The Fight for Marijuana Legality

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Recommended: History of legalizing marijuana

On Election Day in 1996, voters in California and Arizona voted for initiatives that would condone and legalize the acquisition of medical marijuana by those in need and prescribed it by a physician. Within 5 years of that, many states passed measures to allow the needy to legally receive medical marijuana: Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Maine, the District of Columbia, and most recently, Hawaii (Bock 1). One might ask oneself what the regulations now that is so perturbing to those who need the use to be legalized? Stephen B. Duke gives insight to this inquiry—showing that the government may be contradicting itself, causing more pain and effort for less good—in his work Cannabis Captiva: Freeing the World from Marijuana Prohibition.

“First, regulation of the drug is possible only if prohibition is repealed. The authors of both drug treaties and U. S. statutes euphemistically refer to drug prohibition as drug ‘control.’ Prohibition, however, is inconsistent with control, since only that which is legal can be regulated by law.... Under a regulatory model...the federal government would retain some restrictions against interstate commerce in drugs that were unlicensed, mislabeled, inadequately identified, or lacked appropriate disclosures and warnings. The federal government would share with the states the power to tax the manufacture and distribution of the product. As with alcohol, most regulation would be left to the individual states. (85)”

If caught with possession of marijuana, federal law states that, despite the state law, one may be punished with some part of the following: Low-level offenses, even with multiple prior convictions, may end up with probation up to twelve months, and no jail time required; posse...

... middle of paper ...

... and find the results they need to see, but for reasons unbeknownst to me, they simply will not. They refuse to legalize a product that could be taxed, regulated for safety, counted in our GDP, and even sold internationally.

Works Cited

Bock, Alan W. Waiting to Inhale: The Politics of Medical Marijuana. Santa Ana, CA: Seven

Locks, 2000. Print.

Bostwick, J Michael. "Blurred Boundaries: The Therapeutics and Politics of Medical

Marijuana [Abstract]." Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Mayo Clinic 87.2 (2012): 172-186.

MEDLINE. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

Duke, Stephen B. "Cannabis Captiva: Freeing the World from Marijuana Prohibition."

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 11.2 (2010): 83-90. Political Science

Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

"Federal Marijuana Law." Americans for Safe Access. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

.

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