Marijuana

What’s the case for marijuana legalization?

Supporters of legalization say prohibition has failed to significantly reduce access to and use of marijuana while wasting billions of dollars and resulting in hundreds of thousands of racially skewed arrests each year. Legalization, by comparison, would allow people to use a relatively safe substance without the threat of arrest, let all levels of government raise new revenues from pot sales, and redirect resources to bigger needs.

A 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that there are several hundred thousand arrests for marijuana possession each year. These arrests are hugely skewed by race: Black and white Americans use marijuana at similar rates, but black people were 3.7 times more likely to be arrested than white Americans for marijuana possession in 2010.

Some advocates of marijuana legalization worry about how legalization is playing out in the states — with concerns that a “Big Marijuana” industry may be able to market pot irresponsibly, like tobacco, alcohol, and opioid companies have. And while marijuana is nowhere as risky as these other legal drugs, it still poses risks — notably, the possibility of addiction.

As politicians and activists grow more critical of mass incarceration and the war on drugs, the legalization of a drug not many see as very harmful, if harmful at all, is widely perceived as an easy — and popular — place to start reforming criminal justice and drug policies.

Is marijuana legalization popular?

It sure seems like it.

According to surveys from Gallup, support for legalization rose from 12 percent in 1969 to 31 percent in 2000 to 66 percent in 2018. A Civic Science poll and the General Social Survey found similar levels of support in recent years.

The change in public opinion is part of a broader pushback against punitive criminal justice policies and the war on drugs in general. A 2014 Pew survey found 63 percent of Americans agree states should move away from harsh mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes, and 67 percent said drug policy should focus more on providing treatment than prosecuting drug users.

Here’s a broad overview of what three categories are generally taken to mean:

• • • Marijuana legalization: Legalization is generally taken to represent the removal of all government-enforced penalties for possessing and using marijuana. In most, but not all, cases, legalization also paves the way for the legal sales and home-growing of marijuana.
    • Marijuana decriminalization: Decriminalization generally eliminates jail or prison time for limited possession of marijuana, but some other penalties remain in place, treating a minor marijuana offense more like a minor traffic violation. Those caught possessing or selling an amount within the decriminalized limits are still fined — usually no more than a few hundred dollars. States with stricter decriminalization laws can also attach some jail or prison time to possessing larger amounts of marijuana, sales, or trafficking.
    • Medical marijuana: Medical legalization lets doctors recommend marijuana for a variety of conditions, from pain to nausea to inflammatory bowel disease to PTSD. A review of the evidence from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found little evidence for pot’s ability to treat health conditions outside chronic pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea, and vomiting, and patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity symptoms. But most states, relying largely on anecdotal evidence, have allowed medical marijuana for many other conditions. And in a few states, medical cannabis laws have been so lax that they may as well be full legalization.

“Our country justifies marijuana economically  yet criminalizes it!”

Is marijuana still illegal at the federal level?

Yes. Even as several states and Washington, DC, allow marijuana, the federal government still strictly prohibits pot.

But that doesn’t mean the federal government views marijuana and heroin as equally dangerous drugs or that it considers marijuana to be more dangerous than meth or cocaine. Schedule 1 and 2 drugs are both described as having “a high potential for abuse” — a vague description that doesn’t rank drugs in the two categories as equal or different.

The big distinction between schedule 1 and 2 substances, instead, is whether the federal government thinks a drug has medical value. The DEA says schedule 2 substances have some medical value and schedule 1 substances do not, so schedule 1 drugs receive more regulatory scrutiny even though they may not be more dangerous.

Starting with the Obama administration, the federal government has also taken a relaxed approach to marijuana legalization at the state level, generally letting states do as they wish as long as they met certain criteria (such as not letting legal pot fall into kids’ hands or cross state lines). The Trump administration suggested it would take a tougher line under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but current Attorney General William Barr backed off the tougher approach and said he would more or less go back to the Obama-era policies.

Which states could legalize marijuana next?

Most of the states that have legalized to this point have done so through ballot initiatives, but that’s changed in recent years with state legislatures in Vermont and Illinois approving legalization. So now there are two plausible paths to legalization.

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Ten years ago, no state had legalized marijuana. Now, more than a quarter of the US population lives in a legal marijuana state.

The most frequently cited reasons for supporting the legalization of marijuana are its medicinal benefits (41%) and the belief that marijuana is no worse than other drugs (36%) –with many explicitly mentioning that they think it is no more dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes.

In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to vote to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. Since then, nine more states and Washington, DC, have followed. However, Vermont and Washington, DC, do not allow marijuana sales for recreational purposes.

The laws legalize marijuana for people 21 and older, much like alcohol (and some tobacco) laws. They allow growing marijuana, with a limit on how many plants are allowed. There is also some variation in how much cannabis someone can legally possess, with visitors from outside the state facing stricter limits.

Vermont and DC don’t allow sales, meaning it’s still not legal to buy and sell pot in either jurisdiction — though residents in both places can legally grow it. And in DC, the allowance of “gifting” has led to some vendors, in a legally dubious practice, selling products like juices or decals that come with “gifts” of marijuana. (Not surprisingly, the juices and decals are very overpriced.)

Some places that have legalized have also made the change effectively retroactive, erasing criminal records for past marijuana offenses. In California, for example, it’s possible to petition a court to get low-level offenses eliminated from the record and high-level offenses downgraded. In Illinois, the state government is automatically pardoning and expunging past offenses.

Medical Program

Maryland’s medical marijuana program became fully operational in 2017 with the opening of its first dispensaries. Medical cannabis is legal in the state of Maryland, but recreational cannabis is not. 

The Natalie M. LaPrade Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission (MMCC) oversees all licensing, registration, inspection, and testing measures related to Maryland’s medical cannabis program. The MMCC is also responsible for guiding patients, caregivers, providers, growers, dispensers, processors, testing laboratories, and caregivers.

Although recreational use is illegal, possession of fewer than 10 grams of cannabis without the intent to distribute has been decriminalized. It is viewed as a civil offense subject to a maximum fine of $100. 

Additional laws include:

• • • Possession of between 10 grams and up to 50 pounds of cannabis is deemed a misdemeanor, the penalty of which is up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $1,000. 
    • Possession of 50 pounds or more is a felony, carrying a punishment of at least five years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. 
    • Possession with the intent to distribute is a felony and is subject to a sliding scale of penalties dependent upon the amount of cannabis distributed.

The term medical marijuana refers to using the whole, unprocessed marijuana plant or its basic extracts to treat symptoms of illness and other conditions. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not recognized or approved the marijuana plant as a medicine.

However, the scientific study of the chemicals in marijuana, called cannabinoids, has led to two FDA-approved medications that contain cannabinoid chemicals in pill form for the treatment of two rare and severe forms of epilepsy, Dravet syndrome, and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

According to WebMD, Cannabinoids — the active chemicals in medical marijuana — are similar to chemicals the body makes that are involved in appetite, memory, movement, and pain.

 

Research suggests cannabinoids might:

• • • • Reduce anxiety
      • Reduce inflammation and relieve pain
      • Control nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy
      • Kill cancer cells and slow tumor growth
      • Relax tight muscles in people with MS
      • Stimulate appetite and improve weight gain in people with cancer and AIDS

The FDA considers marijuana a Schedule I drug, the same as heroin, LSD, and ecstasy, and believes it most likely to be abused and lacking in medical value. The use of marijuana became harmful due to lacing. 

As cannabis products become legalized for medicinal purposes, and even recreational purposes in some states, there will be specific regulations regarding the quality of the substance that is legally marketed. Thus, buying laced weed is far more likely to occur when an individual buys the drug from an illicit source.

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Why did Marijuana become illegal?

John Ehrlichman

Sources:   Drug Facts, WebMD, American Addiction Center, Vox, Leafly