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RICK STEVES Travel expert touts pot legalization Speaks Friday at events in Medford, Ashland By John Darling For the Daily Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling For the Daily Tidings Posted Oct. 8, 2014 @ 6:06 pm By John Darling For the Daily Tidings Posted Oct. 8, 2014 @ 6:06 pm » RELATED CONTENT • Marijuana growers are threat to salmon, biologists conclude • Travel expert Rick Steves tours Oregon in support of lega... • November elections right around the corner • What difference will it make if recreational pot use is l... • If pot is medicine, should it be taxed? » Social News As Oregon’s ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana enters its final weeks, Rick Steves, noted European travel guru, will be on the stump in the Rogue Valley, asking voters to follow Europe’s lead and stop making criminals out of people who toke for their own pleasure. Steves, whose travel enterprises are located in pot-friendly Washington state, will lecture on liberalization of weed laws in Medford and Ashland on Friday, Oct.10, as part of a tour called “Travel as a Political Act.” He will cover 10 Oregon cities over six days.  “I’m the rare person who can talk openly about this without having to be worried about being reelected or fired,” said Steves, in a phone interview. “The laws against marijuana are unproductive and very expensive, as Oregon has to lock up and care for 800,000 people. It’s also racist, as these people are not white, rich people. It’s time to take crime out of the equation and let adults use marijuana as a civil liberty, as they do alcohol and tobacco.” In his decades of travel in Europe and his public broadcasting show, “ Rick Steves’ Europe ” and his books, “Europe Through the Back Door,” Steves has gotten to know the customs of a very different culture, noting “Europe has learned that marijuana use does not increase when you make it legally OK. There’s no correlation between legality and consumption.” Steves contends that, after legalization, there may be a spike in pot use, “but it settles back down. The Dutch (noted for liberal pot laws) smoke less than the rest of Europe and far less than Americans. Portugal, which dropped laws on all drugs 10 years ago, reports use of all drugs has gone down 50 percent.” A main effect of “taking crime out of the equation,” he notes, is that it takes money out of organized crime and directs it to education and also drug prevention. The effects of recreational pot legalization in his native Washington are that “the dire predictions did not come true. What happened is that 5,000 arrests per year didn’t happen because we decided to regulate it legally and those 5,000 people, most of whom were going through tough times and needed to get jobs and lives, didn’t have criminal records.” As for progressive states being countermanded by federal laws against pot, Steves said Congress may pass laws, but it’s the states who are the “incubators of smart solutions” that they find work in real life, such as happened during alcohol Prohibition, when New York, then other states legalized beer, then moved on to hard alcohol, forcing Congress to get in step. “There’s no reason to be docile and follow federal prohibition,” he said. “The federal government is not going to say, ‘oh, this is causing a big problem.’” The system is such, he said, that if some counties still want to ban alcohol, they become dry counties and all levels of government let that be OK. Steves, an activist who also works against hunger and homeless and is a benefactor to the arts, predicted Oregon and Alaska would legalize recreational marijuana this year and California in two years. Asked who benefits by illegal pot, Steves said, “Just look at who is the opposition, what I call 'Pot Prohibition Profiteers': pharmaceuticals, beer, prisons for profit, sheriffs and law enforcement organizations, drug rehab people. All this brings in millions of dollars a year.” Reponding to cries of danger about marijuana, he said, “The only thing dangerous about it is having to buy it from ciminals on the street.” Steves speaks on the subject on Friday, Oct. 10 at noon in the large meeting room of the Medford Public Library, 205 S. Central, and at 7 p.m. at Ashland’s Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, 87 Fourth Street. The talks are free and open to the public. Ballot measure 91, legalizing recreational use of marijuana, will be on the Nov. 4 ballot. Oregon already legalized medical marijuana by popular vote. John Darling is a freelance writer living in Ashland. Email him at [email protected]. By John Darling For the Daily Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling For the Daily Tidings Posted Oct. 8, 2014 @ 6:06 pm » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with DailyTidings.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Alerts Email alerts RSS feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Your privacy is important, read our privacy policy. © Copyright 2014 Local Media Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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