In a few short years, marijuana went from a seedy brain poison used primarily by vagabonds and dropouts to a supposedly harmless miracle medicine and supposedly mild intoxicant at the heart of a billion-dollar business.
It’s tolerated in all sorts of places, from New York City to Germany (since last April Fools’ Day). And a seemingly unstoppable campaign hopes to legalize it everywhere, including here. Will this happen?
So strong (and so rich) is the force behind the campaign for legal cannabis that both President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris embraced the policy in the months leading up to the US election.
Trump seemed optimistic. Last August he wrongly predicted that personal amounts of marijuana for adults would be legalized in Florida, “whether people like it or not.” He seemed to like it and declared that “someone should not be a criminal in Florida when this is legal in so many other states.” (As of April 2024, recreational use is legal in 24 states.)
A cannabis store encourages commerce in Los Angeles. California, where cannabis has long been legal, is now filled with both legal and illicit marijuana shops.
He added, regurgitating the arguments of legalizers around the world: “We don’t need to ruin lives and waste taxpayer money arresting adults carrying personal amounts.”
Ms. Harris, for her part, pledged: “I will legalize recreational marijuana, tear down unfair legal barriers, and create opportunities for all Americans to succeed in this new industry.”
His confidence was not surprising. The legalization campaign spent nearly $150 million, most of it contributed by existing marijuana companies.
And yet they both seem to have misjudged the mood. In addition to Florida, North and South Dakota had pro-marijuana propositions on their Nov. 5 ballots that would have legalized recreational use. But in all three the pro-drug cause was defeated.
By far the biggest blow to the marijuana cause was the Florida result. It is a populous state widely visited by American and foreign tourists. But its voters refused to approve a constitutional amendment that would have legalized cannabis.
Many were influenced by the vigorous and intense opposition of the state’s successful and effective governor, Ron DeSantis. He warned that allowing unrestricted use of marijuana would flood cities with marijuana smoke and make roads more dangerous, saying, “It would be everywhere.” The State would smell like that. We don’t need that in Florida.’
To be approved, the proposal required 60 percent of the vote, but it only obtained 56 percent support (5,927,237 in favor; 4,682,004 against). That same night, voters in South and North Dakota defeated legal marijuana initiatives by more decisive margins. In South Dakota, rejection of legal marijuana was strong: 55.5 percent against (237,228) compared to 44.5 percent in favor (189,915).
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris backed the push to legalize cannabis in Florida during the US election, but voters rejected a change to the state constitution last week.
In North Dakota, the vote was closer but still definitive: 52.5 percent (190,107) to 47.5 percent (171,708) in favor. These are not crushing defeats, although they show what can happen when the anti-legalization movement fights hard. But it does seem that the almost total surrender of the United States to the multimillion-dollar lobby in favor of drug legalization is faltering.
Mainstream political support for so-called “legal regulation” of marijuana is also common in Britain. Labor’s David Lammy, now foreign secretary, praised Canada’s legalization of the drug in 2019.
In 2018, former Conservative leader and former Foreign Secretary William Hague urged then-Prime Minister Theresa May to legalize cannabis, saying the UK’s drug policy was “inappropriate, ineffective and completely outdated” and that the ” battle is indeed upon’.
Lord Hague scoffed that telling the police to stop people smoking cannabis was “as topical and relevant as asking the army to take back the Empire”. Ireland’s Fianna Fail, a dominant party, is also toying with decriminalizing cannabis.
The arguments have been the same for a quarter of a century. It is claimed that cruel laws imprison harmless drug smokers for a victimless crime. Racial minorities receive harsher treatment for this crime than the majority.
Legalization will allow the state to collect huge tax revenues and allow drug regulation to prevent high-potency, unpleasant versions from reaching the market. None of this is true.
The main victims are the families of the users, who are trying to cope with the incurable diseases of their children. In Britain, for decades it has been difficult to find a case of someone sent to prison for a simple charge of first-offense marijuana possession.
British police generally ignore dope smokers whenever they can, and the usual response is an unrecorded “caution” or “warning.”
In the United States, in 2012, the ultra-liberal magazine Rolling Stone published a list of the top ten myths about marijuana, one of which was that prisons were full of people prosecuted for marijuana possession. As the magazine said: “About 40,000 state and federal prison inmates have a current marijuana-related conviction, and about half of them are convicted only of marijuana-related crimes,” but “most of them were involved in distribution”. Less than one percent are arrested for possession alone.” There will be many fewer now.
As for the “regulation through legalization” myth, its flaws were obvious. The weak police response to marijuana possession has contributed to the growth of huge illegal markets across the West. Legalization hardly affects it. Illegal drugs are cheaper, precisely because they are not regulated or taxed.
Colorado, one of the first U.S. states to legalize, initially did well as people flocked from other states to buy legal drugs. But the expansion of the legalization movement and the undercutting of legal sellers by illegal duty-free sellers have caused a serious crisis there.
The main effect of legalization is to make the drug easier to buy, without in any way curbing the gang-dominated illegal market. Six years after legalization in Canada, up to half of the Canadian market may still be in the hands of illegal traders. How could anyone know for sure?
California, where cannabis has long been legal, is rife with illicit marijuana shops. Drug driving is a growing problem (as it is here in the UK). The drug is also linked to antisocial behavior and the deterioration of previously orderly neighborhoods.
But the other big problem is the issue of mental health. Many still maintain that cannabis is a wonder drug, although hard evidence of its healing powers remains difficult to find, and the side effects – as I will show – might make it unattractive anyway.
Keith Stroup, one of the oldest advocates of drug legalization in the United States, admitted in a student newspaper interview in February 1979 that he and his allies would use medical marijuana as “a red herring to give it a good name.” to marijuana.” Which they certainly did. But that’s not all.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis campaigned against legalizing cannabis in his state, saying, “It would be everywhere.” The State would smell like that. We don’t need that in Florida.’
What if marijuana is really bad for you and for society? What if legalization only makes life bleaker and sordid?
In July 2023, the liberal Washington Post finally destroyed the legalizers’ myth that Portugal’s weak drug laws have created some kind of paradise of tolerance. An article illustrated with disheartening images of drug-related street squalor described how “authorities are closing warren-like alleys with iron bars and fences in parks to stop the spread of the encampments.” Those living nearby were scared, and even the police (in many countries now a vocal part of the pro-drug lobby) attributed the rise in crime to the growing number of people using drugs.
But that’s not all. Now that many American cities, especially New York itself, reek of cannabis and its victims wander the streets in often obvious distress, many are wondering whether allowing its unlimited use was wise.
Following the publication of two powerful books linking marijuana use with mental illness: Patrick Cockburn’s Henry’s Demons in Britain and Alex Berenson’s Tell Your Children in the United States, smug certainties about marijuana enhancers drugs have vanished.
Even the New York Times, the megaphone of liberal opinion, recently published a major, deeply researched article warning: “From Washington state to West Virginia, psychiatrists treat a growing number of people whose drug use has caused delusions, paranoia and other illnesses. Symptoms of psychosis.’
Is it possible that the long and damaging dominance of the pro-doping lobby is finally coming to an end? Let’s hope so.