New policy guidelines issued yesterday by the Obama administration (claim they won't arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers, as long as they conform to state laws), spread across the web faster than rumor of a pop star sex scandal. The news was based on a report from two Justice Department officials saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.
The new policy is a major step towards marijuana legalization, especially compared to the Bush policy which said it would continue to bust marijuana dispensaries and enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of the will of the people.
How much longer it will take to completely legalize marijuana is anyone's guess, as the people of America have been aware of hypocrisy of marijuana for decades and still been unable to make any significant changes, in laws that continue to incarcerate their own citizens for marijuana related offenses and fill prisons at an alarming rate.
Before the masses of pro-pot supporters get their hopes up too high, consider the Life Magazine issue of October 31, 1969, which must have been a trick 'or treat special issue and now is a piece of pop-culture, almost in the same category as reefer madness. If history were to repeat itself, it wouldn't matter about popular consensus, public sentiment, medical miracle breakthroughs or even plain old truth because the powers that-be have a vested interest to keep the prohibition in lock-down mode for as long as possible. It's a truly David and Goliath scenario and Goliath still has a strong-hold on the majority of people in the places of power.
MARIJUANA the law vs. 12 million people (Life Magazine, Oct. 31, 1969)
In U.S. Customs "war room" near Los Angeles (below), agents keep track of nationwide marijuana "market." Above, guests in a fashionable New York apartment enjoy a pot party.
In New York a group of middle-aged professional people begin an evening with a marijuana "cocktail party." In Detroit some lawyers and executives get together in the small hours for wine-and-pot. In Beverly Hills, at a stately black-tie dinner, the matronly hostess beckons the butler who brings a silver tray with a single after-dinner joint to be passed around.
Marijuana, until recently a conspicuous liturgy of the rebellious young; is spreading into the middle class and fast becoming an institution. An estimated 12 million Americans have now tried it. The consequence is an ironic contradiction reminiscent of the Prohibition era of the 1920s, when ordinary citizens blithely drank bathtub gin while cops pursued the bootleggers. Now as the pot party gets to be fashionable in some circles, authorities are mounting an unprecedented campaign to cut off the supply at the Mexican border, where U.S. Customs agents are bearing down on professional smuggling, with planes, boats and mobile radar units.
A growing body of opinion now recognizes the disproportionate severity of laws that define mere possession of marijuana as a felony and lead to travesties like the case of a 20-year-old college student sentenced to 20 years for possession. Last week the Nixon administration reversed its adamant earlier position and recommended reducing the federal penalty for first offenders to a misdemeanor. As illegal marijuana becomes increasingly "respectable," ultimately the whole question of legalization will have to be faced--although no country in the world officially sanctions it. On page 34 Dr. James Goddard, former director of the Food and Drug Administration, dispels many of the myths that confuse the marijuana debate and renders his verdict on legalization.
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