Madison NORML

Source: Capital Times click here
Pubdate: 15 November 2008
Author: Gary Storck

TIME TO GET REAL WITH MARIJUANA LAWS

Dear Editor:

One of the hallmarks of the Bush administration has been creating and maintaining its own alternate reality on seemingly most, if not all, issues.

Continuing to maintain the legal fiction that cannabis is an evil Schedule 1 drug with a high potential for abuse and no medical use was one facet of this policy.

With his landslide victory, President-elect Barack Obama has both the political capital and the opportunity to start with a blank slate. Two statewide marijuana ballot initiatives even outpolled Obama. Michigan voters legalized medical marijuana by a 63 percent margin, and marijuana decriminalization passed in Massachusetts by a 68 percent margin. Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, sponsor of federal legislation that would decriminalize possession of marijuana nationwide (Rep. Tammy Baldwin is a co-sponsor), depicted the current situation as "a case of people being ahead of the politicians."

Real change means acknowledging reality, not selectively, but across the board. It would be intellectually dishonest and unfitting for a new administration to reject science and reality-based positions on any issue. To continue to do so with cannabis ignores a major opportunity to finally correct a colossal mistake that just claimed its 20 millionth American arrested last month.

Gary Storck

co-founder, Madison chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)

Madison