Arizona Has Approved Medical Marijuana

[Madeline]

On Sunday, Arizona officially became the 15th state to legalize medical marijuana. It was the narrowest of victories: By the time that all of Arizona's of 1.67 million votes were counted, Proposition 203 won by less than 5,000. But while that was hardly a resounding win for the pot initiative, it's an important one in a state in which a plurality of voters and all victors for statewide office this year are Republicans.

As I've noted in the past, loosening restrictions on marijuana turns out to be a bipartisan issue. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, a whopping 61 percent of Republicans support legalizing the drug for medical patients. The tea party includes vocal advocates of legalizing pot for medical as well as recreational use such as US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and the former Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson.

Of course, marijuana legalization in any form is still a tough sell in many states. On election day, voters rejected a similar medical marijuana measure in South Dakota, and other states haven't even been able to get the issue on the ballot. The difference in Arizona's case is probably geographical: According to a poll released on April 20th by CBS news, 55 percent of voters in Western states support legalizing marijuana for recreational use—a higher percent than in any other part of the country (only 36 percent of Midwestern voters support legalization). Western Republicans tend to be more libertarian than their counterparts in the rest of the country.

Ironically, some Arizona voters may have been scared into into opposing medical marijuana by the spectacle of California, where a landmark initiative to legalize pot for recreational use was on the ballot. California potheads argued that the state's 1996 medical marijuana law is so loosely worded that pot is virtually legal already. Working the argument from the other side, Keep AZ Drug Free, the anti-Prop 203 group, claimed that allowing medical cannabis in the Grand Canyon State would just be the first step towards total marijuana legalization. In an effort to tamp down such fears, Prop 203 places tighter controls on who can use medical marijuana and where they can buy it. Yet if polling trends hold up, it's just a matter of time before the West completely succumbs to reefer madness.

Arizona Legalizes Medical Marijuana | Mother Jones

Okay, so Democrats support legalizing pot. Republicans support at least legalizing its use for medical purposes.

Who opposes it then, apart from members of the law enforcement community and Mexican drug cartel members?

 

[JBeukema]

On Sunday, Arizona officially became the 15th state to legalize medical marijuana. It was the narrowest of victories: By the time that all of Arizona's of 1.67 million votes were counted, Proposition 203 won by less than 5,000. But while that was hardly a resounding win for the pot initiative, it's an important one in a state in which a plurality of voters and all victors for statewide office this year are Republicans.

As I've noted in the past, loosening restrictions on marijuana turns out to be a bipartisan issue. According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, a whopping 61 percent of Republicans support legalizing the drug for medical patients. The tea party includes vocal advocates of legalizing pot for medical as well as recreational use such as US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and the former Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson.

Of course, marijuana legalization in any form is still a tough sell in many states. On election day, voters rejected a similar medical marijuana measure in South Dakota, and other states haven't even been able to get the issue on the ballot. The difference in Arizona's case is probably geographical: According to a poll released on April 20th by CBS news, 55 percent of voters in Western states support legalizing marijuana for recreational use—a higher percent than in any other part of the country (only 36 percent of Midwestern voters support legalization). Western Republicans tend to be more libertarian than their counterparts in the rest of the country.

Ironically, some Arizona voters may have been scared into into opposing medical marijuana by the spectacle of California, where a landmark initiative to legalize pot for recreational use was on the ballot. California potheads argued that the state's 1996 medical marijuana law is so loosely worded that pot is virtually legal already. Working the argument from the other side, Keep AZ Drug Free, the anti-Prop 203 group, claimed that allowing medical cannabis in the Grand Canyon State would just be the first step towards total marijuana legalization. In an effort to tamp down such fears, Prop 203 places tighter controls on who can use medical marijuana and where they can buy it. Yet if polling trends hold up, it's just a matter of time before the West completely succumbs to reefer madness.

Arizona Legalizes Medical Marijuana | Mother Jones

Okay, so Democrats support legalizing pot. Republicans support at least legalizing its use for medical purposes.

Who opposes it then, apart from members of the law enforcement community and Mexican drug cartel members?

The same people who got it made illegal in the first place: racists and business competitors.

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S.,” Anslinger might say, “and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”
-Harry Anslinger


“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” Anslinger said.

Marijuana's illegal status attained through racism, fraud and greed - The Pueblo Chieftain: Local

When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator’s comment: “When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff… he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies.” In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: “All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.”

Harry Anslinger got some additional help from William Randolf Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst had lots of reasons to help. First, he hated Mexicans. Second, he had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and didn’t want to see the development of hemp paper in competition. Third, he had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, so he hated Mexicans. Fourth, telling lurid lies about Mexicans (and the devil marijuana weed causing violence) sold newspapers, making him rich.
Some samples from the San Francisco Examiner:

“Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days — Hashish goads users to bloodlust.”
“By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms…. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….”
​

Why is Marijuana Illegal? - Drug WarRant



And, of course, those who make money of the prison state