Pubdate: Mon, 19 Nov 2012
Source: Capital Times, The  (WI)
Copyright: 2012 The Capital Times
Contact:  http://host.madison.com/ct/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73
Author: Gary Storck

TIME HAS COME TO LEGALIZE POT

Dear Editor: While President Obama's re-election was huge, the
successful marijuana initiatives in Colorado and Washington state
were arguably more significant.

As someone who first tried cannabis four decades ago and, like
millions of Americans, never stopped, I've been waiting my entire
adult life for some common sense on pot laws.

In the 1970s even President Jimmy Carter said cannabis should be legal
and it seemed like it was at times. Madison voters favored
legalization in a November 1976 advisory referendum and passed a local
ordinance decriminalizing pot in April 1977 that remains on the books
today. Then came the Ronald Reagan years, when the federal war on pot
began to snowball with the adoption of more and more punitive and
harmful policies. Studies documenting medical uses were buried.
Reagan's successors, along with Congress and state legislatures, kept
the drug war pork flowing.

The tide began to turn 16 years ago when California voters passed Prop
215, legalizing medical use, but the federal government never got the
message. With the latest win in Massachusetts, 18 states plus
Washington, D.C., today offer legal access to medical marijuana.

Particularly in today's economy, legalization of the cannabis plant
for all uses would be the mother of all job creators. In addition to
its well-known uses as medicine or a safe recreational alternative,
cannabis is also a source of food, medicine, building materials, car
parts, paper and cloth - thousands of uses, many yet to be discovered.

For more than 75 years, Americans have been caught in a senseless
prohibition that has victimized everybody whether they use cannabis or
not. The Colorado and Washington state results demonstrate the public
has had their fill of this policy, and that legalization's time has
finally come.

Gary Storck

Co-founder of Is My Medicine Legal YET?

Madison
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt