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Cannabis Legalization in the USA

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Advances towards decriminalization and legalization of cannabis in the USA: Rescheduling, the advance of state legislation, and the blindness of the federal authorities.

After 1969, a time characterized by widespread use of cannabis, a wave of legislation attempted to reduce the penalties for the simple possession of marijuana, making it punishable by confiscation and/or a fine rather than imprisonment. Decriminalization is a strategy that discourages users, but largely removes them from the criminal justice system, while imposing stiff penalties on those who traffic and sell the drug. Some of the first examples of this adjustment in drug policy were found in Alabama, when state judges decided to no longer impose five year mandatory minimum sentences for small possession (one marijuana cigarette); Missouri, when their legislature reformed statutes that made second possession offences no longer punishable by life in prison; and in Georgia, when that state revised second sale offences to minors no longer punishable by death.

State Policies

Soon after these developments, an official decriminalization movement was started in 1973 with Oregon prompting other states, like Colorado, Alaska, Ohio, and California, to follow suit in 1975. By 1978, Mississippi, North Carolina, New York, and Nebraska also had some form of marijuana decriminalization. In 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, so that sick and dying patients could legally use marijuana for medicinal purposes. In 2001, Nevada reduced marijuana possession from a felony offence to a misdemeanor.

Federal Policy

Regardless of these states' rights, decriminalization was never adopted as a national policy, principally because U.S. Congress disagrees with passing a version of legislation on the federal level. However, several petitions for cannabis rescheduling in the United States have been filed to remove marijuana from the "Schedule I" category of tightly-restricted drugs that have no medical use. The Controlled Substance Act allows the executive branch to decriminalize medical and recreational use of marijuana without any action by Congress; however, this would depend on the findings of the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services on certain scientific and medical issues specified by the Act.

Issues regarding the unalienable Right to Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness expressed in the Declaration of Independence have at times been raised in the debate, arguing that those imprisoned for cannabis use are political prisoners.

Current Progress

In 2005, libertarian economist Milton Friedman and more than 500 other economists, called for the legalization of marijuana in an open letter to the President, Congress, Governors, and State Legislatures of the United States.
On November 1, 2005, the city of Denver, Colorado passed in a 53%-46% vote to legalize the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for adults over 21.
On February 16, 2006, the Joint Mental Health and Substance Abuse Committee of the Massachusetts General Court voted 6-1 in favor of a bill that would decriminalize the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana. Rather than face criminal charges, offenders would face a civil fine of $250.

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