{"id":17293,"date":"2019-12-01T00:06:10","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T05:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=17293"},"modified":"2019-12-01T00:09:21","modified_gmt":"2019-12-01T05:09:21","slug":"pot-never-should-have-been-illegal-in-the-first-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=17293","title":{"rendered":"Pot never should have been illegal in the first place"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Pot never should have been illegal in the first place<\/h1>\n

Marijuana Policy Project: States lead the way with legalization<\/h2>\n
Steve Hawkins<\/div>\n
Opinion contributor<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\"Marijuana

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Last week, Gallup reported that a record-high 66 percent of Americans now say marijuana should be legal<\/a>. The reason is simple: Marijuana never should have been illegal in the first place.<\/p>\n

Through decades of reefer madness, Americans were led to believe that marijuana is far more harmful than it actually is. This is not to say it\u2019s harmless. But it is safe to say it is less harmful than alcohol<\/a>, another substance that once was illegal and is now widely accepted in our country.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, our federal government and many states still have laws on the books that criminalize marijuana use, and they are all too frequently enforced. U.S. law enforcement agencies made about 600,000 arrests for marijuana possession<\/a> last year, according to the FBI. To make matters worse, these marijuana laws have long been disproportionately enforced against communities of color.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

We learned as a nation during alcohol prohibition that simply banning a widely demanded substance does not make the substance go away. Instead, prohibition creates a criminal market to satisfy that demand, which brings with it a whole host of public health and safety problems.<\/p>\n