The Eric Garner Case Should be a Warning for All of Us

Late last year riots erupted in New York City in protest of the death of Eric Garner after his death had been ruled a homicide by a professional medical examiner at the hands of one officer Daniel Pantaleo, due to in part the officer’s application of an illegal chokehold. According to reports Garner famously stated repeatedly “I can’t breathe” over and over again while lying face down he passed out and eventually died.

The whole incident between Garner and Pantaleo began when Garner was approached by a plainclothes officer, Justin Damico, in Staten Island. Later on during the interaction Garner was also approached by Pantaleo and the incident escalated. Garner attempted to diffuse the situation and walk away in defiance of the officer’s investigation, until eventually Pantaleo arrested Garner and Garner began resisting and the interaction became increasingly violent, more officers came to the scene, and eventually Garner ended up dead.

There is a lot of hearsay and eyewitness testimony which supplements and may change ones opinions of the events, Garner, and Pantaleo. These particular details have led some to think that Pantaleo’s actions were justified, that this is further evidence of American police brutality, that ethnic minorities are unfairly targeted by law enforcement, or that this is simply another tragic event which was the culmination of several different factors which have now been blown-up into an international scandal. However, ignoring the anecdotes and unverified information there are a few things which are certain, Garner at the time was on bail for false impersonation, marijuana possession, and mostly importantly for this discussion soliciting untaxed tobacco cigarettes.

The reason this last charge is important is because it has bearing on the case for legal cannabis sales. The sale of untaxed cigarettes, colloquially called “loosies”, has become a big black market industry in the state of New York as packs of cigarettes sold through “legitimate” means cost around twelve to fourteen dollars or more! By contrast a standard price for a pack of cigarettes in other parts of the country, including neighboring states can range between three and a half to about six or seven dollars, roughly a third to half the price as compared to New York. Of course, the reason why cigarettes are more expensive in New York is because of the incredibly taxes placed on them by the state, and has been justified due to “health concerns”, but of course racks in more tax revenue for the bureaucrats.
A common slogan in the pro-marijuana movement is to allow the immense taxation and regulation of a legal pot industry, which I would think, would make it sound more appealing to lawmakers, but this is exactly the same situation we should look to avoid.

Advocates of marijuana legalization must advocate for a free marijuana market, as unmarred by regulation and taxation as much as possible. Of course it seems unlikely that any politician anywhere would be so bold as to sign off on something like this and even pro-cannabis advocates may seem reticent to support such a position, but first consider where similar policies of this nature have already, accidently, been tried.
For instance, pot is largely unregulated and not heavily taxed, although only decriminalized, in several parts of Europe such as Portugal and Amsterdam. And without the usual oppression of government interference we don’t see the chaos and confusion which authoritarians on the left and right say would surely occur if we had a free market. Rather than allow the state to go from a tight grip to a slightly loosened one on pot we should simply and only advocate the open exchange of cannabis without state interference.
Putting high taxes and immense regulations on pot will only allow the now weakened black-market cannabis industry to survive and will result in the substance to continue to be sold illegally by average citizens as well as by actual violent criminals. Law enforcement will continue to harass innocent civilians under the guise of regulated marijuana enforcement and thus the cycle of violence and death wrought by the drug war will carry on and tragic cases like the death of Eric Garner will continue on.