John Lovell is a lobbyist who makes a lot of money from making sure
you can’t smoke a joint. That’s his job. He’s a lobbyist for the police
unions in Sacramento, and he is a driving force behind grabbing Federal
dollars to shut down the California marijuana industry. I’ll get to the
evidence on this important story in a bit, but first, some context.
At some point in the distant past, the war on drugs might have been popular. But not anymore — the
polling is clear, but beyond that, the last
three Presidents have used illegal drugs. So why do we still put hundreds of
thousands of people
in steel cages for pot-related offenses? Well, there are many reasons,
but one of them is, of course, money in politics. Corruption. Whatever
you want to call it, it’s why you can’t smoke a joint without committing
a crime, though of course you can ingest any number of pills or drinks
completely within the law.
Some of the groups who want to keep the drug illegal are police
unions that want more members to pay more dues. One of the primary
sources for cash for more policing activities are Federal grants for
penalizing illegal drug use, which help pay for overtime, additional
police officers, and equipment for the force. That’s what Lovell does,
he gets those grants. He also fights against democratic mechanisms to
legalize drugs.
In 2010, California considered Prop 19, a measure to legalize marijuana and tax it as alcohol. The proposition gained
more votes
than Meg Whitman, the former eBay executive and Republican
gubernatorial nominee that year, but failed to pass. Opponents of the
initiative
ran ads, organized
rallies, and spread conspiracy theories about billionaire George Soros to confuse voters.
Lovell managed the opposition campaign against Prop 19. He
told
Time Magazine that he was pushing against the initiative because, “the
last thing we need is yet another mind-altering substance to be
legalized.”
But Republic Report reviewed lobbying contracts during the Prop 19 fight, and
found that Lovell’s firm was paid over
$386,350 from a wide array of police unions, including the California Police Chiefs Association.
While Lovell may contend that he sincerely opposes the idea of
marijuana legalization, he has constructed an entire business model
predicated on pot prohibition.
Shortly after President Obama’s stimulus program passed, Lovell went
to work channeling the taxpayer money for California into drug war
programs. According to
documents Republic Report
obtained from
the Police Chiefs Association, Lovell helped local departments apply
for drug war money from the Federal government. Here’s a copy of
one letter sent to a police department in Lassen County, California:
There is big money in marijuana prohibition. Lovell represented a police union in a bid to steer some $2.2 million dollars into a “Marijuana Suppression Program.” In 2009 and 2010, California police unions sought a
$7,537,389 chunk of Federal money for police to conduct a “Campaign Against Marijuana Planting” program.
The anti-marijuana money went directly into the paychecks of many
officers. For example, police departments in Shasta, Siskiyou, and
Tehama Counties formed a “North California Eradication Team” to receive $550,000 in grants that helped pay for overtime, a new officer, and flight operations:
The total amount awarded was $550,000, to be split
between Shasta, Siskiyou and Tehama counties, which make up the Northern
California Marijuana Eradication Team (NorCal-MET). Broken down
in the agenda worksheet, the sheriff’s office is expecting to spend
$20,000 on flight operations, $94,895 for the full-time deputy’s salary
and benefits, $16,788 for the administration assistant salary and
benefits and $29,983 to cover up to 666.29 hours of overtime.
The Federal anti-marijuana honeypot might have dried up if Prop 19
had passed. Legalizing marijuana would have generated billions in tax
revenue for the state of California, while also reducing victimless
crime prosecutions. But for lobbyists like Lovell, legalization was a
direct assault on hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential fees for
helping to solicit taxpayer money for his clients.
Police unions also contributed about
$100,500
to a campaign account used to coordinate opposition to Prop 19. Of the
$386,350 in fees paid by police unions to Lovell through 2009 and 2010,
status update reports reviewed by Republic Report reveal that Lovell
worked on a number of issues, from advocacy against Prop 19 to
channeling grants and monitoring legislation.
Of course, police unions aren’t the only interest group with a stake in maintaining broken drug laws. The
beer industry,
alcohol corporations,
and prison guard unions also contributed money to help Lovell stop Prop
19. Howard Wooldridge, a retired police officer who now helps push for
legalization as a citizen advocate,
told Republic Report that drug company lobbyists also fight to keep marijuana illegal because they view pot as a low-cost form of competition.
