High Times

In the midst of a bleak moment in our history, there's some interesting momentum related to a very different political issue.

The Democratic Party platform committee recently endorsed the following language as a component of the party's official platform:

"Because of conflicting laws concerning marijuana, both on the federal and state levels, we encourage the federal government to remove marijuana from its list as a Class 1 Federal Controlled Substance, providing a reasoned pathway for future legalization."

The vote was extremely close, and immediately contested by opponents in the party on technical grounds. But it ultimately stood, and in what is seen as a victory for supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, is now the Democrats' official position.

There's obviously a long walk from 'a reasoned pathway for future legalization' to being able to buy a joint at Starbucks, but the fact that one of the two major political parties in our country has taken this step is, in the words of a great American, a big fucking deal. It'll happen - just a matter of when.

Meanwhile, just to our North, things are moving in the right direction even more quickly. Canada's ruling Liberal Party intends to introduce legislation in early 2017 legalizing marijuana use in the Great White North. Legalization was a major element of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's campaign last year, and is supported by a majority of Canadians (the same is true of a majority of Americans, for what it's worth. Observers in both countries speculate that, should the measure pass in Canada, American border states will be motivated to pass their own legalization laws in an effort to limit cross-border pot tourism.

So there is some progress towards rationality in the world, after all. Who knows, maybe when the day comes that we can all enjoy a legal toke together, we'll start solving some of our other issues.

Shit's About to Get (Sorta) Real

From the blog of the Marijuana Policy Project:

The D.C. Board of Elections has officially certified Ballot Initiative 71 for November’s general election. If passed by a majority of D.C. voters, Initiative 71 will repeal all criminal and civil penalties for the personal possession and limited, private cultivation of marijuana. Passage of this initiative will be yet another step towards sensible marijuana policies in our nation’s capital, so make sure your voter registration is current if you are a D.C. resident so you can vote “yes” on November 4. - See more here.

The measure, if enacted, won't open the door to marijuana sales, but it will legalize possession of up two ounces and at-home cultivation of as many as six plants, as well as paraphernalia. Current law bars D.C. from adopting laws related to the sale of marijuana via ballot measure, though the D.C. Council is thought to be working on separate legislation that would allow for the regulation and taxation of pot in the District.

Political analysts believe that the measure is almost certain to pass (and by 'political analysts', I mean, 'I') in the significantly left-leaning Nation's Capital. However, if history is any guide, Congress may step in to override the will of the voters. In 1998, after DC residents passed a law legalizing medicinal marijuana, Republicans used the appropriations process to attach riders prohibiting the District government from enacting the law. Congress succeeded in blocking implementation for 10 years. D.C. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton has serious flow on this topic, "“We will not let history repeat itself. Republicans tried to prevent D.C. from voting on an initiative in 1998 to legalize medical marijuana, and after voters approved it, blocked its implementation with an appropriations rider for more than 10 years. We are not surprised that Republicans are threatening to again use the power of the federal government to block the will of the voters of a local jurisdiction. Many Republicans abandon their professed support of local control of local affairs when they have an opportunity to bully the residents of the District, who cannot hold them accountable at the ballot box. We have already begun working with our allies to protect the will of D.C. voters.”

The early returns on legalization in Colorado and Washington have generally demonstrated the banality of legal toking, and in at least a few statistical examples, the opposite results of those predicted by fearmongers like Rep. John Mica (R-Fla), who said, "We are going to have a lot more people stoned on the highway and there will be consequences."

Andrew Sullivan, a long-time advocate of legalization, said today, "One longstanding theory is that more pot use will mean less alcohol use. You can’t infer than from this data, but it sure looks encouraging. Can you imagine what prohibition will look like in retrospect if it emerges that legalizing weed saves lots of lives?"

Well, yeah. It'll look like a lot of other things that an increasingly irrelevant generation of mostly white men in power clung to in order to protect a status quo that maybe didn't need protecting. We'll still see raging at the dying of the light, without question, but I'd wager that we'll see legalization at the Federal level within 10 years.

Sooner, if Congress gets its hands on some legal D.C. weed.