Pot's Time Has Come

Back in the 1970's I sat on the board of NORML the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Also on the Board was Jacob Javits, New York's senior U.S. Senator. Legalization in those days seemed imminent.

Everybody smoked pot and most everybody thought, as the current president does, that pot is less physically and emotionally destructive than alcohol.

Tragically, the 'Just Say No' ethos swept the nation with the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. Instead of legalization, a regressive wave swept the country. As a result, pot use was equated with cocaine and heroin and tens of millions of otherwise innocent young people, most of them minorities, had their lives ruined by jail time and criminal records for pot possession and recreational use.

I'm not going to re-argue what most folks already know about the physical attributes of marijuana. Most already know what it is and what it does.

Admit it, you have smoked pot. Treat it like alcohol. Prevent its use by kids, just like we bar children from drinking booze. But stop pretending that pot smokers are the devil's spawn.

What I am asking is that voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada and Arizona do what voters in Colorado, Washington Oregon and Alaska have already done: legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

It is the way to put the cartels and criminal cabals out of business. Legalize marijuana. The time has finally come.