Live and preserve your heritage - by Judge Jim Gray

At this point in my life, I have lost my grandparents and parents and all of their siblings. So as far as who the "elder statesmen" are on my side of the family, my sister and I are now the ones.

Fortunately, before they died, I was able to tape record my mother and her siblings singing the songs that I heard her and them sing when I was a child, and also my father telling some of the stories and poems he had recited during my childhood. So their voices and some of our heritage have been preserved.

In addition, my father also took the initiative during the later years of his life to prepare what he called his "letter to his grandchildren." This consisted of about 12 volumes of photo albums and scrapbooks with his written explanations tracing the history of many of the ancestors on both sides of our family, providing some of their letters and mementos, telling some of their stories, and identifying their pictures that had been kept in shoeboxes for years.

I strongly suggest that you take similar actions to preserve your heritage. While there is still time, interview your grandparents, if you are still fortunate enough to have them with you, as well as your parents, their siblings, and other important people in your lives. And record the interviews in audio, or even visual form, while they tell about your family's history, noteworthy stories, songs, or whatever they and you feel would be interesting. I guarantee that you and your family will always be grateful to have those recorded memories and conversations!What a gift, because once my parents and their siblings were gone, the bare pictures and effects would have meant almost nothing to us. But with my father providing their names, dates and backgrounds, an important part of our heritage was preserved. This was so important that we caused the letter to be transferred onto CDs, with each of our children receiving a copy. (The original "letter" was donated to the Bancroft Library at the University of California, as they are interested in preserving California history of all kinds.)

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Upcoming Heritage Festival

And speaking of living your heritage, remember my Feb. 6 column in which we discussed the upcoming Heritage Music Festival? Well, that event will be held from noon to 7 p.m. May 22 at the Heritage Museum of Orange County. Please be sure to join us and be a part of a truly wonderful and bonding family occasion that will increase your family's heritage.

Three excellent bluegrass bands, as well as one big band, will perform.

Stephanie and Luke, who are unbelievable on the fiddle, guitar, banjo and mandolin, will stage a children's concert at 1:15 p.m. The big band A Wing and a Prayer will then perform at 2:20 p.m., followed by Stephanie and Luke again at 3:25 p.m. with their bluegrass music, the Dennis Roger Reed Band at 4:30 p.m. with great cowboy blues music, and then Folding Mr. Lincoln will perform at 5:35 with their fiddle-driven folk music.

Before the concert, Chief David from the native tribes of Orange County has kindly agreed to give his ritual blessings upon the festival. In addition, there will also be a delicious barbecue of tri-tip steak sandwiches and more, plus a great craft brew beer and wine garden, as well as community tables for other nonprofit organizations to show you some of the good things that are continuing to happen here in Orange County.

And now comes the extra special family part, because all through the afternoon we will have fun and educational events and demonstrations for children. Among them is a demonstration at the Heritage Museum's working blacksmith shop, storytellers, hands-on adobe brickmaking, mounted officers from the Santa Ana Police Department, a vintage 1921 fire engine, native tribal exhibits, a caricature artist, children's art classes and more.

The Heritage Museum is next to the Godinez High School in Southern Santa Ana, which is on Harvard Street just off Fairview Road between Edinger Street and Warner Avenue and between the San Diego (405) and Garden Grove (22) freeways. You can get more information by calling (714) 540-0404, or visiting http://www.HeritageMuseumOC.org.

As a disclosure, I have joined the museum's board of directors, because this is a gem of a place that has not yet come close to reaching its full potential to serve our community. But with this annual family event we are getting closer. And we are also grateful that this heritage event is scheduled to be recorded in documentary form by some film school students at Chapman University.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Let parents make best school choices - Judge Jim Gray

One simple question should resolve the "school choice" issue for most thoughtful people: "Who is in a better position to decide how and where children can best be educated: their parents or the government?"

The answer should be transparent, so why not actually allow parents to make those important decisions?

Recently there were headlines that the Los Angeles Unified School District has (finally) agreed to measure a school's success at raising its students' performance. But if parents could choose the school that their children could attend, no other rating system would be required.

Simply stated, if parents felt that their child's school was not doing as effective a job as another school within their area, they would move their child to the better performing school.

Then, systemically, if many parents withdrew their children from a particular school, soon one of two things would happen: That school would either begin to compete by improving its services, or go out of service, or be sold to others who would do a better job. This is what happens routinely in the private sector as a result of competition, and it consistently produces good results.

Thus we would not only have better schools for college preparation, but also for almost any trade imaginable, because flexibility and innovation are the hallmarks of a competitive system. Not every child wants to or should become a Ph.D., or even go to college at all.

Many will be hugely happy and productive as computer programmers, airplane mechanics, beauticians, performers in the arts, or in countless other trades. And if there is a demand for students to learn those trades and skills, schools will be created to teach them.

So how could such a program work? The government would send a payment slip to the parents for each child that could be "spent" for that child's tuition at a school chosen by the parents, as long as the school satisfied some basic criteria set forth by the government. Whether the payment slip is called a voucher, scholarship, tax credit, educational savings account or something else, it would allow parents at all economic levels to enroll their children at the school that would best fit their needs.

Today such programs exist in various forms in the states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and that list is expanding. California should join them. And along the way these programs also re-insert equity and fairness back into the system, so that parents who want good schools are not forced to pay both for the failing government schools and also tuition at a private school.

Of course, no system is perfect, and there might be some parents who would not care enough to seek out the best school for their child. But when they saw other parents in the neighborhood moving their children to better-performing schools, the odds are good that they would follow along.

In this discussion it is critically important to realize that our schools do not suffer from a lack of funding.

During the last 40 years, spending per student throughout our country has literally tripled in real dollars. In 1970, the government spent $50,000 (in 2009 dollars) to educate one student for the 13 years from kindergarten through high school, and in 2009 it spent $149,000 for those same 13 years.

Only Switzerland spends more money per child than we do in educating our children. But you don't need me to tell you where we rank in education around the world, and the results are continuing to get worse.

So we have an institutional problem, or as Joe Klein, the former chancellor of New York City's Department of Education put it, "We have a 19th Century classroom model in the 21st Century."

Furthermore, the only real remedy that is being discussed is requiring teachers to focus upon a high-stakes end-of-the-year test. But even this test is not working, and never will, because it really does not measure learning. Only parents really can do that, and we should let them.

Frequently the question arises, would a school-choice system allow parents to "spend" their vouchers at religious schools? The answer is, yes.

Would this be a violation of the separation of church and state? Not any more than the G.I. Bill's college program by which veterans have for decades been able to choose to "spend" their V.A. eligibility at Notre Dame, Holy Cross, Southern Methodist University or any other religious school that they wish. School choice for K-12 grades would present the same situation, because it is the parents' choice where the money would be spent, not the government's.

So who is against this new and innovative system?

Poorly performing teachers and schools, as well as large numbers of non-teaching bureaucrats, and many of them (naturally) want to protect their vested interests. Currently they feel threatened enough by the prospect of change, that they are placing advertisements on the radio about how we must spend even more money on education, because "it's for the kids."

But it's really not for the kids — it's for the bureaucrats. As responsible and caring people and voters, it is time that we see this approach for what it is: More funding for a system that has been failing our children for years.

So help us move into the 21st century and bring back quality, innovation and excellence into our schools by re-inserting incentives and entrepreneurship.

As consumers, we decide what kind of automobiles and clothing to purchase and use from a wide variety of choices furnished by market incentives, and we will be able to obtain a good education for our children by employing the same system of incentives in our schools.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Are we watching? Do we care? - by Judge Jim Gray

In the April 18 edition of Newsweek, columnist Philip K. Howard published a "Dear Congress" letter setting forth several national policies that are broken, and demanding that they be addressed and fixed. This is similar to the open letter that was published in this space on April 3 that "gently but firmly" demanded strong leadership from Rep. John Campbell to address and resolve the problems with illegal immigration.

As a practical matter, with all of the political polarization and other problems facing our great country, mostly there is no one left but "We the People" to take action. Are we watching? Do we care? If so, we need to persuade our public leaders that getting and staying elected is not the same thing as governing.

In addition to illegal immigration, some of those areas that must be addressed are sunset provisions for all federal agencies, the reduction of the welfare system for both the poor and the wealthy, requiring new public employees to invest in 401(k) programs for their retirement, just like workers in the private sector, and the failed and hopeless policy of drug prohibition. All of these have an enormous negative impact upon our federal budget deficit, and there appears to be no good faith effort by Congress even to address, much less resolve them.

Two additional areas that simply must be addressed are the entitlements of Social Security and Medicare. Painful as it could be, we must understand that if Congress had indexed the retirement age of 65 to increases of life expectancy when it implemented these programs in 1935, people would not be eligible today for these entitlements until they reached their middle 70s. So since the national government simply cannot remain solvent by paying entitlements at this rate, we simply must increase the ages of eligibility.

But when addressing our budget deficits, there remains a huge issue that is almost never even mentioned that will go a long way in helping us regain fiscal solvency, and that is the federal ownership of land. Most people do not realize this, but today the federal government owns about 650 million acres of land, almost 30% of our country! This property is held as national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, Indian reservations and military reservations, and for the good of the country's economic health, this landowning should be reassessed.

Of course, no one is proposing to sell Yellowstone, Yosemite or any of our other national treasures or military reservations that are necessary for our security. But the federal government also owns huge tracts of forests, deserts, meadows, mountains and shore lands. It would be better for everyone if that ownership were significantly reduced. (And if it is Native American land, give it back to them and let them run it!)

What would happen if some of this land were to be sold to the private sector? In addition to the monies received from the sales, the privately held land would also generate property, sales and income taxes, all of which would reduce the government's financial deficits.

But the benefits would be much more than financial. Not only is the federal government the largest polluter of land in the country, it virtually never manages property nearly as well as people do in the private sector. Why? Today the Bureau of Land Management, for example, leases out public grazing lands at artificially low rates to politically powerful people, who, in turn, have no incentive to keep from overgrazing it.

Put yourself in their place. If you had a lease to graze your cattle on government land for five years, you would want to maximize your short-term revenues as much as you could, without consideration of what it might do to the land. So you would tend to overgraze it. But if you were the owner, you would have incentives to husband the land, because if you didn't, it would decrease in utility and value.

As another example, in England many trout streams have been privatized, which means that, among other things, the owners can sue anyone who pollutes them upstream. As a result, the property is carefully husbanded, because a clean, beautiful and natural stream full of trout is more valuable for bringing in visitors and people who fish than one that is less so. Other examples are abundant, particularly in Africa with their wild animals.

That is not at all to say that the government should not have laws regarding things like pollution. The biggest example of that would be drilling for oil. It should mostly be allowed, but anyone drilling anywhere should first be required to post a significant bond with a financially strong and stable company that will be forced to pay for the cleanup and other ramifications of every drop of oil that is spilled. That way the bonding company will rigorously supervise all of the drilling, because its own money would be at stake.

So there is a better way. Are we watching? Do we care? If so, please join me in writing a letter to your member of Congress demanding that he or she take steps that will actually fix these problems. As we have said before, it is our government, and if it isn't working, it is nobody's fault but our own.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Political correctness pulls us apart - by Judge Jim Gray

It's A Gray Area: Political correctness pulls us apart - by Judge Jim Gray

A feeling of resentment by many minority groups smolders beneath the surface of some of our country's laws.

These minorities feel relegated into second-class citizenship. Why?

Because some of our laws appear to make some groups more important or worthy of protection than others.

For example, it is certainly true that a nation's laws are a statement of its values and what it holds dear. So when we pass laws about "hate crimes," we are dictating values that, not only do we not condone assaults based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender or otherwise, but that we will prosecute them.

It is the "otherwise" part that gets us into trouble. What people do not focus on is that this approach also divides us and pulls us apart. Why?

Because when one minority group gets recognized as being so "special" that it warrants a law expressly for its protection, that means that it is frequently and almost inescapably seen as denigrating other minority groups that have not been so designated.

Thus, although it may be counter-intuitive, we should repeal all "hate crime" laws. Our laws should not put one group into competition with another on the issue of who is more special, important or vulnerable.

Simply stated, things like an assault and battery should be crimes regardless of the identity of the victim, and those crimes should be prosecuted. Then only after the perpetrator has been convicted, the particular circumstances in that individual case — including possible situations of hate and prejudice — should be explored and argued to the judge for an appropriate sentence.

All cases are unique in some fashion, and basically this approach is designed to deal well and appropriately with each of them.

Yes, to assault a person who is black, Hispanic, gay, elderly, or a fan of the San Francisco Giants simply because of that condition is reprehensible, and the perpetrator should be punished. But is that assault necessarily worse than if the victim were to be Asian, Italian, straight, young, or a fan of the Boston Red Sox? I hope the answer to that question is plain. Besides, we can't continue to address every bad situation by simply passing another law.

Fundamentally we must understand that we will never run out of minority groups that could be victimized, so why should we go down that road at all? This approach simply pulls us apart at the exact time that we so badly need to be drawn together.

This situation is similar to the voters passing initiatives to fund specific good causes like research into stem cells or the causes of cancer or AIDS. Of course, those causes are noble, but are they inherently more so than Parkinson's Disease, sickle cell anemia or alcoholism?

To the degree reasonably possible all that should be funded, but if breast cancer — which usually afflicts women — is publicly funded, that often alienates many men who are fearful of testicular cancer. And since, as I understand it, sickle cell anemia more often affects the African-American community, not publicly funding research into its cause can be seen as an affront to those people. Is that what we want to do?

We run into the same problem with our state holidays. Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man who was pivotal to the history of our country and the world. To have a holiday to honor him and what he represents is certainly a good thing. But that was almost immediately seen as a slight to Hispanics, who obviously also have great men and women equally worthy of being honored with a holiday.

So since the Hispanic community is expanding in political power, it did not take too long for the California Legislature to address that problem by making Cesar Chavez's birthday a public holiday. Personally I agree with honoring Cesar Chavez, and actually met and did some work for him when I was at USC Law School.

But where will it end? There certainly are also heroes from other minority groups that are seen as equally worthy, so why should those groups be slighted?

Nowadays California courts close for 12 state holidays in the calendar year. While I was a sitting judge, I certainly appreciated the time off, but I always saw it as a situation that short-changed people in the private sector.

Today, our paid state holidays include the birthdays of Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, as well as the day of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.

But since having paid holidays is expensive and in many ways divisive, maybe our holidays should be more generic. We could still have paid public holidays for things like Presidents' Day, Veteran's Day, Independence Day and Thanksgiving, and then leave the celebration of the many worthy individual heroes in our society to the private world.

Without a doubt all of these are certainly sensitive areas, but we must understand that we will never run out of worthy victim groups to protect, noble causes to research and heroic people to celebrate. And the problem is that each time we pick one person or group, we divide ourselves that much more from each other.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Judge works to legalize marijuana - by DAVID WHITING

There are times when our convictions take us places we never wanted to go.

With the smell of marijuana wafting into the Anaheim Convention Center during last year's Know Your Rights Expo, an unlikely speaker walks past bongs, pipes and buxom women dressed as nurses.

Judge Jim Gray's office reveals a busy man, in spite of his having retired as a judge. Gray is a leader in the fight to legalize marijuana, has written a book, is an avid speaker, and now is heading the fight for the proposition on the next ballot. www.judgejimgray.com

ANA VENEGAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Nearly everyone in the crowd wears T-shirts and jeans. The "nurses" hawk bargain-basement prices for medicinal marijuana cards.

The speaker, retired Superior Court Judge Jim Gray wears a blue blazer, light slacks and a button-down shirt as he takes the stage. He is there to advocate legalizing marijuana, or as he puts it, "ending prohibition on illicit drugs."

I expect wild applause. After all, Gray once sentenced dozens to prison for selling drugs.

Instead, the retired judge is met with criticism for supporting legalization, particularly from underground marijuana growers interested in protecting their incomes. Gray's unfazed. He's suffered worse.

Nearly 20 years ago, Gray stood on the steps of the Orange County Courthouse and called for an end to the war on drugs. It was a bold and brave move. Gray's family, even his father – a venerable federal judge who died shortly before his son's speech – strongly advised against taking a public stand.

But Gray decided to move forward with what he believes to be his duty. As he saw it, billions of tax dollars and tens of thousands of lives were at stake.

Now, as the 2012 election less than 18 months away, Gray smells victory.

•••

Let's clear the air about one thing. Does the judge inhale?

Gray says he's never taken an illicit drug. I believe him. After asking the question different ways, I got a taste of the judge's tone with repeat offenders.

Steely impatience.

Gray says his drug of choice is a glass of wine at dinner. Alcohol, he says, is far worse than marijuana.

But the retired judge, now a private mediator for ADR Services, softens as his dog, Devon, a golden lab, wags his tail.

Recalling his first public statements against the drug war, Gray offers, "Dad didn't want me to hurt myself."

Gray knew his public stance meant he would never receive an appointment above superior court judge, that he would be ostracized, that he might face recall, that he could receive death threats.

But, sworn to uphold the law, Gray concluded that he and thousands of other judges were sending people to prison for no good reason.

"I felt then as I do now, that drug prohibition is the biggest failed policy in the United States, second only to slavery."

•••

When discussing the war on drugs, Gray has the bearing of a military man. At one point, he tells me he wrote to President Obama offering his services, stating, "I know how to give orders and I know how to take orders."

After living in a fraternity and graduating UCLA in 1966, Gray served two years in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. Then he joined the Navy. He is careful to acknowledge that he volunteered, in part, to control his destiny during a draft.

Such frankness is typical. So is an ability to exist and even thrive in seemingly contradictory worlds.

In 1970, a month before being sent to Vietnam where he patrolled rivers, the former ROTC officer let his superiors know he was planning to march in an anti-war rally. They told him not to wear his uniform.

The warning was unnecessary. Gray would never dream of such a thing. He's a by-the-book guy.

In the Navy, Gray served in JAG Corps. He went on to become a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and, in 1983, was appointed to the bench by Republican Gov. George Deukmejian. As a municipal judge, he was exposed to the broader legal and social problems of alcoholics. It was an awakening.

Before taking the courthouse steps in 1992, Gray read legal briefs to ensure that condemning drug laws wouldn't affect his cases. He talked to the chief superior court judge and conferred with the state judicial ethics panel (it split).

Since then, Gray says, the war on drugs has accomplished nothing. In fact, he believes we're worse off today than, say, five years ago.

At the Anaheim Convention Center last August, he spoke publicly in favor of Proposition 19, the state initiative to legalize marijuana that was defeated in November. But, typically, Gray also was blunt about the proposal's inadequacies.

Working with others, particularly Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, he is crafting an improved proposal for the 2012 November election.

•••

Politics is nothing new for Gray. In 1998, he ran as a Republican for Congress. In 2004, he ran for the U.S. Senate as a Libertarian, mostly to have his point of view heard.

In his battle to end the drug war, Gray has cataloged more than 400 television and radio shows and public forums. And he's written a book, "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It."

But he also has other passions. First is family. He and his wife have four children, including a son, Ky, who Gray adopted as a 13-month old in Vietnam. Gray also continues his work with Peer Court, a teen diversion program he helped establish.

He's also a serious musician. In September, Vanguard University students will perform Gray's compositions, a show called "Americans All." And he just finished organizing the May 22 Heritage Music Festival to bring bluegrass and folk music to Orange County.

But his fight with drug laws is never far. If California legalizes marijuana, he believes other states will follow. He predicts that the multi-billion dollar bureaucracy that fights the drug war will implode.

If so, he says illicit drugs will be treated like alcohol. Dealers will disappear, the prison population will plummet and there will be tax dollars available for substance abuse treatment.

It may not be the future his father foresaw. But Gray moves forward with love. When Gray first became a judge, his father was the man who swore him in.

To his dying day, the aging federal judge said it was his proudest moment.

David Whiting's column appears four days a week; dwhiting@ocregister.com.


JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Regulate marijuana like wine - by Judge Jim Gray

In my public discussions about our nation's failed and hopeless policy of marijuana prohibition, I often say that Proposition 19 actually won the election last November, but we will simply be delaying implementation for two years.

I say that for two reasons. First, Proposition 19 was so successful in legitimizing the discussion about the failure of marijuana prohibition both statewide and nationwide, and even worldwide, that people for the first time have actually started to think seriously about the issue. And that is really all we need, because what we are doing today simply doesn't make sense.

Second, in some of my debates on Proposition 19, numbers of people, including several chiefs of police, stated publicly that they had no problem treating marijuana like alcohol, but they did not like some specific provisions of Proposition 19 and therefore opposed it. Many voters felt exactly the same way.

So since November, quite a few people involved in marijuana drug law reform have been working to craft a new initiative, the Regulate Marijuana like Wine Act of 2012, and its basic provisions are as follows:

All California laws that prohibit marijuana possession, use, sales, distribution, cultivation, etc. by people who are 21 and older would be repealed, except for those pertaining to driving a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana; using or being impaired by marijuana in public or in the workplace; the use, possession, sales, etc. of marijuana by people younger than 21; providing, transferring or selling marijuana to a person younger than 21; or any laws or regulations regarding medical marijuana as set forth by Proposition 215 and its related statutes. All of those laws and regulations would expressly remain in effect.

The proposal then breaks down what we now call marijuana into two classifications. The first is marijuana with a THC or "potency" level of 3% or higher, which would be governed by regulations, taxes and fees that use the wine industry as a model. But, importantly enough, the act would not permit state, county or city governments to use their taxing, zoning or licensing authority as a means to thwart the provisions of the initiative, unless those regulations would also be applicable to the wine industry.

Marijuana with a THC level of less than 3%. would be classified as hemp, and would be governed by the same regulations, taxes and fees that use the cotton industry as a model. Of course the hemp industry goes back thousands of years, such that in ancient Greek the word for "canvas" was the same word as "cannabis," or marijuana. Similarly, the plantations owned by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many other planters grew large crops of hemp, which were used for things like rope, gunny sacks and coarse cloth.

Since the colonial period the uses of hemp have been greatly expanded. For example, today manufacturers can get four times the amount of paper pulp from an acre of hemp as they can from an acre of trees. Furthermore, the hemp crop can be raised in one season of about eight months, while it takes about 20 years to grow the trees. This means that the paper pulp industry in the northwest United States could be reclaimed, along with all of the jobs, revenues and taxes that this would entail.

The proposal would also prohibit all commercial advertising of the sales, distribution and use of marijuana, except for medical marijuana and products made from industrial hemp. This would go a long way in taking the glamour out of marijuana, especially for children.

After Holland decriminalized marijuana back in the 1970s, its minister of health stated that they had only half the marijuana usage per capita in their country as we do in ours — for both adults and for teenagers! And he went on to explain why by saying that "we have succeeded in making pot boring." A system in which marijuana is no longer sold illegally and also is not advertised commercially will achieve the same results.

Another main purpose of the initiative would be to deprive Mexican drug cartels, juvenile street gangs and other thugs of large amounts of money, while at the same time providing significant amounts of tax revenues to city, county and state governments to use for things like fixing potholes and educating children.

In addition, many medical and legal professionals believe that in many ways marijuana is actually less harmful than my drug of choice, alcohol. So if adults choose to use marijuana instead of alcohol, the governments, as a matter of freedom and liberty, should not be able to prohibit them from doing so.

Yes, the use, possession, growing and sale of marijuana and hemp would still be illegal under federal law, and the proposal recognizes that fact. But if the federal government still wants to enforce its laws of marijuana prohibition it will be forced to do so alone, because the proposal would prohibit anyone working for or contracting with any of our state, county or city governments from cooperating with any such investigations, prosecutions, punishments or forfeitures, as long as the subjects were acting within the provisions of the proposal.

So what are your thoughts? This proposal is still only in draft form, so give it some consideration. We would both appreciate and benefit from your suggestions and comments.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.