Is there really a chance Louisiana (!?!?!) is really considering marijuana legalization for economic reasons?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by this new Daily Beast piece headlined “Will Louisiana Be the First Southern State to Legalize Weed?”.  Here are excerpts:

One of the harshest states on pot offenders is reportedly exploring the idea of a recreational marijuana program. Saddled with $850 million in state debts, experts say Louisiana’s move is less motivated by safety as it is by money.

The idea to offset a colossal deficit with legal pot was allegedly born out of concern from lawmakers backing two bills that may cause budget cuts.  Combined with the news that Colorado raked in $900 million from its marijuana program in 2015, it may be enough to get conservative pot prohibitionists to change their tune.

“I think they’re looking at it strictly as a profit-driven, tax-based incentive,” Kevin Caldwell, executive director of Commonsense NOLA, a nonpartisan organization fighting for legalization, says of the rumblings about legalizing. Caldwell is excited about the legalization talk, and says New Orleans, which decriminalized it in 2010, has been paving the way.

But even Caldwell, who has devoted his life to the cause, isn’t getting his hopes up yet.  “I think it is more likely next session, once the politicians get the real blowback from the budget cuts,” he says. “Once the state sees cuts to things like social services and universities…I think that will reawaken some of the populism from our past, which, in this case, is a good thing.”

If the state does decide to move forward with the creation of a recreational marijuana program, it will be the most unlikely legalization story thus far.  In the four states where marijuana is legal recreationally — Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon — police had generally been turning a blind eye to marijuana for decades.

But Louisiana is a different story.  With the state’s exceptionally strict sentencing laws and a powerful anti-legalization sheriff’s association, it is one of the toughest places to get caught with pot.  Notorious for putting nonviolent marijuana offenders behind bars — it’s a war that Louisiana sheriffs wage primarily with minorities.

According to a report from the American Civil Liberties Union, in 2010, African Americans made up 64 percent of marijuana possession arrests in Louisiana — despite making up just 32 percent of the state population. By these numbers, blacks in the state are three times more likely to be arrested for pot than whites, despite studies showing they use at the same rates (or less).

A subsequent ACLU report on the harshness of sentencing found Louisiana to have the highest number of prisoners (429) serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes — many of them for minor marijuana offenses. Ninety-one percent of the 429 are black, and the vast majority of them are housed at the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary, which Caldwell calls “America’s last plantation.” One is a previously homeless man who was caught dealing less than $20 worth of marijuana.

The lengths at which Louisiana goes to enforce marijuana prohibition go beyond laws.  Enforcing marijuana possession (combining police, judicial, and correctional fees) costs the state $46.4 million per year.  “All these draconian measures we put on people and we’re still one of the most violent states in the country,” Caldwell says of the marijuana arrests.  “Obviously the way we’re doing things doesn’t work.  Obviously it’s time to change our paradigm.”

While the concept of legalizing marijuana to save the state’s budget seems to have been met with relatively mild responses, suggestions of the same — when framed as a safety issue — invoke panic and rage. After activists floated the idea of legalization to a local sheriff whose officers had just fatally shot a marijuana dealer, he reportedly went into a “fit of rage.”

Long-time readers and all my students likely know that I view the potential short-term and long-term economic and tax benefits can be a power argument in favor of marijuana reform, and it would not surprise me if we start seeing a number of legislators in a number of states start rethinking whether blanket pot prohibition is a “game worth the candle.”  But, in light of the historically tough approach to marijuana crimes in Louisiana, this story’s suggestion that Louisiana could become the first full legalization state in the south strikes me as just very wishful thinking right now.