How Marijuana Became Legal For White People

Since thirteen states have legalized medicinal marijuana with another fifteen possibly doing the same by next year, Roger Parloff argues in a humongous Fortune magazine feature (”How Marijuana Became Legal”) that the marijuana plant has essentially been legitimized, at least on a “local-option” basis. Perhaps in the future marijuana laws would allow people to grow their own cannabis plants from marijuana seeds.

Moreover, medical marijuana in California offers the benefit of an economic model for how pot might be merchandised in the event of legalization.

But watch out for bong hate backlash.

If this economic model fails to legitimize marijuana then the pot pendulum will swing back in the lock-up doobie lovers direction.

And much farther than previous!

The laxing of marijuana laws will be seen as a failed experiment requiring all potheads to be imprisoned.

Of course, if you happen to live in New York City, whose mayor has famously admitted to smoking pot and “loving” it, marijuana has been virtually decriminalized for years.

For white people.

Because the dirty little secret of this East Coast gomorrah is that New York City practically leads the country, if not the world, in small-quantity pot busts.

Some 40,000 marijuana possession arrests went on the books in both 2008 and 2007, and 80% of those busted were citizens of color.

Harry Levine, a Queens College sociology professor who has been compiling marijuana arrest figures for years, says, “The cops prefer pot busts. They’re easy, because the people are almost never violent and, as opposed to drunks, hardly ever throw up in the car. These kind of arrests toss people into the system, get their fingerprints on file. The bias of these arrests is in the statistics.”

Marijuana possession of 25 grams is not a crime in New York State and has not been since the passage of the Marijuana Reform Act of 1977. or 32 years ago.

There are exceptions, however. If the pot is “burning or open to public view,” then the 25-gram deal is off.

Continue reading here: Why is Marijuana Illegal?

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