Madison NORML

This year will mark the 29th anniversary of 23.20. A couple days later, on April 7, the city will officially celebrate its sesquicentennial on the 150th anniversary of the day the city's first mayor and city council met. In 1856, cannabis was widely used as medicine for many ailments in a time when there were few alternatives. Hemp was known as a valuable commodity as a raw material for rope, canvas, paper, and oil.

Back in 1856 the first city employees were not subject to drug testing. The idea that a far-off federal government in Washington D.C. would make cannabis and hemp illegal was completely unthinkable to that first mayor and council and the residents of the young city and state.

Today, at 150, federal mandates touch nearly every facet of life. Our urine, blood and hair may be subjected to tests for pot residue. A positive test can result in loss of employment, housing and even access to medical care. And even here in Madison, home of Ordinance 23.20, prohibition is an accepted fact of life in the “land of the free”.

Back in 1976, when the petitions to put 23.20 before voters were being circulated, Madison was a lot freer place at 120 than today at 150. Richard Nixon had resigned in disgrace two years earlier and marijuana was being decriminalized across the U.S. In Amsterdam, cannabis coffeeshops took hold as the Dutch government started to tolerate the possession and sale of small amounts of pot. The Dutch policies continue today. A few years earlier, in 1972, Nixon’s handpicked choice for a commission on marijuana, former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond Shafer had recommended that possession and sales of small amounts of cannabis be decriminalized. At the federal level, Jimmy Carter’s sons were smoking pot with Willie Nelson on the roof of the White House and federal decriminalization was before the Senate.

But as Ronald Reagan replaced Carter, cannabis tolerance began to recede, even in Madison. While local activists have managed to keep 23.20 alive, it has been 30 years of playing defense. 30 years of pot arrests, 30 years of harm maximization. Alcohol-fueled riots at the Mifflin St. block party and Halloween has become the norm. Alcohol-related mayhem continues to maim and harm citizens, triggering sexual assaults, drunk driving, hit and runs and random violence and injury. This is all part of the price we pay for making alcohol society’s officially approved recreational drug.

So what might a post-prohibition Madison look like? One has to only look to the experiences of Amsterdam and the Netherlands, Vancouver, British Columbia (aka “Vansterdam”) and the San Francisco Bay Area (a section of downtown Oakland has been dubbed “Oaksterdam”) and certain other parts of California.

Madison without cannabis prohibition, let’s call it “Madsterdam”, would be safer, with regulated sales for adults only. The current black market would disappear and along with it the prohibition related violence that occurs when you can’t call a cop to settle disputes.

Many problem drinkers, given a less toxic and legal alternative, might reduce or stop their drinking. Police resources could be re-deployed to better protect and serve. Madison would be healthier and happier too. Smiles would replace drunken scowls. A lot of work needs to be done to bring this vision of Madsterdam to reality. Cannabis prohibition is a counterproductive fraud, and society as a whole would benefit by its end.