We Shouldn’t Be So Certain About the Legal Future of Marijuana
We’ve come a long way from buying pot in sketchy alleyways, but total legalization still isn’t on the horizon.
Americans are overwhelmingly in support of legalized pot. According to Pew Research polling, 60% of Americans are for medical and recreational use, 31% are for ONLY medicinal use, and a teeny tiny 9% of Americans think that it should be totally illegal.
That’s it! 9%
America is still a democracy last time I checked, so why is it that marijuana still isn’t federally legal?
Currently, 36 states and 4 territories allow for medical use of the drug. This includes deep red states like Alabama and Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, 18 states, 2 territories, and the District of Columbia allow for it to be sold recreationally. But only 3 of those 18 states have at least 1 Republican senator.
However, legalization is still opposed by the majority of Republican representatives. The most recent Republican administration actually rolled back one of the biggest federal memoranda that had been passed in regards to marijuana: the Cole Memorandum, passed in 2013 under the Obama administration.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, under Trump, rolled back the Cole Memorandum's promises to avoid prosecuting federal…
