Editor’s note: This commentary is by Debby Haskins, who is the executive director of SAM-VT (Smart Approaches to Marijuana).
[S]tart with overwhelming rejection of Big Marijuana.
Just a few short weeks ago, the Vermont House of Representatives rejected the legalization of commercialized recreational marijuana by an overwhelming majority. Obviously, the House decided that creating Big Marijuana is not the Vermont way.
In the flurry of pronouncements following that historic (and, according to some, impossible) decision, we must not forget that S.241, the bill that would have created a marijuana industry here, passed the Senate by only a slender five-vote margin. It becomes clear that this is not a simple issue when so many Democrats decide to vote against the expressed wishes of our Democratic governor.
But neither can we forget the slender margin by which the House rejected expanding the decriminalization law to include home growing of up to four plants per household. Many Democrats and Republicans in the House were willing to give this idea a try.
Marijuana legalization is a complex, contentious, but relatively non-partisan issue in the Statehouse and also among Vermont’s general population. The Castleton and VPR polls both showed small margins of support for legalization, but the annual Doyle Report, which tends to reach a small but politically active sector of the population, has consistently shown a small majority against legalization.
A huge majority of Vermont’s population does not use marijuana and never will.
Whatever the poll results, 121 members of the House chose to heed the recommendations of the Vermont Department of Health, Vermont’s six largest medical associations, Vermont’s school supervisors, principals, teachers, and counselors, all of Vermont’s law enforcement agencies and the vast majority of their officers, important sectors of its business community, and the many citizens who raised their voices. A huge majority of House members took note that the growing body of scientific research has been showing that marijuana use causes more harm than we thought. They realized that too many legalization issues are not going smoothly in Colorado and Washington, where the results are still incomplete. So they chose to act on the side of caution.
One thing that everyone agrees on is that marijuana is particularly bad for our youth, and the educators and prevention experts who testified pointed out how difficult it was to reduce youth use rates. These were in fact declining in Vermont until medical marijuana was legalized, at which time the public conversation about legal recreational marijuana began in earnest, and youth use rates went flat.
Some parts of the House bill tried to address these concerns. A newly created Marijuana Advisory Commission would have studied the legalization issue more closely. In addition, the House bill would have authorized the start of a youth education and prevention program aimed at reviving the downward trend in youth use rates now, while we are still debating legalization, rather than after the fact, when the task would have become much more difficult.
The Vermont House is to be commended for their thoughtful and careful decision, but the Senate deserves its due respect. Both the advisory commission and the prevention program, with a few differences, were part of their original bill. But those provisions also died in the Senate at the last hour, when it became obvious that it was time to let the entire flawed bill die, even the reasonable parts.
This summer, members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees will hold more public meetings on the marijuana issue. We hope that they will invite and listen to people who have experience in the marijuana field: in education, prevention, treatment, and mental health.
We also hope they will keep in mind how the voting went and look again at improving our decriminalization law as a legitimate alternative to commercialized recreational marijuana. A close look at the Netherlands, for example, will show that you don’t need to create Big Marijuana in order to fund prevention or place adequate controls on the black market.
We also hope they’ll remember that this is not just a law enforcement issue or an economic issue – it is very much a public health issue. A huge majority of Vermont’s population does not use marijuana and never will. In the long run, we have to consider the health and well being of all Vermonters. It’s the Vermont way.
