Same with Gens Y and X. I see plenty of young people walking around with a stick up there rear; you just choose not to associate with them, acknowledge them or you tolerate them; but they are there. Every generation thinks there’s is the first to be enlightened and that the man is keeping them down; goes with the turf I suppose.
Peace. 
Are you quoting something I should be aware of? The only Google result for that quote is this thread…
When you take into account the divisive poltical partisanship, coupled with a conservative Christian you-are-so-going-to-Hell attitude permeating this country, not anytime soon.
No, and all apologies for sowing any confusion; I just wanted to build on your suggestion by proposing a scenario where (as far as I can tell) the gent in the White House could (a) legalize it at the federal level for the rest of his presidency, and also (b) legalize it retroactively likewise – again, not by involving Congress, but by solo fiat.
It may yet happen. 16 states have legalized MM, in spite of the federal ban and in the face of unpredictable federal raids. Even Pat Robertson is on board.
Medicinal pot’s already legal in Colorado and Cali, and functionally legal in Hawaii and Alaska. Cali was the the first to make medicinal pot legal, followed by Colorado.
It’s not that this is coming someday. It’s already here. It’s just a question of which state will make it legal next, and which state will be the first to allow legal recreational use.
CT just legalized medical, decriminalized last year small amounts at the state level.
In my state of Montana, our medical marijuana initiative passed on the same ballot as a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Granted, we’ve got a bit of a weirdo religious libertarian faction out here, but overall I think attitudes towards marijuana don’t follow the usual cultural divisions as closely as you might think.
Just generally “being old” doesn’t make you opposed to marijuana legalization. My parents would have opposed it, of course; they were the parents of baby boomers and themselves grew up being unconcerned with marijuana and thinking it was a strange yet harmless plant some small number of people smoked–they only became concerned due to “Reefer Madness” hysteria and because it became a part of the counterculture of the 60s/70s.
However, my grandparents generation probably due to their advanced age by the time all that happened, were a lot more ambivalent on marijuana. My own grandmother told me in her time it was not a big deal at all, and that most people she knew had tried it. She said it was not very popular, though, at least outside certain groups (her life experiences of course are very narrow and don’t speak for the entirety of her generation.)
My grandmother’s generation was generally more down with partying than my parents generation, though. I mean my grandmother grew up in a time when literally huge swathes of the adult population were semi-buzzed if not drunk a large part of the day, and her mother hit medicinal opium like nobodies business and so did a lot of people from her parent’s generation.
Then again, what better law for us to thumb our nose at, since it was arguably a product of our own moralist zeal, drug prohibition having been introduced mostly during the generation leading up to the national prohibition of booze.
As the Wikipedia article, already linked to by Sizzles (great name, BTW) points out, there’s room for debate as to whether the treaty requires an absolute ban of cannabis. Certainly there are countries in South America where psychoactive amounts of coca alkaloids can be easily be obtained in products that are legally obtainable.
This.
I think it boils down to getting past the point where just saying “I don’t want the demon weed being sold in my neighborhood” is sufficient justification for a total ban. Of course I’m not advocating the sale of weed at all times and to all persons–children, for instance, obviously; nor its use at all times and under all circumstances. But that’s why we would need to have regulations in a world of legal marijuana, just like we do for alcohol.
I have my own views on the politics and political value of legalizing mary jane, but I’m going to try to answer the OP’s question instead of expounding on them.
The main federal prohibition on MJ is its inclusion (or rather THC’s) on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act as per the terms of 21 USC 812. By including the drug on Schedule 1, it’s illegal to manufacture, distribute, possess, etc., etc. it pursuant to Secs. 841 et seq. of that Act.
From my quick reading of 21 USC 811-812, I believe the Attorney General has the authority to remove some substances from the schedules on his own, as a matter of administrative procedure. That is, it doesn’t require an Act of Congress. That said, Sec 811(d) seems to incorporate international drug treaties into U.S. statutory law. As a general rule, Congress can ignore the U.S.'s treaty obligations whenever it wants. But by incorporating them here, I believe the Att’y Gen is statutorily bound to schedule any substance that international treaties say should be controlled – even though he would have the power to make his own determination for that substance if there were no treaties on the subject.
So from what I can tell, you would either require a law passed in the standard way that removes MJ from the Schedules (remember, Congress can almost always ignore treaty obligations, although given the state of U.S. law on respect of treaties, it’d be best if the law explicitly mentions that Congress is aware this violates a treaty and it plans to do it anyway), OR you would have to somehow convince the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which Wikipedia tells me is the international agency that manages what goes on the treaty schedules, to take it off, and then convince the Attorney General to take it off as well.
More to come…
–Cliffy
Cont’d:
There are probably a bunch of other disparaging references to MJ in the U.S. Code. You’d also have to go through and clean them out statutorily (if you wanted to). For instance, maybe (just a guess, although it’s the type of thing that exists) there’s a federal prohibition on providing $$ to schools that don’t have drug fighting plans in place. Or highway money. Or anything else. If those items referenced MJ by name instead of merely incorporating the Controlled Substances Act’s Schedules, they would have to be changed. (OTOH, maybe you don’t want it to be illegal to smoke, but you still want some social opprobrium, so you leave that stuff in there.)
That covers the federal government. But as mentioned above, many states have their own prohibitions on marijuana. Removing the federal ban would do nothing in itself to make it legal in those states. Most likely, you’d need to go state by state with a similar campaign to convince state authorities to amend their own legislation to decriminalize the drug.
The other possibility is you could have your federal legislation overrule state law criminalizing MJ. Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, federal law trumps state law when they conflict. However, that only applies if the federal government has authority to legislate in the area. I think it almost certainly does – MJ is a product of foreign and interstate commerce throughout the country, which the Constitution authorizes the federal gov’t to regulate. You’d expect some court challenges were such a law to pass, but given the current state of Commerce Clause jurisprudence. you’d expect them to fair. Then again, a couple months from now we might have a brand new doctrine ruling that patently appropriate Commerce Clause legislation doesn’t survive if it’s being put to progressive ends, so who knows?
Huh. Looks like I didn’t avoid political comment after all. Oh well.
–Cliffy