State should legalize pot, but quietly

If legalization means not just repeal of criminal laws involving marijuana but also licensing and taxation of sales, as is already the case with “medical” marijuana, then the answer should be no.

S hould Connecticut legalize marijuana, as the General Assembly is considering doing? It depends.

If legalization means simply repeal of all state laws attaching criminal penalties to possession and sale of the stuff, then the answer should be yes. For marijuana is essentially legal in the state already. Decades of enforcement against it have accomplished little. The weed is more available than ever. Penalties for possession and minor sales have been reduced so much in Connecticut as to be inconsequential.

While its abuse can do long-term physical and psychological damage, marijuana is less damaging than legal alcoholic beverages and the opioid prescription drugs that lately have been causing thousands of fatalities throughout the country every month. Marijuana is the least of Connecticut’s drug problems.

But if legalization means not just repeal of criminal laws involving marijuana but also state government’s licensing and taxation of marijuana sales, as is already the case with “medical” marijuana, then the answer should be no. For any state authorization of business in marijuana contravenes federal law, which still classifies marijuana as a maximally dangerous drug and heavily penalizes its possession and sale, even though federal authorities seldom bother prosecuting smaller incidents, leaving them to the states.

In these circumstances a state’s indifference to marijuana, its leaving all enforcement to the federal government, is perfectly appropriate, but a state’s encouraging and taxing the marijuana business would be a form of nullification of federal law. Granted, Connecticut is far down the path of nullification already, giving illegal immigrants driver’s licenses and other forms of identification, as well as public college tuition discounts, to facilitate their defiance of federal law. But that would not justify encouraging the marijuana business.

The proper solution here would be to legalize marijuana federally, letting the states handle it in their own way. But while U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rightly has warned states that the federal government may start upholding its oath to enforce the law, an oath broken by its predecessor administration in regard to marijuana. President Trump has gone fully retrograde on the drug issue and is even calling for capital punishment for drug dealers, as if the country doesn’t already have enough mistaken convictions for capital crimes.

Lawyerly support

With newspaper essays, several lawyers have jumped into the controversy over Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s nomination of Associate Justice Andrew J. McDonald to be chief justice of Connecticut’s Supreme Court. The essays are similar, asserting that McDonald is qualified by virtue of his experience and ability and that, while the lawyers may not agree with him on everything, they also can endorse him because of their personal acquaintance with him.

None of the essays has addressed the nature of modern appellate courts as super-legislatures settling great political issues judicially rather than democratically, but there is another problem with the essays — their self-interest.

Whether McDonald is appointed chief justice or not, he will remain on the Supreme Court. So what lawyer can be indifferent to the prospect of trying a case before a judge he has criticized? The Connecticut lawyers who have publicly opposed a judicial nomination are few.

Just as you don’t ask the barber if you need a haircut, you don’t ask a lawyer if someone before whom he may be trying a case should be promoted or reappointed — at least not if you need an honest answer.