Snopes.com, public domain
Over the New Year's weekend, pranksters found their way to the Hollywood sign and mocked it up to pay tribute to Calfornia's November vote to legalize recreational marijuana.
Here's a map via Governing magazine that lays out where pot is legal and under what circumstances. It's interactive, so click through for full effect.
Especially after California's move, it's legitimate to say that the war on pot is decisively going against the prohibitionists. Having said that, there's still a ton of territory to be won and there remain massive actions that still need to happen: Laws in the 21 states that still ban all forms of pot need to change, legal banking practices need to be established in states that allow recreational and medical marijuana, the disposition of prisoners serving sentences for marijuana-related crime needs to be addressed, and more.
In 2017, activists will be especially busy in states such as Texas, Kentucky, and Missouri, which currently don't allow legal consumption, but also will be working to further liberalize laws in places such as New Jersey and Rhode Island. The question for all of us who believe that adults should be allowed to use marijuana legally is, to paraphrase John Kerry, Who will we let be the last person to die for this mistake? A more-pressing question for all Americans is, What will the federal response to state-level legalization be under a Trump administration. There are good reasons to be very worried. Watch now:
Comments