We’ll start with the basics and move along through the history, the culprits for our current marijuana laws and the likes. It’s important to understand that every country has their own political stance when it comes to marijuana and for our current example, we’ll be focusing on U.S Marijuana Politics.
Why you may ask?
Well, the U.S government has been spearheading the prohibition of cannabis world. They are the ones outsourcing the war on drugs and are the heaviest influencers within the realm of Marijuana Politics.
The Pseudo-Legal State of Marijuana in the United States
The first thing we need to understand about cannabis policy in the U.S is that cannabis is illegal on a federal level and legal in some states. This is due to a provision within their constitution that grants states the rights to implement laws or not enforce laws dictated by the federal government.
Currently, there are 29 states that have some sort of medical marijuana laws on the books and 8 states and the District of Columbia that has recreational cannabis.
While it is still illegal at a Federal level, and the federal government still technically has the right to prosecute cannabis cases, U.S Congress placed a limitation on what the federal government can and cannot do.
The restriction is known as the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment, which dictates that the Federal government cannot spend a single cent of Federal dollars in the prosecution of medical cannabis businesses and organizations that are operating legally within a ‘legalized state’.
Considering that the DEA only has roughly 500 employees worldwide, it makes it virtually impossible to conduct a raid without the participation of State authorities. As you can imagine, states that have a financial incentive to keep their cannabis program running smoothly are always reluctant to assist federal authorities.
This is how States are surviving the full force of the federal government.
How Marijuana Politics are Changing
With more states opting in to legalize cannabis, the federal government is quickly running out of allies to maintain prohibition. There is a bi-partisan effort to de-schedule cannabis at a Federal level in order to facilitate research and expand medical access to those who need it.
With more than 66% of Americans in favor of full-scale legalization and roughly 86% of Americans supporting medical cannabis. We can rest assured that we are entering into the final days of cannabis prohibition.
While Marijuana Politics are changing, there still is resistance within the government itself. The current “enemy” of legalization within the political sphere is AG Jeff Sessions. However, Attorney Generals are typically only the face of the organization. Thus we cannot blame him entirely for a system build on corrupt laws and false information.
In the next session of Marijuana Politics, we’ll be going back in history to see how the current state of affairs all started, from pre-1937 and onwards.
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