind of have a problem with. Don't get me wrong; like I said above, I'm a believer that the laws are the laws, that people break them at their own peril, and having broken them and gotten caught, lawbreakers are not really allowed to complain at having been caught. But still. Besides that fact that That Guy probably doesn't deserve Federal levels of incarceration (or even any incarceration, depending on whether he was busted with an eighth of kush instead of an acre of clones), I really don't see the need to spend millions of taxdollars keeping mostly-harmless potsmokers in Federal levels of incarceration.

But what can you do. I like to think that the situation is going to resolve itself with time (which is probably going to mean eventual national legalization, although probably not in my lifetime), and expect that we'll just plod along in the meantime, doing the same stupid shit we've always done. Just like healthcare, pollution control, and the finance industry, I guess we just don't have time for a rational solution.