No Pot to Piss In

Our Opinion/Moorhead cannot afford to shoot itself in the economic foot

By Cindy Gomez-Schempp
Editor

After his heroic rescue of Moorhead citizens from the evils of toy guns (or “Facsimile weapons” as they were dubbed) Chief Ebbinger and the Moorhead City Council are poised to challenge the next big public threat to accost our fair city: Smoke Shops. These dutiful city officials would have us believe they are fighting for our mortal souls by removing the temptations provided by smoke shops from our midst. In reality they are chipping away at our personal freedoms.

They argue that too many smoke shops, especially those that dare advertise with what some consider offensive lighting, are dirty, bad and dangerous. With all those pipes and houkas, who will be able to resist the temptations of illegal drugs? The police chief and City Council would take these wicked toys away from from us with the goal of preventing anyone from smoking pot. Ahh. If only it were that simple.

Having new smoke shops isn’t going to increase consumption of pot. Removing all man-made or manufactured earth materials that could be fashioned into a smoking implement will fail to stop consumption of pot. In fact, since the prohibition of pot in the early 1900’s there has been nothing that has slowed the consumption of marijuana in the U.S. The Chief and the City Council owe the people of Moorhead a detailed explanation of how this controversial ordinance is going to meet any objective, be it reducing drug consumption or decreasing crime in general.

And they had better do their research. Because, frankly, the jury is already out on this one. And everyone, from the special council that Nixon appointed to study the effects of pot use, to our nation’s best and brightest ivy league economists, has found conclusively that the negative physical effects of pot are negligible; that prohibition has NEVER worked as a means of controlling consumption or crime, nearly always producing the opposite effect than intended increasing consumption and chronic use; and that the best way to decrease organized crime and deaths from violence due to the black market nature of drugs is to legalize marijuana.

But we are not talking about marijuana here. We’re talking about pipes, and in particular about the shops that sell them. There are already laws that regulate controlled substances. The Supreme Court has already ruled that paraphernalia sales are legal. The City Council agreed with the law of the land when it issued licenses to the businesses it now wants to plow under. 

So who benefits from an ordinance that neither stems drug use, nor reduces crime? We already know it wouldn’t be the taxpayers. Closing down sources of sorely needed tax revenue and employment in a City already soaked in the red is economic suicide for Moorhead. It certainly won’t be the local Smoke Shops who would be crippled economically or put down in a single shot. It would seem that the City and the Police department enforcing the law and collecting the fines would stand the most to gain.

As he waves a peace sign to businessmen and taxpayers alike, Chief Ebbinger tells a different story “We’re not trying to eliminate anybody’s business.” The roar of laughter that greeted the Chief after he uttered the statement should cause the City Council to be open and transparent about the real benefits and damages this would cause Moorhead. So far the ordinance seems less convincing as a tool to quell drug use and crime and more of tactic aimed at pulling the proverbial door off our collective bedrooms so they can “keep an eye on us.” Why forfeit more of our privacy rights and freedoms to the police department and City Council at the expense of honest and hardworking taxpayers and business owners? Legally, and economically it makes no sense at all. Morality, most would argue, is none of the Council or the Chief’s business.

It’s very hypocritical for city officials to try to dictate morality through ordinance anyway. Typically it is those same government politicos that squeal the loudest that are often behind the biggest drug, sex, and morality scandals. Isn’t it always the politicos who condemn drug use loudest who end up splashed on a tabloid with their pants down and their noses full of candy? Or the congressional member who votes against gay marriage and is later picked up cruising for sex in the airport?

Let’s face it. No one in history has yet been able to dictate morality behind closed doors with police or ordinances. The current and longstanding “war on drugs” has done little to decrease drug use or criminal activity but has done much to burden tax payers and local governments with costs of enforcement and incarceration of violators.

Neither the chief nor the City Council can come up with any viable reason or measurable outcome that justifies increasing unemployment, decreasing hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax revenue and continuing to repaint the Moorhead downtown into a ghost town. Unless there is a strong and loud opposition, the City Council and the Chief are expected to pass the ordinance. Both are counting on shame stemming from stigmatization and the taboo of “drug paraphernalia” to keep sensible people away from the fight. But it doesn’t have to go down like that.

You don’t have to be ashamed of noticing the obvious. The Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron who wrote the detailed report about the harms of demonizing and keeping pot illegal is not ashamed of pointing out facts. To hear more from Minion go to http://tiny.cc/legalize. The business owners who are being told their livelihoods are not being attacked are not ashamed of laughing out loud in disbelief. The hypocrisy of our leadership is thinly veiled. How many decades has it been now that we’ve had recovering alcoholics, pot smokers, sex addicts and cocaine snorters as our presidents? Local officials playing at policing morality should expect a backlash from the public.

The proposed ordinance is ambiguous and leaves it up to the discretion of police who to bust and who not. By and large, businesses and individuals will suffer. City officials acknowledge that the ordinance will likely trigger a black market in smoke products and lure revenue away from the city toward online stores that feature the same products. So, why should we keep ignoring the obvious?

We should also keep in mind that the strongest proponents for harsh penalties and stiff fines are usually those who stand to profit the most from them. In this case, the city of Moorhead is in no position to blow smoke up our back sides about their intentions. We should not be ashamed of demanding a plausible reason from our city officials for proposing this ordinance. We should instead be angry that they intend to further destabilize our local economy and pry away more of our personal rights for unknown reasons and undefinable goals. Letting the chief and City Council strike this hollow and meaningless blow affecting freedom and finance based on their moral compasses alone is eventually going to leave Moorhead without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. Let’s use our common sense on this one.

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