In somewhat of a follow-up to my last diary, a recent CBS poll finds more support than ever for the legalization of marijuana.
More after the fold...
According to the article, written by Charles Cooper and Declan McCullagh, indicates that 41% of Americans believe that marijuana should be legalized, to 52% against. Compare this to 27% in 1979.
The article goes on to discuss the strange history of marijuana criminalization in this country, and even touches on how race has affected the marijuana debate over the years.
Some western states seem to have restricted it out of hostility to Mexican immigrants; a Chicago Tribune article from 1919 called cannabis "a weed of the Mexican desert." During the debate on Texas' first marijuana law, noted Charles Whitebread, a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, one legislator in the Texas Senate declared in session that "all Mexicans are crazy and this stuff is what makes them crazy."
That was not an isolated sentiment. In a letter to the Bureau of Narcotics, Floyd Baskette, then the city editor of The Alamosa Daily Courier in Colorado, complained in 1936 about felons arrested while under the influence of marijuana.
"I wish I could show you what a small marijuana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents," he wrote. "That's why our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally, because of social and racial conditions..."
Other states and cities -- including New York City in 1914 -- outlawed pot for fear it was, or would become, a gateway drug leading to the use of opium or cocaine.
Has the idea of legalization tipped? I guess we'll have to wait and see. Regardless, the debate is more fevered now than at any time I can remember, and many are beginning to realize that there are actually very few reasons remaining to support the illegality of marijuana.
As evidenced in my diary "Deaths From Medical Marijuana v. 17 FDA Approved Drugs" from procon.org, cannabis is by no means as dangerous as many of the drugs Americans (EVEN THE CHILDREN!) are taking every day.
And the argument that cannabis is a gateway drug is equally as foolish, in that tobacco could be considered a gateway drug, but its legal and kills almost half a million people a year.
Let me be clear. I am not a user, but I'm sick of seeing people treated like criminals for using marijuana. And don't even get me started on the medical aspect of this.
Unfortunately, as Americans, although we righteously preach the platitudes of individual freedom, we still have a long way to go. Right now, the criminalization of marijuana seems to be nothing more than a habit itself, far more addictive than the actual drug.
