All Indicators Point to a Softening of America's Harsh Marijuana Laws

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted June 3, 2008.

You have to hand it to the Republican National Committee: Those guys really know how to pick the wrong fight.

John McCain, already running against the public opinion grain in support of the Iraq War and Bush tax cuts, received no help from headquarters last month when the RNC made medical marijuana a campaign issue. After Barack Obama told an Oregon weekly that he would end federal raids on medical marijuana users and providers in states with compassionate use laws, the RNC pounced. Obama's position, said an RNC statement, "reveals that (he) doesn't have the experience necessary to do the job of President (and) lacks the judgment to carry out the most basic functions of the Executive Branch." Because the Supreme Court has ruled that federal drug laws trump state drug laws, the RNC reasons that halting federal raids would be tantamount to ignoring the law.

They're right. But the RNC might want to get some new pollsters. What they and their candidates don't seem to realize is that a steadily shrinking minority of Americans oppose the controlled medicinal use of cannabis -- around 20 percent, according to the last Gallup poll. It's a safe bet that an even smaller number considers paramilitary raids on the homes of peaceful cancer patients to be a "basic function of the Executive Branch." During the New Hampshire primary, every Democratic candidate recognized this political reality by promising to end federal harassment of state-approved medical marijuana facilities and users. Republican candidates Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul pledged the same.

And John McCain? When pressed by activists from the group Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana, the Arizona senator responded in lockstep with most of his GOP peers, sounding less like a maverick than a Reagan-era after-school special. "I do not support the use of marijuana for medical purposes," McCain said. "I believe that marijuana is a gateway drug. That is my view, and that's the view of the federal drug czar and other experts."

Given current trend lines, it may not be long before it's possible to count McCain's "other experts" on two hands. In February, the 125,000-member American College of Physicians, the second-largest physicians group in the country, published a position paper endorsing the merits of medical marijuana and recommending the end of marijuana's classification as a Schedule 1 drug. "The ACP endorsement is massive," says Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group. "It blows to splinters the assertion that the medical community doesn't support medicinal cannabis."

As goes the ACP, so may go the American Medical Association, an endorsement from which would leave the anti-medical marijuana position of the Food and Drug Administration very lonely indeed.

To its credit, the country has not waited for the medical establishment before moving forward on marijuana policy reform. Over the last decade, support for compassionate use laws and broader decriminalization efforts has been growing, if not at weed's pace, then fast enough for one veteran marijuana reform lobbyist to now speak of being "within striking distance of a national tipping point."

Since California passed Proposition 215 legalizing medical marijuana in 1996, an average of one state per year has followed suit, some through ballot initiatives, others through legislation. Even in states that have yet to enact reform, a flurry of bills has been introduced. This activity hasn't been limited to usual-suspect states like Oregon and Vermont. Recent years have seen medical marijuana laws introduced in Ohio, Alabama, Missouri and Tennessee. In staunchly conservative South Carolina, it was a Republican state senator, whose wife lost a battle with brain cancer, who introduced his state's medical marijuana bill. In Texas, the state government last year passed a bill that is a halfway house for decriminalization, allowing police to issue citations instead of arresting adults who possess less than 4 ounces of marijuana.

The next big test on the horizon is the Midwestern swing state of Michigan, where voters in November will decide on a medical marijuana law, the first such statewide ballot initiative since South Dakotans narrowly rejected theirs in 2006. If passed, Michigan will be the only state with its geographical and electoral profile to pass a medical marijuana law. According to the Inside Michigan Politics newsletter, polls show two-thirds voter support. "Michigan looks set to become the 13th medical marijuana state this November," says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project.

The other big initiative in November will appear on ballots in Massachusetts. If passed, the maximum penalty for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana in the Bay State would drop from up to six months in jail and a $500 fine to a $100 civil fine.

There is also still a chance that the New York state legislature will take up medical marijuana this session, a move that would enjoy overwhelming in-state support. Post-Giuliani New York City is the marijuana arrest capital of the world, with nearly 40,000 arrests in 2007 alone. The situation has gotten so out of hand that the New York Times recently urged Gov. David Paterson to take the lead in drug policy reform. Few governors are better positioned to do this than Paterson, who is not only on good terms with state Republican leaders, but has the moral authority that comes from suffering from glaucoma, a painful condition known to be alleviated by marijuana. Before becoming governor, Paterson was a leading activist for drug policy reform and was once arrested protesting the draconian and racially biased Rockefeller Drug Laws, which turn a brittle 35 this year. (Incidentally, the Drug Enforcement Agency is celebrating the same birthday in 2008, its website proudly declaring "35 Years of Excellence.")

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Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist.