Marijuana: The feds mellow out

“The war on drugs may have ended,” said Maia Szalavitz in Time.com. Last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told federal prosecutors to no longer enforce federal marijuana laws in Colorado and Washington, the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. The Justice Department’s decision is “the first profound crack in the federal edifice of drug prohibition since President Nixon declared war on drugs in 1971,” and may accelerate the decisions of the six other states that are moving toward referendums on legalizing weed: Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, and Nevada. “It is without doubt good news for the stoner set,” said Winston Ross in TheDailyBeast.com. For the past 10 months, marijuana businesses have been operating nervously in Colorado and Washington, “dealing only in cash and with a wary lookout for a raid by federal agents.” Now that there’s more legal clarity, both consumers and sellers in those states can chill.

“Count me out of the celebration,” said Charles C.W. Cooke in NationalReview.com. There’s no doubt that the war on drugs has been an “abject failure”: Our prisons hold 100,000 Americans on marijuana offenses—mostly small-scale—at a cost of $15 billion a year, with no resulting drop in marijuana use. Clearly, the federal government should never have banned pot in the first place. But it did, and it’s the constitutional duty of the executive branch to execute the laws, “not to pick and choose the ones to which it wishes to adhere.” If Colorado and Washington can effectively nullify marijuana prohibition, then why can’t Missouri get away with its new bill nullifying federal gun regulations? “That the president cares more about one than the other is not a good enough answer.”

Besides, Holder’s decision provides no firm guarantees to weed dealers, said Harry Cheadle in Vice.com. He said the feds could still bust anyone selling weed to minors or who’s involved in large criminal enterprises—meaning that federal prosecutors “remain free to use their sometimes-fickle judgment.” Still, there’s no doubt that the country has reached a turning point, said Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune. Sixteen states have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, with no sudden surge of drug abuse; by fully legalizing weed, Washington and Colorado will serve as “laboratories of democracy” for other states to study. Step by step, the U.S. is moving away “from the failed policy of Prohibition.”

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