Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. In , t he bipartisan Shafer Commission, appointed by President Nixon at the direction of Congress, considered laws regarding marijuana and determined that personal use of marijuana should be decriminalized.
Nixon rejected the recommendation, but over the course of the s, eleven states decriminalized marijuana and most others reduced their penalties.
However, in a parent's movement against marijuana began and was instrumental in affecting pubic attitudes which lead to the s War on Drugs. Mandatory sentences were re-enacted by President Reagan.
The "three strikes you're out" policy, required life sentences for repeat drug offenders. Yet a major shift in public perception of marijuana was underway. In California passed Proposition allowing for the sale and medical use of marijuana for patients with AIDS, cancer, and other serious painful diseases. Across the state, celebratory stoners welcomed the New Year by lining up at licensed retailers to buy bags of heavily taxed artisanal marijuana, with varietal names like Pineapple Express and Alaskan Thunderbolt.
Since the first statewide medical marijuana laws went into effect in California in , the number of Americans with legal access to what for many is a pleasurable drug has been steadily growing. Twenty states and the District of Columbia now permit the sale of various forms of marijuana for medical purposes; in the past several months, the governor of New York, a state known since for its punitive drug laws, announced that he too would pursue accommodation for medical marijuana; and recreational marijuana is expected to be offered for sale in Washington State later this year.
Recently, the District of Columbia decriminalized the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, treating it as a civil offense from now on. Medical marijuana remains solidly in the realm of alternative medicine, and few clinical studies have been conducted to confirm specific claims. With the current state-level push toward legalization, voters seem to have found a way around the twentieth-century quest for prohibition—a prohibition that has become increasingly difficult to explain or justify.
Unlike alcohol, excessive pot smoking has not been unambiguously implicated in violent behavior or poor health. As a Schedule I drug, under federal law, marijuana is considered to have no medical use, although there are thousands of patient testimonials to the contrary. And perhaps the biggest contradiction of all is that since the century-long drive for prohibition was initiated, marijuana has become extremely popular.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of unlucky citizens face criminal sanctions for getting caught with a drug that one third of all Americans—including college students, professional athletes, legions of entertainers, and the past three U. Presidents—have experimented with at least once. In popular culture, the drug has become accepted as harmless fun. In , a talk show host can joke with a former congressman about being pot smokers on cable TV. As Americans consider further legalizing marijuana it is worth reviewing how the use of this plant became illegal in the first place and why prohibition persists in much of the country more than a half century after its use became common.
Interestingly, while marijuana use has been an urgent topic of conversation for over a century in this country, the voices of doctors and scientists have been largely quiet. Instead, the debate has been shaped by media portrayals of drug use and reinforced by politicians and advocacy groups that supported them. Cannabis, like opiates and cocaine , was freely available at drug stores in liquid form and as a refined product, hashish. Cannabis was also a common ingredient in turn-of-the-century patent medicines, over-the-counter concoctions brewed to proprietary formulas.
Then, as now, it was difficult to clearly distinguish between medicinal and recreational use of a product whose purpose is to make you feel good. While there were fads for cannabis across the nineteenth century, strictly recreational use was not widely known or accepted. But the practice of smoking marijuana leaf in cigarettes or pipes was largely unknown in the United States until it was introduced by Mexican immigrants during the first few decades of the twentieth century.
That introduction, in turn, generated a reaction in the U. Malik Burnett is a former surgeon and physician advocate. He also served as executive director of a medical marijuana nonprofit organization. View more Ask the Expert blog posts. This site is not designed to and does not provide medical advice, professional diagnosis, opinion, treatment or services to you or to any other individual. Through this site and linkages to other sites, the Drug Policy Alliance provides general information for educational purposes only.
The information provided in this site, or through linkages to other sites, is not medical advice and is not a substitute for medical or professional care. The Drug Policy Alliance is not liable or responsible for any advice or information you obtain through this site. October 8, That excuse became marijuana.
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