How I Accidentally Legalized Marijuana

      In 1937, Congressmen Harry Anslinger proposed The Marihuana Tax Act, which essentially made marijuana illegal and started Anslinger's War, an international war against marijuana and marijuana users. I was born 29 years into marijuana prohibition, and grew up in the 1970s when marijuana was still illegal, but I grew up in Michigan and ended up going to the University of Michigan, which is in Ann Arbor.

     The city of Ann Arbor led the country in legalizing marijuana, first, after John Sinclair was sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving an undercover police officer 2 joints ("10 for 2") John Lennon took up his cause and performed at the Free John Sinclair concert in December of 1971. The following spring Ann Arbor celebrated his release with the first Hash Bash on April 1st 1972, and a month later in May of 1972 the Ann Arbor City Council voted to decriminalize marijuana possession under one ounce by making the penalty a $5 ticket like a parking ticket.

     I went to the University of Michigan Ann Arbor from 1988 to 1990 where I also started working for GreenPeace, after I graduated, I moved to Santa Cruz California and continued working for the local GreenPeace office. In 1993 the Santa Cruz City Council was discussing whether to give the local police department millions of dollars to buy helicopters that they were going to use to look for marijuana growing in the hills. Like Ann Arbor, Santa Cruz was an activist town and the citizens that had come to attend the city council meeting had overflowed into the halls outside the city council chamber.

     A few activists from the GreenPeace office arrived late, and we were standing in the hall when the Police Chief or Sheriff started making his pitch for the money, he had a long list of reasons why they should have the money. As he read the first reason and paused for effect, I called out from the hall, "Then make it legal," because the reason he cited was only a problem with illegal marijuana. He read his next reason and I immediately realized that it was the same kind of reason as the first, he was not detailing why marijuana was a problem, but why illegal marijuana was a problem, so I again called out, "Then make it legal." The people around me in the hall started to join in, and after the 3rd or 4th time it became a one second chant that spread to the entire city council chamber. He read more than 10 reasons and each one was only a problem because marijuana was illegal, and each time we all chanted, "Then make it legal," in response.

     Everyone in attendance heard the police be unable to cite a single reason why marijuana was bad, only why illegal marijuana was bad, and so the police did not get their helicopters, and instead the following year activists in Santa Cruz County got the signatures needed to get medical marijuana on the ballot, and we voted to make it legal in Santa Cruz. I had no idea that anyone would actually make marijuana legal, all I did was start the chant, but the power of repetition is that it sets up lasting memories, making the Santa Cruz City Council event unforgettable for anyone that was there. Then just 2 years later when the movement grew to become statewide we voted to legalize medical marijuana in California, becoming the first state in the United States to legalize marijuana after 59 years of marijuana prohibition.

     Other states caught on and started legalizing medical marijuana, with Michigan legalizing it in 2008, and then in 2012 states started legalizing recreational marijuana. California legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, and Michigan did the same in 2018, making marijuana fully legal by state law in both Ann Arbor and Santa Cruz within 25 years after the, "Then make it legal," chant. By 2020 a total of 37 states had legalized medical marijuana, and 19 of them had also legalized recreational marijuana.

     In June of 2021 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote an opinion letter about marijuana, and suggested that the Supreme Court may eventually hand down a decision that gets rid of federal marijuana laws since it is not in the Constitution that marijuana is in the federal jurisdiction, foreshadowing that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade for the same reason. In 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson WHO overturned Roe v. Wade because, again, the Constitution of the United States does not give the federal government authority over abortion; in a concurring opinion on Dobbs Justice Thomas compared the federal abortion law that they were overturning to the federal gay marriage law, since the Constitution does not give the federal government any powers over abortion or marriage. If Justice Thomas is right, we may see the Supreme Court overturn both federal gay marriage laws as well as federal marijuana laws in the near future, allowing the states to decide both.

     Then in October of 2022 in an, "October surprise," for the midterm election President Biden pardoned anyone in federal prison for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, and called upon the governors of the states to do the same, in total President Biden set around 5,000 federal marijuana prisoners free. He also asked the Justice Department to remove marijuana from Schedule 1, so that research can finally be done in the United States on the medical benefits of marijuana.

     Both the Supreme Court and the White House have set the stage for the final battle in Anslinger's War, the Supreme Court will likely hear a marijuana case in the next few years, and like abortion, they will decide that marijuana should be decided by the states, which makes Congress irrelevant. This is literally the end game, all we need is for all federal laws on marijuana prohibition to be thrown out, and then the remaining states that do not currently have any form of legal marijuana can vote to legalize either medical or recreational marijuana, or both, Missouri legalized medical marijuana in 2018, then just 4 years later in 2022 they legalized recreational marijuana.

     Sometimes it takes a single act of rebellion, a direct action to be able to start the ball rolling, and after more than 55 years of marijuana prohibition in the United States, I think it was the, "Then make it legal," chant that I started in Santa Cruz in 1993 that was the tipping point in the history of marijuana prohibition. Up until then the police got away with stating things that were from the Reefer Madness era of Anslinger's War as was exemplified by the police chief reading off his list.

     But Anslinger's War did not just affect the United States, what started as a prohibition against cannabis here has ended up being a cannabis prohibition all around the world, with many countries having lengthy jail sentences for cannabis users and some even having the death penalty for dealers. The goal of legalizing marijuana does not end with the United States, it is time for all states and all countries around the planet to legalize marijuana once and for all. Since the United States forced the entire planet to go along with the prohibition against marijuana in the first place, and since the U.S. has now set our federal marijuana prisoners free, the U.S. must pressure all countries around the planet to set their marijuana prisoners free as well, and pressure them to reverse any laws against marijuana anywhere on the planet.