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Legalization: Now a Question of When, Not If

By Jeralyn

Author and Associate Professor Jeremy Mayer at Politico writes marijuana is now a "smoking hot" issue, the tide of history has turned, and legalization is a question of when, not if.

The financial benefits should be obvious:

Tax revenues, although not as high as some dreamers would wish, would certainly be substantial, and would replace the billions spent interdicting and confiscating marijuana, as well as imprisoning users and small time dealers. Legalizing marijuana would immediately remove millions of dollars in income from the international drug cartels that are making life hell in Mexico.

Mayer may be right. This is the most attention I've seen marijuana get in the national consciousness , perhaps ever. But, we're not there yet: [More...]

Several states have legalized medical marijuana, and a few are contemplating decriminalization, and yet, other states are about to prevent those whose urine tests positive for marijuana from receiving desperately needed benefits to which they would otherwise be legally entitled.

At least eight states, including Kansas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, are actively considering making drug tests mandatory for food stamps, welfare, or unemployment. In a classic demonstration of how America has always had one drug law for the rich and one for the poor....

A California legislator says legalizing pot would bring the state $1 billion in tax revenues. Our last three Presidents have acknowledged smoking pot. Yet, people still go to jail for it.

Perhaps these accumulated paradoxes have finally become large enough for the nation to begin reconsidering its position on pot. For an issue that has been in stasis for decades, marijuana is suddenly hot, one might even say, smoking.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 29, 2009 (boomark / email).