In 2002, after two years of study in congregations nationwide, the Unitarian Universalist Association voted on a Statement of Conscience on drug policy at their annual General Assembly.

    I figured I would start out this morning by reading from that document.

    “For more than thirty years, American public policy has advanced an escalating "war on drugs" that seeks to eradicate illegal drugs from our society. It is increasingly clear that this effort has failed. Our current drug policy has consumed tens of billions of dollars and wrecked countless lives. The costs of this policy include the increasing breakdown of families and neighborhoods, endangerment of children, widespread violation of civil liberties, escalating rates of incarceration, political corruption, and the imposition of United States policy abroad. For United States taxpayers, the price tag on the drug offensive has soared from $66 million in 1968 to almost $20 billion in 2000, an increase of over 30,000 percent. In practice the drug war disproportionately targets people of color and people who are poverty-stricken. Coercive measures have not reduced drug use, but they have clogged our criminal justice system with non-violent offenders. It is time to explore alternative approaches and to end this costly war.”

    “As Unitarian Universalists committed to affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person and to justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, we call for thoughtful consideration and implementation of alternatives”

    One of the policy recommendations in the Statement of Conscience is to “Establish a legal, regulated, and taxed market for marijuana.” This was first recommended in 1973 and then re-affirmed in 2002.

    Friends, as Nevada residents in 2006, we have the unique chance to make this major UU policy recommendation a reality.

    Nevada is the only state that has a ballot question in the November election, that if passed would establish a legal, tightly regulated and taxed market for marijuana with sensible safeguards. This would make world headlines and it would be the most significant victory for drug policy reform in modern times.

    C.S. Lewis said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive…those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

    Our marijuana laws are a perfect illustration of what C.S. Lewis points out. At least currently, there goal is well-intentioned. The logic goes something like this: “Marijuana is a harmful and dangerous drug; therefore it should be prohibited to protect society from its dangers.”

    If only it were that easy.

    Our, some would say noble, 70 year experiment with marijuana prohibition has failed miserably by every measure one could judge the efficacy of a law.

    Despite drastically escalating expenditures aimed at eliminating marijuana use over the last few decades, the exact opposite has happened. Marijuana is more widely available, more widely used, and the average quality of the available marijuana is better than ever.

    Punishing otherwise law-abiding adults for consuming marijuana is counterproductive. People often lose their jobs, clog the courts, lose their federal financial aid to go to college, and spend time in prison and with real criminals.

    President Jimmy Carter in an address to Congress, said, “Penalties against a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana for personal use.”

    Why is marijuana prohibition the biggest problem in the Drug War?

    Marijuana is the most widely used illicit substance. Let me put this into context. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, some 95 million Americans or about 40% of the population have tried marijuana. That is three times the number of people who have ever tried cocaine, eight times the number of people who have ever tried methamphetamine or ecstasy, over ten times the number of people who ever tried crack cocaine, and over 20 times the number of people who have ever tried heroin. And the disparity in usage rates for past month use is roughly double those for lifetime use.

    Of the roughly 1.6 million people arrested on drug charges last year, about 800,000 of them were for marijuana alone. And 90% of those were for possession, not sale or manufacture. More people are arrested for marijuana in this country than all violent crimes combined. That stat holds true for Nevada as well. Nevada’s state, county and local law enforcement officers arrested over 5,000 people for marijuana offenses in 2005.

    Marijuana Prohibition is the lynchpin of the Drug War.

    And who gets the profits from the huge marijuana market? Violent gangs and drug dealers.

    The DEA came out with a report a few months ago showing that most of the marijuana being sold in Nevada is smuggled into the country by Mexican gangs. Marijuana prohibition hands a hugely profitable market over to criminal gangs. It’s like a huge subsidy to organized crime. If we made sugar illegal tomorrow, gang membership would rise. There would be more jobs available in the new criminal market.

    The federal government reports that teenagers find marijuana easier to obtain than beer. Why is that? Because they have to convince an adult to get them alcohol, where as they can buy marijuana from the kid sitting next to them in algebra class.

    There are more Nevada teenagers smoking marijuana than cigarettes. 58% of high school seniors admit to having tried marijuana.

    Anyone that wants to use marijuana already is and our tough laws not only haven’t worked, but have actually caused much harm to our community.

    Think about it. Drug dealers don’t card. They don’t have zoning rules about where they run their business. They don’t pay taxes on their profits. And they settle their disputes with violence and intimidation. When it comes to the marijuana trade, we have created a free-for-all.

    What’s more important, the punishment of sin or the safety and security of our community? If we continue our current policy of using precious police resources to hunt down marijuana users, we are making the choice to punish sin at the peril of our community.

    Many people think that the question of whether to regulate and tax marijuana or not is analogous to asking someone if they think marijuana use is good or not. As pillars of your community, you have the credibility to set the record straight and point out that the ballot question facing voters is not a referendum on marijuana use, but rather a referendum on what public policy on marijuana will best serve our community.

    Pointing out the harms of marijuana use is not an argument against regulation. It is simply an argument against marijuana use.

    I am suggesting that marijuana use belongs in the same category of a host of questionable behaviors that we choose not to use criminal law to stop such as adultery, greediness, gambling, excessive alcohol use, tobacco use, etc. No one suggests that using criminal law to stop those behaviors would be a net benefit to our communities or that opposing the use of criminal law is an endorsement of the behavior. Those that suggest that regulating marijuana would be tantamount to endorsing its use are at best misguided, and at worst, deceptive.

    The law doesn't stop marijuana use.  Families, churches, and educators do that. 

    Why should people of faith care about this issue?  Because how we punish people and what we punish people for are central moral questions.

    If a policy fails to meet its objectives and causes harm to humans, do we have a moral obligation to support change?

    We need to ask ourselves if any policy, whatever the motivation, can be moral if it leads to widespread corruption, imprisons millions, is racist in its enforcement, decimates our inner cities, and ruins the lives of vulnerable individuals.

    Also, how can we justify spending money waging a war on marijuana users, when we don’t have enough money to fund drug treatment for people who are seeking help for addiction?

    Half of the taxes from regulated marijuana sales would go towards filling the treatment gap. According to a UNLV study, those taxes will be sufficient to fill this pressing need.

    The use of force by a society is a responsibility that should be used with great caution. When you look at marijuana’s relative harm in comparison to other behaviors that we don’t use government coercion and punishment on and then you consider the exorbitant cost of marijuana prohibition, its failure and the harm it causes, it is hard to see marijuana prohibition as anything other than a frivolous use of government force.

    The good news is that more and more people are recognizing this and coming out from the shadows and risking their reputations to stand up for what they know in their hearts is right. People such as William F. Buckley, former police chief of Kansas City, Joseph McNamara, Walter Cronkite (once called the most trusted man in America), Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, former Secretary of State, George Schultz, former Gov. of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, 20/20’s Hugh Downs and John Stossell, former mayor of Baltimore and current Dean of Howard University Law School, Kurt Schmoke, former Surgeon General, Jocelyn Elders, and former Gov. of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura.

    Our very own UUA President, Bill Sinkford said, "The so-called war on drugs is creating violence, endangering children, clogging the criminal justice system, eroding civil liberties, and disproportionately punishing people of color. It's time, ... for a cease-fire."

    Andy Anderson, the former president of the Nevada Conference of Police and Sheriffs (the largest police union in the state), said “As a 29 year police officer with Metro in Las Vegas, I have seen that current marijuana laws don't work. Strict regulation and taxation would make it harder for teens to obtain marijuana, and the money generated from taxes would go to help treat and prevent drug abuse. That's the real solution.”

    So why haven’t our laws changed yet?

    I propose that one of the main reasons the laws haven’t changed yet is because many of the people who agree consider ending marijuana prohibition to be a frivolous or self-indulgent issue or they are afraid of being ridiculed for taking action. People often get a smirk on their face when you tell them you are putting effort into regulating and taxing marijuana. They think it’s funny. “Legalize the weed man!” Many of our supporters make a similar mistake as our opponents. They confuse their feelings about marijuana use, with their feelings about policy reform. While pot may make some people think about Cheech and Chong, giggling, and the munchies, marijuana prohibition is anything but funny and light-hearted.

    There is nothing funny about throwing billions of dollars down a rat-hole. There is nothing funny about an otherwise law-abiding citizen being put in hand-cuffs, losing their ability to go to college, and having their house confiscated -- or worse yet, their children. There is nothing funny about a twelve year-old child buying marijuana from the kid sitting next to them in math class. There is nothing funny about violent criminal gangs and drug dealers controlling the marijuana market.

    Yes, it is socially safer to spend time on issues that everyone already considers serious issues like the environment, racial justice, gay rights, reproductive rights, etc. Let’s not forget that there was a time when those issues were considered marginal, laughable or self-indulgent.

    And in almost all of those cases it was UUs who took on the responsibility to change that, to speak truth to power, and be pioneers.

    This sermon would be different, maybe a little more theoretical, if I was giving it in any other place besides NV. But because it is here, I can’t stress enough how much you are needed immediately to help make the largest dent in the Drug War that has ever been made. All eyes are on NV. This is the largest drug policy reform effort ever. We are not talking about someday. We actually have a very realistic chance of changing the laws this November -- but we need your help with donations, volunteer time, yard signs, and the willingness to approach influential people you know to ask for their support.

    I am asking you to be pioneers in the great UU tradition and join me in picking up the torch that our denomination has placed at our feet and carry it to victory in the name of justice.

    I'll close by reading another passage from that UUA Statement of Conscience:

    “As a community of faith, Unitarian Universalists have both a moral imperative and a personal responsibility to ask the difficult questions that so many within our society are unable, unwilling, or too afraid to ask. In asking these questions and in weighing our findings, we are compelled to consider a different approach to national drug policy.”

    “The consequences of the current drug war are cruel and counterproductive. At issue here are the health and well-being of our families and our communities, our society, and our global community.”

    “Our Unitarian Universalist history calls us to pursue a more just world. Our faith compels us to hold our leaders accountable for their policies. Recognizing the right of conscience for all who differ, we denounce the war on drugs and recommend alternative goals and policies. Let neither fear nor any other barrier prevent us from advocating a more just, compassionate world.”