Our Deputy Director, Paul Armentano, has another piece posted on the influential Capitol Hill blog, “The Hill”, read by the Beltway-insiders. His posts on marijuana legalization are consistently the most-commented-on posts on that blog. Surf on over and leave your own comment for our elected officials to read.
Is it at all surprising to see that the Obama team has decided to hide their collective heads in the sand when it comes to the issue of reevaluating America’s ineffective and antiquated marijuana policies? Not at all. But by doing so, the President-Elect and Congress are missing the bigger picture.
The overwhelming popularity of the marijuana reform issue — as manifested on Change.gov, Change.org (which is conducting its own online poll of the top issues facing America; the legalization of marijuana tops the list), and even here on the Hill (where my most recent blog posts have each garnered several hundreds of readers’ comments, almost all of them supportive) — illustrate two important points.
One: there is a significant, vocal, and identifiable segment of our society that wants to see an end to America’s archaic and overly punitive marijuana laws. Two: the American public is ready and willing to engage in a serious and objective political debate regarding the merits of legalizing the use of cannabis by adults.
The popularity of the topic was also picked up on the FOX “News” Channel:
