And fear … of being kicked out of office. Although things have changed a lot within the last ten years, openly advocating legalization of marijuana at the federal level is still considered a political third rail by most elected officials. Granted there have been a few who have still done this without being defeated like Barney Frank (who represented a safe liberal district and soon retired) and Ron Paul (who was dismissed as a libertarian flake by the GOP mainstream) but there will not be a major push to legalize pot federally, turn the question over to the states, or even change its Schedule I status until an elected moderate or non-libertarian conservative politician publicly supports such a measure and does not suffer any consequences at the ballot box. Also, if the Republicans make big gains in the 2014 congressional races and take control of the White House in 2016, we’ll probably have to wait another 20 years for any changes in federal marijuana laws.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t it legal (or at least decriminalized/de jure) in some European countries? Why ‘Finally’? This doesn’t seem all that different than several other countries already have, unless as I said I’m missing something.
If it’s about legalization in the US, I’m all for it as long as it’s taxed and regulated in a similar fashion to cigarettes and alcohol, along with the requisite warnings about potential cancer hazards and the like. I don’t think what Uraguay does is going to have any effect on moving this forward, however. 
Go Uruguay. I hope this along with Washington and Colorado’s legalization last year starts to produce a cascade of marijuana legalization all over the world as happened with gay marriage.
My cite is Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know. It’s written by Mark A.R. Kleiman, Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Angela Hawken of Pepperdine University, Beau Kilmer of Rand and Jonathan Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon. None of these scholars are cranks.
Marijuana is illegal in The Netherlands, which stops Phillip Morris from moving in. While measuring the risks of marijuana is difficult due to restrictions on studies, it is unsurprisingly linked with cancer (mildly), emphysema, elevated risk of mental health problems, auto accidents. It may very well be a gateway to more serious drugs, such as tobacco. Heroin not so much.
There is probably no risk of fatal overdose, assuming it’s not combined with other risky activities. Nonfatal overdoses do occur: “Tens of thousands of people end up in hospital emergency departments every year for reasons related to their marijuana use.”
You can’t grow industrial levels of pot. Nor can you possess them, which makes high volume distribution difficult, pharmacies excepted. Of course, the devil is in the details and the regs haven’t been handed down yet.
Sounds a lot like Spain’s own situation: growing for personal use (including clubs) is ok, large-scale distribution is not. I don’t have numbers on specific plant and weight amounts handy, but clubs are larger than that. Seriously, Red, whence that “finally. One dares” when your own country already has similar laws?
It does seem like the US has been very slowly moving towards legalization, but at a pace that says 50-100 years assuming we don’t go through a conservative period. Perhaps having some neighbors open things up will make people realize that nothing drastic is going to happen. I think there are people, raised on propaganda, who truely and honestly believe that if marijuana were legalized, all of sudden the US would become one giant ghetto during the height of the crack epidemic. And even those who say they don’t think that, kind of just a little bit think it might be sort of like that.
Of course it’s Uruguay, a country I don’t think most Americans can find on a map. So, I don’t know how much of an impact it will make.
As someone who has done every drug in the book, including a ton of drugs you’ve never even heard of and now become sober, I can tell you the worst drug I ever got involved with was alcohol. Although pot is still kind of a stupid drug, too. But booze just wrecks your body and your mental health like no other “soft” drugs do.
You mean “de facto”. “De jure” = as established by law; on paper. “De facto” = in reality.
The Conservative government in Canada is running scare ads about Justin Trudeau and his plan to legalize marijuana and make it into something that is regulated just like alcohol and tobacco. Sounds scary, right?
Here’s the thing: I work at a liquor store. Do you know how many minors I sold alcohol and tobacco to today? ZERO. If marijuana was a part of that group, the total would remain the same. But since marijuana isn’t legal, kids these days can get it with a phone call, day or night and there is nothing anyone can do to stop them.
Legalizing and regulating would make it harder to get, assuming there were draconian penalties for home growers (since the stuff does tend to grow like a weed). But instead, let’s keep it illegal… and easy to get.
Edit for clarity: the phone call the kids would make wouldn’t be to me. I don’t sell drugs. I mean, I don’t sell illegal ones.
The devil’s in the details, Nava – and Measure for Measure for that matter. I am quite aware of the laws both in Spain and Uruguay* – but here is the thing, as was the case in Uruguay, they make no sense. Why? Simple. When it comes to growing and distribution it remains illegal. It is that incongruity – which, BTW, is addressed in the linked article in the OP, for it was the same case in Uruguay – that makes them the first nation to legalize and regulate the consumption and distribution of marijuana for strictly recreational purposes. Not even The Netherlands has taken such a bold step: Cannabis remains a controlled substance in the Netherlands and both possession and production for personal use are still misdemeanors, punishable by fines. Coffee shops are also technically illegal but are flourishing nonetheless.. Hypocritical? Sure. Which is why this is such a landmark legislation.
What Uruguay has done comes closer to the Colorado & Washington legislature. But as mentioned upthread, both in theory and in practice, the Federal Government can interfere and supersede their regulations.
If interested, this article goes into further detail of the differences between decriminalization and regulation of the production and distribution of the substance: What Legalizing Pot In Uruguay Means For the World.
So no, prior to this law, no nation in the world had gone as far as Uruguay in making marijuana legal.
*They had the same laws as Spain prior to this legislation.
In the USA, the highest rate of pot usage is in Vermont, which is, in my experience, a fairly pleasant and mellow state. Vermont has low crime, a high rate of high school graduation, and in most ways is one of the least dysfunctional states. Perhaps we should do more to publicize this fact.
No, I meant de jure (whether I was correct to use it that way is another matter :p)…some European countries allow the use of MJ by law in certain locations or businesses. Those wouldn’t be de facto laws, they are de jure. The decriminalized or unenforced areas would be de facto. Sorry for the confusion, I’m writing this on my phone as I’m on travel atm.
Question: who (in general) does still oppose legalizing marijuana?
If you read the whole thread you’ll see this (the differences in legislation) has been covered. And they are not just semantical.
– bolding mine.
You know, I said as much upthread, but I just may be wrong. Think it’s by coincidence that this bill was introduced in NYS just yesterday? Perhaps it is…but it seems to me that there’s a snowballing effect going on in the US right now anyway.
Sen. Krueger Introduces Bill to Regulate and Tax Marijuana in New York State
I like this quote by Richard Gottfried, longest serving member of the NYS Assembly:
– bolding mine.
Amen.
Beyond that, it also appears that change might not just be limited to the US as quite a few South American nations appear ready to make similar amednments to their laws:
Finally, a nation legalizes pot
– highlights mine.
Addendum: Chile should actually be atop of that list and it’s not even mentioned.
Seems to me – much like the ex-gay marriage “controversy” – that the tides are turning rapidly.
Good article. Thanks for making that distinction about Uruguay’s policies: apparently they had a pretty serious and informed debate. Note though that a ban on advertising would run into problems in the US without a specific constitutional amendment and would be circumvented regardless.
My point is that while prohibition is awful, the alcohol model isn’t that great either. In fact, ignoring prohibition as an alternative, it doesn’t work particularly well. There are a lot of sweet spots between prohibition and legalization. I just think we need to block medium and large scale business from moving into this market because they are frankly very good at what they do. One problem is that the biggest part of the alcohol market comes from a small number of customers, otherwise known as alcoholics. So jabber aside, there’s incentive to promote substance abuse.
I do (see above).
But Pew gives a breakdown. Boomers (b.1945-1964) are 50-50 on legalization. Those older are against, those younger are for. Republicans are against it, conservative Republicans oppose it even more. Democrats support it, as do moderate/liberal Republicans (all self-identified). Women give it 48% support; men are at 57%.
Why do you think the public health problem posed by marginally increased cancer levels, etc., is larger than the public health problem created by the prohibition on marijuana?
I don’t know for sure, but it seems likely to me that more people are killed as a result of marijuana prohibition than die of marijuana-related lung cancer, for example. I’m also fairly confident that going to prison is worse for your health than an occasional marijuana habit. Am I wrong on either point?
Not necessarily; commercial speech is more subject to regulation under the current interpretation of the First Amendment. I was going to draw an analogy to the ban on tobacco advertising–but I’m not entirely sure how that works (e.g., a law, an agreement w/ the tobacco producers, etc), so I’m not going to say it’s a slam dunk. Hunch (without, honestly, remembering the rule for commercial speech) is that you could probably get some fairly restrictive rules past the courts.
The “tobacco settlement” by which the major companies made a long list of concessions and paid a huge amount in exchange for immunity from certain lawsuits included the provisions limiting advertising.
Great move. I also like the plain packaging of cigarettes initiative in Australia and maybe the UK soon - that must offer fascinating insights into advertising.
Next, how about criminalising nicotine as an additive - that’s the real killer?
False choice. You can decriminalize pot and get many of the advantages of legalization. You can also try the California, Colorado or Netherlands models. In another year, the Uruguay experiment warrants a look.
On a cost-benefit level of analysis, you have to attach some numbers. Not many people in practice go to jail for pot possession in the US, though there are many who are behind bars for distribution AFAIK. It would be reasonable to estimate the number of problem drinkers as a share of the population and extrapolate it to pot if you are keen on corporate marketing of the latter. Yes, there would be complications and guesswork involved.
While nicotine is a poison, I understand the tar is worse. So smokeless cigarettes are believed to be less harmful than the regular kind, relatively speaking. Low tar cigarettes aren’t especially healthy in practice though, as people tend to inhale deeper when they smoke them.
First amendment and “Not necessarily”: agreed. Still, it’s a complication. Another uncertainty which in my view justifies cautious moves in the legalization direction.
Ah. Your point was more subtle than I had understood.
I still think you’re both overstating the harm from marijuana addiction and understating the harm from prohibition even with decriminalization. The drug trade has a lot of casualties throughout the supply chain.