Legalize It!
Yet despite the federal government’s 40-year ‘war on pot,’ today an estimated 45 percent of US adults
acknowledge having consumed cannabis at some point in their lives, with nearly 12 percent admitting
having done so in the past year. A majority of Americans now say that the plant should be legalized and
regulated for adults. Over 80 percent of Americans say that cannabis should be available as a therapy
when recommended by a physician.
Why? Because Western civilization has been using cannabis as a therapeutic agent or recreational intoxicant for thousands of years with relatively few adverse consequences — either to the individual user
or to society. In fact, no less than the World Health Organization has acknowledged: “Overall, most of
these risks (associated with marijuana) are small to moderate in size. In aggregate they are unlikely to
produce public health problems comparable in scale to those currently produced by alcohol and tobacco.
On existing patterns of use, cannabis poses a much less serious public health problem than is currently
posed by alcohol and tobacco in Western societies.”
Forty years ago today the Nixon administration had an unprecedented opportunity to enact a rational pot
policy. They were provided with the truth about cannabis, but they refused to listen.
Four decades later, it is time for the Obama administration to listen — and to act. It’s time to make peace
with pot.
Su 19