It will surprise no one to learn that Arizona governor Jan Brewer is no fan of the federal government. She was in favor of laws like Senate Bill 1070, the immigration law that is still being contested in the courts over whether or not it infringes on federal jurisdiction on immigration policy.
However, she is willing to defer to the feds over something she has vehemently opposed: medical marijuana.
Arizona voters passed proposition 203 in November, which joined them with 16 other states that have legalized medicinal marijuana.
Arizona's law is one of the strictest of those states, limiting eligibility to people with serious diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, and epilepsy. Arizona's law is also the most restrictive in terms of the amount of pot that is legal to possess: One ounce, and only three mature plants at a time.
Despite these strict limitations, the new pot industry was set to bring $700 million dollars annually to Arizona. Also, dispensaries would provide jobs to this state, which has had an unemployment rate of over nine percent for more than two years.
That is, until Brewer got all chummy with the federal government.
See, there's some confusion about this pot thing. It is technically legal to possess marijuana in the states that have passed laws to that effect. However, possession of marijuana is still illegal under federal law. So, technically speaking, dispensary employees, and people following state law could be prosecuted by the federal government.
If Brewer wasn't such a state's rights fanatic, I might actually buy this as a valid and necessary clarification of a murky law, but her record speaks for itself. She sued the federal government over health care, she pushed immigration laws that assert state's rights, and she is a proud member of 'renewed federalism,' a movement that supports state's rights. Arizona is a pioneer in trying to snatch rights for states, introducing bills like the “birther” bill, which would require presidential candidates to provide copies of their birth certificate to Arizona in order to get on the ballot here.
So ... why does she care so much about federal jurisdiction now?
Because she is opposed to medical marijuana. In a news conference last year she claimed that her opposition is based in fears over “backdoor legalization” of the drug, and that passing this law could increase crime and create safety risks.
However, anyone who has read any studies on drug policy knows that the status quo is not working. Punishing small time drug users is costly and ineffective. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that researches alternatives to current drug policy, the U.S. has spent at least a trillion dollars on the war on drugs. That's $169 from every single person in the United States put into a war that we cannot win. Currently the focus is incarceration and punishment, which doesn't make any sense, because if you put an addict in prison for 90 days, they will be released as an addict.
The focus must shift to a reduction in harm caused by drug policy and treatment of issues like gang violence, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.
In short, the drug policy sucks, unless you are tied to the private prison system. In that case, any kind of legalization, backdoor or otherwise is very bad for your bottom line.
Now, whose campaign manager is also the head of the lobbying firm that represents the Corrections Corporation of America, the for-profit prison people?
Oh yeah, Jan Brewer’s.
Perhaps this is a coincidence, but since when did Gov. Brewer care one bit about what the federal government did?
Medical marijuana could bring much-needed jobs and money to this state, which is extremely short on both. But Brewer doesn't care about that.
She would rather see students' tuition increase, see people with severe medical conditions denied lifesaving transplants, see our already sub-par public transportation system crumble even more, see social services like libraries, kids clubs, and afterschool programs shut down than allow a proposition that was passed by the voters to actually come into effect.
If Brewer is so concerned about preserving our rights as a state, then let us use them. This suit against the federal government in order to clarify this murky issue is just a thinly veiled attempt to stymie a law that would help everyone except the people Brewer really cares about: not the voters, but the donors, the money and the private prison system.
So much for state's rights.
Reach the columnist at omcquarr@asu.edu
