Iowa State's push to ban marijuana shirt leads to huge costs
Iowa State University's unconstitutional crackdown on a pro-marijuana student group's T-shirts will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs, according to a partial settlement approved Tuesday.
The State Appeal Board voted to pay $150,000 in damages to two leaders of the university chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws whose free-speech rights were violated by campus administrators. The board also approved a $193,000 payment to two law firms that represented the group for their efforts to defend against the university's unsuccessful appeals, and additional legal fees for their trial work in an amount to be decided by a judge.
The costs stem from what federal judges found were the university's politically motivated, illegal attempts to ban T-shirt designs that featured the Iowa State mascot and a small cannabis leaf — and its year long, unsuccessful defense of those efforts in court. The payouts will come from the state's general budget.
"It is an unambiguous win for our clients and for the First Amendment and for an understanding that violating people's rights isn't free," said the plaintiffs' lead attorney, Robert Corn-Revere. "One reason we urge universities to settle early is to avoid these kinds of expenses."
He said he expects to request a fee award that is "substantially more" for trial work than the $193,000 awarded for the appeals, based on the amount of time spent. The deal requires the state to increase the amount awarded by $15,000 to compensate lawyers for their time spent on the fee application.
The costs do not include work by the taxpayer-funded Iowa Attorney General's office, which represented former ISU President Steven Leath and three other administrators who were found responsible for the constitutional violations.
An injunction will remain in effect that bars Iowa State from enforcing its trademark policies in a discriminatory manner and requires the school to allow the NORML group to produce apparel that includes the image of marijuana.
The case began when the Des Moines Register quoted a group representative and published a picture of the group's shirt in a November 2012 article about efforts to legalize marijuana. The shirt, which had previously been approved by the university, featured the group's name on the front with Iowa State's Cardinal mascot and "Freedom is NORML at ISU" on the back with a small cannabis leaf.
Leath, who left last year to become president of Auburn University, saw the article as a public relations problem after aides to Iowa House Republicans and then-Gov. Terry Branstad inquired about whether the university was supporting the group's pro-marijuana stance.
Administrators blocked the group's pending re-order of the shirt and other designs featuring marijuana leaves, rewriting trademark guidelines to ban the use of school logos on shirts that feature "drugs and drug paraphernalia that are illegal or unhealthful." NORML ISU is one of 800 recognized student groups, which have the right to use school trademarks.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in June that Iowa State's actions amounted to viewpoint discrimination, saying NORML ISU was singled out for "unique scrutiny" because the university opposed its political message. The ruling held that the administrators weren't entitled to immunity, which allowed claims for compensatory damages and attorneys' fees against the officials.
Iowa Solicitor General Jeff Thompson said the settlement will cost less than a trial to decide damages, noting that would have required Leath to be flown back from Alabama to testify. He said the board will be asked to pay the trial fees once a judge rules on what amount is reasonable.
The former students, Paul Gerlich and Erin Furleigh, who filed the lawsuit in 2014, will each receive $75,000 for their "emotional distress."
Kansas lawmaker quits leadership posts after comments about black 'genetics' and marijuana
State Rep. Steve Alford (R), who said over the weekend that African-Americans respond “worst” to marijuana because of “their genetics” and “character makeup,” resigned from his posts as the chairman of the House Children and Seniors Committee and vice chairman of a legislative task force on child welfare, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Alford made the comments at a “Legislative Coffee” session, arguing against a county Democratic official who spoke in favor of legalizing marijuana in the state.
Alford argued that Jim Crow-era bans on drugs were put in place to protect citizens from black Americans’ drug use.
“What you really need to do is go back in the ’30s, when they outlawed all types of drugs in Kansas and across the United States,” Alford said. “What was the reason why they did that? One of the reasons why, I hate to say it, was that the African-Americans, they were basically users and they basically responded the worst to those drugs just because of their character makeup, their genetics and that.”
Alford later apologized for the comments in a statement, according to The Hutchinson News, after facing major backlash from Republicans and Democrats.
“I was wrong, I regret my comments and I sincerely apologize to anyone whom I have hurt,” Alford said
Federal Marijuana Legalization, Reap the Benefits
A new analysis out Wednesday reveals that federal legalization could also raise more than $130 billion in tax revenue by 2025 while also creating more than 1.1 million new jobs.
The new study was published by New Frontier Data—a research and marketing firm whose stated mission is to "inform cannabis-related policy and business decisions through rigorous, issue-neutral and comprehensive analysis of the legal cannabis industry."
As the Drug Policy Alliance has shown, the criminalization regime and enforcement of keeping marijuana and others drugs illegal costs the U.S. government more than $50 billion annually—that includes the outrageous costs of imprisoning tens of thousands of people for nonviolent drug offenses.
Meanwhile, according to New Frontier CEO Giadha Aguirre De Carcer, the government would stand to do very well if marijuana, as has been shown in Washington state and Colorado, was taxed as a legal commodity. "The three most common business taxes that any standard business pays to the federal government are federal business taxes, payroll taxes and sales taxes," De Carcer explained. "If cannabis businesses were legalized tomorrow and taxed as normal businesses with a standard 35% tax rate,
cannabis businesses would infuse the U.S. economy with an additional $12.6 billion this year."
As opposed to the current patchwork of states that have legalized either medical marijuana, its recreational use, or both, the analysis looked at what could happen if the U.S. government made it legal to sell marijuana nationwide and included these major findings:
• If full legalization occurred in all 50 states today, there would be an excess of 782,000 jobs, and would increase to 1.1 million jobs by 2025.
• Full legalization would result in more legal businesses participating in the market, more consumers participating in the legal market, and more employees on official payrolls, resulting in $4 billion in payroll taxes. By 2025, payroll deductions would increase to $5.9 billion.
• Assuming a sales tax at the federal level was implemented at 15%, the total tax revenues from 2017–2025 would theoretically be $51.7 billion. This amount of revenue would be entirely new revenue to the U.S. Treasury, as there are currently no federal sales or excise taxes.
• By combining the business tax revenues, the payroll withholdings based on the theoretical employment required to support the industry, and the 15% retail sales tax, one can calculate the total federal tax revenue potential of legalization: The combined total is estimated to be $131.8 billion.
• The difference between the current structure and the theoretical model is a $76.8 billion increase in federal tax revenues.
The new data comes in the wake of polling that shows historic levels of support for marijuana legalization nationwide. In October of 2017, a Gallup survey found that 64 percent of Americans now favor legal marijuana—the highest level ever recorded. It's also an issue that receives backing from people across the political spectrum. According to the Gallup poll, a majority of Republicans (51%) are in favor while Independents (67%) and Democrats (72%) support legalization at even higher levels.
