Pubdate: Mon, 13 Jan 2014
Source: Grand Forks Herald (ND)
Copyright: 2014 Grand Forks Herald
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/PmdVQo7l
Website: http://www.grandforksherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/513
Author: Ronald Fraser
Note: Fraser writes on public policy issues for the DKT Library 
Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization.

HOW AMERICA WENT TO POT

When asked, "Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal 
or not?" a recent Gallup poll found that 58 percent of American 
adults said yes, compared with 31 percent in 2000 and 12 percent in 1969.

Let's consider two ways this huge shift in public opinion might be 
explained. One contends that misguided and lopsided enforcement of 
the marijuana prohibition laws is the cause. The other, more 
fundamental view contends that Americans simply no longer see any 
reason to continue outlawing this relatively benign substance.

Enforcement failure: State and federal laws prohibiting the use of 
marijuana have often been zealously enforced. Through the years, the 
media have directed public attention to the high costs of enforcement 
and the skyrocketing number of marijuana possession arrests. As word 
spread of notorious no-knock drug raids, forced entry by 
military-style SWAT teams and the fact that police arrests for 
marijuana possession nets many times more blacks than whites - all 
the while failing to deter the use of marijuana - public support 
shifted from prohibition to legalization. In short, a law prohibiting 
a nonviolent, peaceful activity, especially a law that can't be 
enforced, is not worthy of public support.

Values shift: Sociologists provide an alternative explanation. They 
tell us laws do not necessarily constitute absolute declarations of 
right and wrong behavior. Laws are better understood as a form of 
public communication describing the moral values associated with an 
orderly society. From this perspective, marijuana laws are simply 
statements that smoking pot is not acceptable.

Arrest and punishment actions, according to this model are also a 
form of public communication, but with purposes other than deterring 
drug use. News accounts of drug raids and courtroom punishments 
mainly serve to dramatize and validate the moral standards expressed 
in marijuana prohibition laws and symbolically reassure citizens that 
they do, in fact, live in an orderly society.

As long as the public accepts the moral standards found in a law, it 
will likely accept the enforcement tactics used to validate those 
standards. But when citizens no longer agree with the moral standards 
imposed by the law, they are likely to reject the law and its 
enforcement actions.

The 1969 poll: The 1970 federal Controlled Substances Act classified 
marijuana and heroin as "most dangerous" substances with no medical 
use. Gallup's 1969 poll, in which 88 percent of the respondents 
rejected marijuana legalization, seems to confirm that Americans 
accepted this portrayal of marijuana.

The 2000 poll: As the drug war played out in the states, public 
opinion moved in the other direction. By 2000, eight states had 
already approved the use of marijuana for pain relief, nausea and 
appetite stimulation associated with cancer, glaucoma and multiple 
sclerosis. Gallup's poll taken that year captured America's newly 
emerging attitude toward the use of marijuana.

The 2013 poll: Here, demographics and politics help us understand why 
Gallup found 58 percent in favor of legalization While 65 percent of 
Democrats favored legalization, only 35 percent of the Republicans 
surveyed supported it. Sixty-seven percent of respondents age 18 to 
29 said yes, while only 45 percent of the population older than 65 
favored legalization. The driving force behind the legalization trend 
is composed mostly of liberals and younger Americans.

In addition, the state-federal marijuana gap widened further. By 
2013, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 20 
states and the District of Columbia have enacted medical marijuana 
statutes, while the still extant 1970 federal law maintains that 
medical marijuana has no known medical use.

Rising enforcement cost, overcrowded prisons and SWAT team tactics 
made good news items and raised doubts about the drug war. But the 
widespread acceptance of marijuana for medical purposes, directly 
defying Washington's characterization of the drug, and recently 
passed laws in Colorado and Washington state legalizing marijuana for 
recreational use, represent a deeper, more fundamental values shift 
within the American population.

By the time the 2013 Gallup poll was taken, 58 percent of American 
adults gave a green light to legalization, since they no longer 
support discredited laws declaring marijuana to be a dangerous drug 
with no medicinal uses. The facts have shown otherwise.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom