Pubdate: Sun, 16 Feb 2014
Source: Daily Home, The (Talladega,  AL)
Copyright: 2014 Consolidated Publishing
Contact:  http://www.dailyhome.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1632
Author: Gene Johnson, the Associated Press
Page: 3A

US DRUG POLICY FUELS PUSH FOR LEGAL POT WORLDWIDE

In a former colonial mansion in Jamaica, politicians huddle to discuss
trying to ease marijuana laws in the land of the late reggae musician
and cannabis evangelist Bob Marley. In Morocco, one of the world's top
producers of the concentrated pot known as hashish, two leading
political parties want to legalize its cultivation, at least for
medical and industrial use.

And in Mexico City, the vast metropolis of a country ravaged by
horrific cartel bloodshed, lawmakers have proposed a brand new plan to
let stores sell the drug.

 From the Americas to Europe to North Africa and beyond, the marijuana
legalization movement is gaining unprecedented traction - a nod to
successful efforts in Colorado, Washington state and the small South
American nation of Uruguay, which in December became the first country
to approve nationwide pot legalization.

Leaders long weary of the drug war's violence and futility have been
emboldened by changes in U.S. policy, even in the face of opposition
from their own conservative populations. Some are eager to try an
approach that focuses on public health instead of prohibition, and
some see a potentially lucrative industry in cannabis regulation.

"A number of countries are saying, ' We've been curious about this,
but we didn't think we could go this route,'" said Sam Kamin, a
University of Denver law professor who helped write Colorado's
marijuana regulations. "It's harder for the U.S. to look at other
countries and say, 'You can't legalize, you can't decriminalize,'
because it's going on here."

That's due largely to a White House that's more open to drug war
alternatives.

President Barack Obama recently told The New Yorker magazine that he
considers marijuana less dangerous to consumers than alcohol, and said
it's important the legalization experiments in Washington and Colorado
go forward, especially because blacks are arrested for the drug at a
greater rate than whites, despite similar levels of use.

His administration also has criticized drug war-driven incarceration
rates in the U.S. and announced that it will let banks do business
with licensed marijuana operations, which have largely been cash-only
because federal law forbids financial institutions from processing
pot-related transactions.

Such actions underscore how the official U.S. position has changed in
recent years. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it
wouldn't target medical marijuana patients. In August, the agency said
it wouldn't interfere with the laws in Colorado and Washington, which
regulate the growth and sale of taxed pot for recreational use.
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MAP posted-by: Matt