NYT celebrates the annual marijuana holiday with a cheerful piece about how everyone loves marijuana and wants it to be legal. At least that's what I picked up from the article. No quote in there from Calvina Fay warning that the fun will soon be replaced by great misery.
Better yet, The Hill has a piece noting some support for legalization in Congress, namely from Reps. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), and Ron Paul (R-Texas). Well, that's a start I guess. When these courageous leaders are re-elected, perhaps others will finally get the message that working to fix bad drug laws is something a lot of people support. Here's an interesting quote:
"There are a lot of people who understand that [the current war on drugs has been a failure], but they are afraid to politically say so," Rohrabacher said. "If it was a vote â a blind vote where nobody knew who was voting â you would have overwhelming support for legalizing marijuana out there, but they will never vote for it because they are afraid of taking on a controversial issue."After all the heat Obama has taken for opposing legalization, we're finally on pace to turn that logic on its head. Rohrabacher's theory underscores the important point that the challenge for us lies not so much in convincing politicians to change their minds about legalization, rather we must get them to act on what many of them already know in their hearts.
And best of all, our friends at NORML are launching a national TV ad campaign. It's about damn time.
Oh, and Steve Bloom has "The Real Story of 420" in case anyone's confused about that.
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