Well, when even old George Will thinks Mary Jane is riding the Freedom Express, you know that national legalization can't be too far away. Or at least we'd like to think so. Aside from the obvious health benefits marijuana imparts, the reasons to normalize our consumption of the herb are legion, not least of which would be a sharp smack to the heads of those interested in killing other people to get it across our southern border.
Perhaps Breckenridge's insanely grassrooty, small towney, get big guv'ment off our backy vote will convince conservatives that weed deserves its fair shake in the constellation of legal goodies we now enjoy ... but, (yes, you saw it coming), I'm not holding my breath.
Lefties whine when I use the characterization "Cowardism" to describe Clinton.. OK fair enough. Clinton "bravely avoided" the Hemp and MJ issue. Al Gore cares so much about the environment, that he avoids the industrial Hemp Issue. Even if Hemp only has 1/100th of the potential that Hemp activists claim.... that is still big enough, and compelling enough to legalize Industrial Hemp immediately. Al Gore is the savior of this planets environment right?? What is the {expletive deleted} hold up?? Obviously Bush was beholden to pharmicutical and big oil.... at least we can identify his problem. The Democrats have no excuse. Hold them to the fire.
And yet pot has been as easy to buy as a quart of milk for all of those years. Ask "Who profits from pot being illegal?" Who makes the big bucks? Isn't it the lawyers who get wealthy users off? Isn't it the big importers?
They're well financed, well connected, they can put on the guise of morality and if you think you heard ever "Canadian Health Care Horror Story" that existed in the few short months of this health care debate just imagine what they're going to come up with against marijuana.
You're going to have to ex-cons on TV swearing up and down marijuana ruined their lives and turned them to a life of crime. You're going to have Hearst-style insinuations that minorities get high mainly to muster the courage to rape white society women. It'll be polished up a bit but it'll be there. It worked the first time.
Plus they deal with a bunch of hard core criminals with nothing to lose. If they wanted to play dirty, I can think of a number of prison gangs that could do a few favors for special treatment. Marijuana incarcerations represent a huge, huge majority of their profits. I wouldn't put it past them. The least crooked people in that industry are the prisoners.
I'm just not so sure that massive economic and social advantages are going to win out versus fear tactics.