Great High Times Article
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While most well-informed HIGH TIMES readers can probably cite hundreds of good reasons why cannabis prohibition should end immediately, I’d like to hone in on what NORML believes are the top six reasons why these long-sought reforms are finally coming about.
It’s the Economy, Stupid
Just as the Great Depression helped end alcohol prohibition, the current crushing economy is causing otherwise prohibition-supportive decision makers to re-examine their fiscal priorities. As a result, economists, editorial boards, columnists, politicians and commentators of all political stripes increasingly support ending the federal government’s counterproductive prohibition of cannabis.
Baby Boomers or Baby Bongers?
Men and women between the ages of 50 and 70 years have taken over the country’s institutions of government, law, medicine, science, education, media and entertainment. Baby boomers have primary and secondary experience with cannabis that the so-called World War II generation simply doesn’t possess.
The Public’s Acceptance of Medical Cannabis
The passage of Proposition 215 in 1996 was a genuinely epochal event: California citizens – who comprise one-eighth the population of the United States – voted to endorse the medical use of cannabis. This set in motion a domino-like effect that has currently resulted in 14 states (plus the District of Columbia) legalizing patient access to medical cannabis for nearly 90 million Americans.
In states such as California, Colorado, New Mexico and Montana – and very soon in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maine and DC – lawful patients enjoy so-called “Main Street” retail access to hundreds of strains of cannabis, “medibles,” tinctures, balms and hash products.
Worldwide Web of Weed
The Internet has been transformative for cannabis-law reformers, helping us politically organize consumers, disseminate information, debunk prohibition myths and raise money. I’ve been at NORML so long I pre-date the Internet, and I can tell you from firsthand experience: A busy day at NORML pre-Internet pales in comparison to what’s being accomplished today.
NORML’s webpage and podcast attract over 30,000 daily visitors, who download millions of pages weekly in the privacy of their own homes. And there are now over one million “friends” within NORML’s Facebook universe.
Whereas the mainstream media has largely failed cannabis consumers and society as a whole, the Internet provides citizens with ready peer-to-peer communications, unprecedented social networking, and unfiltered information (uncensored by either the government or the corporate media) that empowers and fuels reformers’ modern advocacy efforts.
Opposition to Cannabis-Law Reform Recedes
In general, do business, medical, educational or religious communities organize against groups like NORML?
No.
Then who are the supporters of cannabis prohibition? The five pillars of pot prohibition should be familiar by now: Law enforcement; government agencies born of prohibition (i.e., the DEA, NIDA, etc.); the drug makers who’d have to compete with legal cannabis (tobacco, pharmaceutical and booze companies); government-funded “parents’ groups” (i.e., CADCA, NFIA, etc.); and companies that prosper from drug-testing services, private prisons and high-tech drug-trafficking detection devices.
Prohibition Fatigue?
Having endured 73 years of unsuccessful cannabis prohibition, a national weariness seems to be setting in. Maybe, just maybe, after 20 million arrests (90 percent for simple possession alone), hundreds of billions in tax dollars wasted or uncollected, children having more access to cannabis than alcohol or tobacco, and the destabilization of America’s borders – all basically for naught – a solid majority of Americans are ready to support legalization.
Currently, in national polling, about 44 percent favor legalizing adult cannabis use. That total is up to 56 percent in California, where people go to the polls this fall to vote on –and, hopefully, pass – a legalization initiative.
Are you and your friends ready to get involved, make a difference, and help end cannabis prohibition once and for all? Please join NORML today and/or support California’s
Proposition 19.
Allen St. Pierre is the executive director of NORML in Washington, DC. You can contact him at 888-67-NORML or norml.org.
This article is featured in the SEPTEMBER 2010 Issue of HIGH TIMES: