Legal pot could cost state billions
State and local governments and businesses located in California will potentially lose billions of dollars in federal funds if a proposition to legalize marijuana for recreational use is approved by voters in November, the district attorney of Los Angeles charges in a letter sent earlier this month to the state attorney general.
“The Federal Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 requires that all employers who receive government grants and contracts greater than $100,000 maintain a drug-free workplace,” but the language of the initiative protects the use of cannabis, even in the workplace, and bars an employer from disciplining an employee unless he or she demonstrates impairment, Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley wrote in an April 13 letter to the California attorney general.
“The Act specifically prohibits a state marijuana tax and would deprive California of billions of dollars in federal funding because the Act requires employers to violate the federal DFWA (Drug-Free Workplace Act),” Cooley wrote.
The head of Catholic Charities CYO in the Archdiocese of San Francisco said Cooley raises troubling issues, although Catholic Charities of California officials were not able to say immediately what impact the initiative could have on its work with the poor.
“We have not had the opportunity to study the proposed legislation, however the points raised by the L.A. district attorney are troubling,” said Jeff Bialik, Executive Director of Catholic Charities CYO. “Clearly, it would not benefit the people we serve to put at risk the Federal funding that so many rely upon to meet their basic needs.”
The points Cooley raised in his letter are among the issues the State Legislative Analyst’s Office is investigating as part of its fiscal and policy analysis, said Anthony Simbol, director of criminal justice for the non-partisan fiscal and policy advisor for the state legislature.
“A lot of this is going to be the subject of Jay Leno jokes. There are so many absurd provisions,” said John Lovell, lobbyist for the California Police Chiefs Association and the California Narcotic Officers Association. “Under this initiative, I can test positive for marijuana, and still get behind the wheel of a bus. I can bring marijuana to the workplace. I can use marijuana, at least the non-smokable kind. If there is a smoking area, I can smoke my marijuana there.”
“It does create a civil right for the consumption of marijuana prior to entering the workplace or at the workplace and would deny employers the ability to discipline that employee,” Cooley said.
The California attorney general’s office said it is not its job to address fiscal impact so referred Catholic San Francisco to the legislative analyst’s office. Cooley, a Republican, has served as Los Angeles district attorney since 2000 and formed an exploratory committee to run for attorney general in January. A call to the campaign of Attorney General Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, who has filed for the Democratic nomination for governor, was not returned by deadline.
Dale Sky Clare, a spokesperson for the legalization proponent, the Control and Tax Cannabis campaign, said her understanding was that existing federal contracts would not be affected by the initiative. Her colleague Doug Linney wrote in a follow-up email that the Drug Free Workplace Act would take precedence over state law if an employer opted not to employ cannabis users. “Any employer who deems being under the influence of cannabis as ‘actually impairing job performance’ can ban it, “ Linney said. “And really, even the supporters of the measure will not argue that being high does not affect job performance in nearly any job.”
The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance, with “a high potential for abuse,” and in 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal law governs in the case of state drug laws. The federal government does not accept smoking of marijuana, even for medical reasons, as a valid use under any circumstances, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration website’s “The DEA Position on Marijuana.”
The California Catholic Conference has not taken a position on the initiative which qualified for the November 2 ballot on March 24.
The Catholic Church teaches all drug use, except for medical reasons, is a sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: (2291) “The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense. Clandestine production of and trafficking in drugs are scandalous practices. They constitute direct co-operation in evil, since they encourage people to practices gravely contrary to the moral law.”
While some proponents have claimed the proposition would mean regulation for marijuana similar to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and establish a new billion dollar source of revenue for a state $20 billion in the red, the language states that regulation is up to local jurisdictions. Legalization campaign spokesperson Dale Sky Clare said the initiative could not create a state framework like that of the ABC Department. “We cannot require the state to be in violation of federal law,” Clare told Catholic San Francisco. “California can control, tax and regulate cannabis but we cannot require California to do that because it would be in conflict with federal law.”
Clare said local jurisdictions can choose to tax cannabis directly and she said that the city of Oakland, the headquarters of Oaksterdam University where she is executive chancellor, did that last year. Oaksterdam is a “cannabis university” and its founder Richard Lee and the organization itself were the main funders of the $1 million plus campaign to place the marijuana legalization proposition on the ballot. Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Men’s Wearhouse founder CEO George Zimmer are also major backers.
The initiative language relegates to the 478 towns and cities and 58 counties all tax and regulation authority, similar to the case under the existing 1996 medical marijuana law. That law allows those with a medical card or a doctor’s letter to purchase cannabis and dispensaries are regulated by local zoning laws. In practice, anyone can get a doctor’s letter by going to one of the pot clubs advertising on the back pages of SF Weekly’s “Toke of the Town“ ad section or in the Bay Guardian. Greenway, a medicinal cannabis dispensary with locations in Oakland, and San Francisco, for instance, advertises “Medical Marijuana Physicians Evaluations” with “Walk-ins welcome” and “24.7 Verifications.”
Outgoing U.S. Attorney for the District of Northern California Joseph R. Russoniello says legalizing marijuana won’t stop the illegal drug trade but it will potentially increase demand and thus give drug cartels more customers. “They (drug cartels) will be still out there operating where they don’t have to pay property tax, where they don’t have to buy land and they can pay illegal aliens. They are not going to be changed overnight and they are not going to be driven out of business because, if anything, laws that legalize recreational usage will increase the demand for cannabis.”
By Valerie Schmalz
From April 30, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
