For two states, green may be a more appropriate color on the electoral map than red or blue.
Massachusetts residents voted Tuesday to decriminalize possession of one ounce or less of marijuana, while Michigan became the 13th state to allow marijuana for medicinal use. The third-most popular recreational drug in the United States behind alcohol and tobacco, marijuana is smoked regularly by an estimated 11 million Americans.
The Massachusetts measure won’t have midnight tokers lighting up outside the police station. Possession of an ounce or less will become a civil offense punishable by a $100 fine and forfeiture of the marijuana.
NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, is celebrating the new measures as a triumph of reason. Police spend $10 billion dollars and arrest more than 829,000 people every year in a war on this ubiquitous herb, which doesn’t have the health risks of tobacco and isn’t lethal in even the largest doses.
Originally a domestic crop smoked and used for hemp by Native Americans, cannabis is comparatively harmless. The arguments against it are mostly moralistic, and while they may be persuasive enough to convince an individual not to smoke, they shouldn’t bamboozle a government into denying people the exercise of their choice to consume.
State legislatures should follow Massachusetts’s lead and remove criminal penalties for misdemeanor marijuana possession. Maybe with three-quarters of a million jail cells empty and an extra $10 billion in their pocket, police can turn their attention to preventing violent crime instead of playing parent to American adults.
3 Comments
November 7, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Agreed, sir. Agreed.
November 8, 2008 at 4:11 am
This is wonderful news. Hopefully the trend will continue in this direction.
November 8, 2008 at 4:37 am
I think we will see cannabis legalized in our lifetime.