Pubdate: Sun, 30 Jun 2013
Source: News-Item, The (PA)
Copyright: 2013 Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.newsitem.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3556
Authors: Nancy Benac and Alicia A. Caldwell, Associated Press

MARIJUANA'S MARCH TOWARD MAINSTREAM CONFOUNDS FEDS

WASHINGTON (AP)- It took 50 years for American attitudes about 
marijuana to zigzag from the paranoia of "Reefer Madness" to the 
excesses of Woodstock back to the hard line of "Just Say No."

The next 25 years took the nation from Bill Clinton, who famously 
"didn't inhale," to Barack Obama, who most emphatically did.

And now, in just a few short years, public opinion has moved so 
dramatically toward general acceptance that even those who champion 
legalization are surprised at how quickly attitudes are changing and 
states are moving to approve the drug-for medical use and just for fun.

It is a moment in America that is rife with contradictions:

People are looking more kindly on marijuana even as science reveals 
more about the drug's potential dangers, particularly for young people.

States are giving the green light to the drug in direct defiance of a 
federal prohibition on its use.

Exploration of the potential medical benefit is limited by high 
federal hurdles to research.

Washington policymakers seem reluctant to deal with any of it.

Richard Bonnie, a University of Virginia law professor who worked for 
a national commission that recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 
1972, sees the public taking a big leap from prohibition to a more 
laissez-faire approach without full deliberation.

"It's a remarkable story historically," he says. "But as a matter of 
public policy, it's a little worrisome. It's intriguing, it's 
interesting, it's good that liberalization is occurring, but it is a 
little worrisome."

More than a little worrisome to those in the antidrug movement.

"We're on this hundred-mile-an-hour freight train to legalizing a 
third addictive substance," says Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy 
adviser in the Obama administration, lumping marijuana with tobacco and alcohol.
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