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National Review Endorses Frank/Paul Marijuana Legalization Bill

Submitted by David Borden on

The conservative flagship magazine National Review has endorsed the recently-filed "Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011." They would actually go further than the act does:

The War on Drugs, which is celebrating its 40th year, has been a colossal failure. It has curtailed personal freedom, created a violent black market, and filled our prisons... While we would support the total demise of federal marijuana laws, this bill simply constrains the federal government to its proper role [of regulating interstate commerce].

But they would celebrate the bill's passage as progress, if it could happen -- partly because of how it would help medical marijuana:

In addition to bringing federal pot laws in line with the Constitution and allowing states to pass reasonable marijuana policies, this law would eliminate the frightening discrepancies between state and federal policies regarding "medical marijuana." In a society under the rule of law, a citizen should be able to predict whether the government will deem his actions illegal. And yet in California and Montana, businesses that sell medical marijuana — an activity that is explicitly sanctioned by state law — have been raided by federal law-enforcement officers.

A good reminder that support for legalization spans the ideological spectrum -- it's not just a liberal issue, it's an issue of good sense.

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