NORMLIZER
Marijuana Momentum - The re-legalization movement grows larger
2008-02-21

Despite several decades of campaigning to establish a taxed and regulated market for adult cannabis use, such a market does not exist anywhere in the US. Moreover, a majority of Americans do not yet express—nor have they ever expressed—support for such a market. As a result, the marijuana-law reforms that have been enacted over the past 30 to 35 years have been limited in scope.

Yet despite soaring cannabis arrest and incarceration rates, eye-popping costs to taxpayers and countless government-sponsored anti-cannabis organizations that have pumped out Drug War propaganda for decades, the pro-cannabis movement is making remarkable strides. Twelve states and numerous municipalities have decriminalized the possession of cannabis. These regions of decrim represent one-third of the US population. Thirteen states have some form of legal protections for medical patients who use physician-recommended cannabis—one-fifth of the US population.

Amorphia and NORML began as the nation’s only drug-policy reform groups in 1970. But today, there are dozens of organized and incorporated drug-policy reform groups working for change, such as NORML, the Drug Policy Alliance, ASA, MPP, SSDP, VoteHemp, DRCNet, the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, FAMM and LEAP. (And let’s not forget the efforts of groups like the ACLU.)

Progressive-minded scientists, public health officials and scientific journals—while struggling against the government’s monopoly on psychedelic- and cannabis-centric research—are currently and genuinely in the vanguard of cutting-edge bio-pharmaceutical and herbal therapies, as well as in the industrial-material sciences and the development of bio-fuels.

Cannabis-law activists are completely dominant in the so-called culture wars. Every measurable indicator of popular culture is anti-prohibition. Whether it’s film, TV or music, popular entertainment consistently demonstrates itself in favor of drug-policy reform. Dozens of drug-policy and cannabis-themed Web sites consistently rank in the top tier of popularity on the Internet.

Cannabis consumers are clearly demanding change: witness the columns, editorials and letters to the editor in the daily papers, as well as the court cases, state and federal legislation, popular voter initiatives, blogs, vlogs, newsbots and listservs. Despite the lack of official endorsement, the re-legalization movement gains strength daily.

Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of NORML
Contact NORML at 1-888-67-NORML or norml. org

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