News

A landmark battle in the war on drugs ended Tuesday, and a new approach to address racial inequities began, as Gov. J.B. Pritzker acted to legalize marijuana in Illinois effective Jan. 1, 2020.

Marking a historic moment in an expanding national movement, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed legislation that makes recreational marijuana legal in Illinois.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Illinois' new governor delivered on a top campaign promise Tuesday by signing legislation making the state the 11th to approve marijuana for recreational use in a program offering legal remedies and economic benefits to minorities whose lives critics say were damaged by a wayward war on drugs.

VICTORIA - B.C.'s largest First Nation is accusing the provincial government of stalling its application for a retail cannabis licence while it races to open its own public store in the community's prime retail location.

Opinions

This was supposed to be the year full cannabis legalization in the U.S. moved much closer to being a reality. Instead it has been a disaster for advocates. Although Illinois legalized recreational use on the final day of its legislative schedule, a half-dozen other deep-blue states that were expected to legalize failed to follow-including New York.

Recent efforts to legalize marijuana in New York and New Jersey have been stalled - but not killed - by disputes over how exactly to divvy up the revenues from marijuana sales and by worries about drugged driving. Those are both important issues. But another concern should be at the center of this debate: the medical implications of legalizing marijuana, particularly for young people.

New data about the effects of the First Step Act, a bipartisan prison reform bill that President Trump signed into law in December, is showing that past injustices can be corrected, even in the most politically polarized of times.

The 2011 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on Vancouver's Insite clinic clearly established 1) that supervised consumption sites are part of health-care services that should be made accessible to people who use drugs, 2) that these sites contribute to reducing the harms associated with drug use, and 3) that denying access to these sites increases the risk of death and disease.

Letters

Re "Marijuana Damages Young Brains," by Kenneth L. Davis and Mary Jeanne Kreek (Op-Ed, June 17): No one is advocating that young people either consume or have ready access to cannabis. In fact, it is precisely because marijuana use may pose potential risks to certain consumers - for example, adolescents or people with a family history of psychiatric illness - that NORML believes that lawmakers should regulate it accordingly.

To the editor: Your June 28 editorial, "Marijuana-impaired drivers a growing danger," lacks a rational basis for crying wolf. In fact, marijuana consumption's negligible impact on driving ability pales next to alcohol and distraction by smartphone use.

According to Messrs. Kennedy and Sabet, cannabis legalization is "a failed experiment." But in Washington state, which like Colorado legalized in 2012, support has increased from 56% to an astounding 78%. Some failure!

It makes sense to make marijuana readily available as a less harmful alternative to truly harmful drugs such as opiates. Why would a drug pusher carry marijuana in his inventory when you can buy it over the counter? Messrs. Kennedy and Sabet are behind the times.

The authors suffer from the same confirmation bias and first-order thinking that begot the demonstrably unsuccessful war on drugs and has sustained it, to tragic effect, for nearly 50 years. Despite enormous expense and countless American lives lost to street violence and incarceration, access to and abuse of marijuana and other drugs remains as prevalent as ever. Why, then, do intelligent people refuse to accept that the goals of the antidrug crusade haven't been, and cannot be, achieved by prohibition?

The costs and benefits of cannabis and cannabis policies are difficult to calculate, but cannabis legalization will remove many impediments to research.

Beer sales worked at Fresno State games, so how about pot at campus poetry readings? I was pleased to read that the (Fresno State) athletic department benefited financially from beer sales at their games. We all know beer and sports go nicely together. Perhaps the other departments at Fresno State should take their cues from this, but instead of serving beer, sell cannabis. It's legal (semi) now and probably just as profitable.