As pot laws change, focus should be on managing its use
The backward, half-baked way in which Ohio has ventured into liberalized marijuana laws left would-be patients waiting years for relief while the state fumbled through a complicated process for choosing growers.
Medical marijuana was supposed to be available to patients by Sept. 8 of last year, but the first dispensary didn’t open until January.
The slow start yielded only a few providers, which has kept prices too high for many people and caused some to keep buying marijuana illegally.
And now, the General Assembly’s move in July to legalize hemp, a less-potent version of the cannabis plant, brings more unanticipated consequences: Marijuana-possession cases will be harder to try and an entire generation of drugsniffing police dogs may be out of work.
The Ohio Highway Patrol and the Columbus Division of Police announced recently that they’re suspending marijuanadetection training for new police dogs because, with the legalization of hemp, that skill has become a lawenforcement liability.
The problem is that marijuana and hemp smell the same and only one of them now is illegal. If a dog indicates that he smells something, officers can’t be sure he’s smelling something illegal and thus a court may conclude they didn’t have probable cause to conduct a search.
Trainers can start omitting cannabis from the repertoire of dogs trained henceforth, but those already trained can’t be untaught to sniff for it.
Meanwhile, prosecutors trying to convict someone of marijuana possession are hamstrung, because the substance a defendant possesses may be pot (illegal) or it may be hemp (legal), and current crime labs aren’t equipped to measure chemical content
precisely enough to make the determination.
Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein cited the hemp problem in announcing Aug. 7 that the city no longer will prosecute any misdemeanor cases of pot possession. City council already had acted weeks before to lower the penalties for possession drastically, to a $10 fine for having up to 100 grams and $25 for 100 to 200 grams.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost wasn’t impressed, declaring, “It’s unfortunate that Columbus has decided to create an island within Franklin County where the general laws of the state of Ohio no longer apply.”
On Tuesday, Yost announced that he’ll help local police departments with marijuana-trafficking (not possession) cases by making some money available to pay private labs for the testing.
Yost hopes to have labs at the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation upgraded for cannabis testing by early next year. Communities around the state also are looking to upgrade local crime labs, but local officials may want to think hard about the expense.
In a memo instructing Columbus police officers to limit searches based on suspicion of marijuana alone, interim Police Chief Thomas Quinlan pointed out that the equipment needed for precise THC testing costs $250,000.
Yost is correct in reminding law-enforcement agencies that recreational marijuana still is illegal in Ohio, but the ground is shifting; 11 states have legalized it and another 20 allow broad medical use.
Meanwhile, because federal law for decades has inhibited study of marijuana, too little is known about its health and social effects, even as use is increasing. Public dollars would be better spent learning about and preparing for its impact than on expensive testing equipment that is likely to become irrelevant.
No government in the world has America’s proud history of having openly welcomed the poor and downtrodden to its shores. Inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, the most prominent symbol of immigration’s contribution to American greatness, are the very words of poet Emma Lazarus that advertise this safe haven:
“Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Now the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, proposes a slight editing change to slam that golden door shut: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.”
Speaking on National Public Radio Tuesday, Cuccinelli was trying to justify a new Trump administration “public charge” rule that threatens to cancel any consideration of legal residency for immigrants if they have low incomes or little education and contemplate accessing aid programs such as Medicaid, food
stamps or housing vouchers.
America’s welcome mat is only for those who can demonstrate that they won’t need government help in the future, Cuccinelli says. But those who uproot themselves under duress to make a home in any new country typically arrive with little or nothing to their names.
We know of one man who escaped a Middle Eastern war with his family and arrived in the United States with only $185 to his name. Yes, he needed some temporary assistance upon arrival here, but today he is a millionaire. Another crossed the southern border from Mexico nearly penniless and worked illegally as a waiter and cook in Texas. Today he and his family — now citizens — own three high-end restaurants.
The nation’s history is rife with examples of newly arrived immigrants who transformed their poverty into stories of success. The founding publisher of this newspaper, Joseph Pulitzer, was one such person. He arrived in St. Louis nearly penniless aboard a rail freight car and survived by selling his sole possession, a white handkerchief, for 75 cents.
President Donald Trump’s own grandfather arrived in this country so sickly he was feared unfit for manual labor. Under this administration’s new rules, Frederick Trump probably would not have qualified for the legal permanent residency and ultimate citizenship that paved the way for his grandson’s financial and political success.
Arriving on these shores with minimal means of support is not, to paraphrase investment-house disclaimers, an indication of future performance. But in Donald Trump’s America, only the already successful need apply. That’s not just a sad statement on his callous disregard of his own heritage, it underscores how little history Trump has bothered to study about the immigrant stories of triumph over adversity that made this country great.