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After nearly a century, the war against marijuana is ending. Four years after the 18th Amendment was repealed and Prohibition ended in 1933, Congress adopted the Marihuana Tax Act on August 2, 1937; in the 1930s, marijuana was spelled “marihuana.” It made the possession and sale of marijuana illegal.
On September 1, 2024, former president Donald Trump came out in support of a pending amendment to the Florida state constitution to decriminalize marijuana. “In Florida, like so many other States that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment 3,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site. “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly.”
He added, “We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them, and no one should grieve a loved one because they died from fentanyl-laced marijuana.”
Today’s round of the culture wars was launched a half-century ago and marijuana smoking was a central battleground. On September 16, 1968, Vice Pres. Richard Nixon appeared at the Anaheim, CA, convention center as part of his presidential campaign. He announced that if elected, he would stop illicit drugs coming into the country that were “decimating a generation of young Americans.” On November 5th, Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey and was elected president.
Just three months after taking office, Nixon convened a Special Presidential Task Force Relating to Narcotics, Marijuana, and Dangerous Drugs. According to one account, “He instructed the committee chairs to focus on curbing drug trafficking into the United States, especially marijuana.” Three months later, on July 14th, he sent a special message to Congress identifying drug abuse as “a serious national threat.” Citing what he said was a dramatic jump in drug-related juvenile arrests and street crime between 1960 and 1967, Nixon called for a national anti-drug policy at the state and federal levels.
On September 21, 1969, Pres. Richard Nixon launched “Operation Intercept,” the first step in what would become the “war on drugs.”[i] Under this plan, 2,000 U.S. Customs agents were deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border to halt the importation of illegal drugs. In June ’71, Nixon formally declared a “war on drugs,” insisting, “Drug abuse is the single most deadly social problem in America.” Justin Reid noted, “Perhaps more than any other war in recent memory, the war on drugs has persevered through successive administrations both as an idea and as a physical reality.”
A half-century later, Nancy Reagan launched the postmodern prohibition movement. In 1982, she gave her infamous “Just Say No” speech at the Longfellow Elementary School in Oakland, CA. In a 1986 speech, she declared: “Today there’s a drug and alcohol abuse epidemic in this country, and no one is safe from it – not you, not me, and certainly not our children, because this epidemic has their names written on it.”
Mrs. Reagan’s original campaign sought to address an assortment of alleged youthful vices, including alcohol and drug abuse, peer violence and premarital sex. Seeing an opportunity, a cabal of shrewd moralists, clever politicians and innovative entrepreneurs used the speech to further and intensify the ongoing culture wars. They forged the new police-corporate repression system, the domestic corollary to what Pres. Dwight Eisenhower’s identified as the “military-industrial complex.”
Now, a quarter-century later, America’s attitude toward marijuana has changed.
Most surprisingly, Trump’s position is at odds with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who claims that legalization of recreational cannabis would “be bad for quality of life” and it “would turn Florida into San Francisco or Chicago”; Florida legalized medicinal marijuana in 2016. His position is also at odds with his VP choice, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). While a strong supporter of state’s rights, he opposed its legalization. The voters in Ohio legalized personal use of recreational marijuana in November 2023, making it the 24th state to decriminalize the “drug.”
VP Kamala Harris once admitted, “And I inhaled,” giggling. “I did inhale. It was a long time ago,” she added, “I think it gives a lot of people joy. We need more joy in the world.” Vanity Fair notes that many recent political leaders have imbibed the once “evil weed,” including the two Bush brothers, Al Gore, Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich; Trump claims he never smoked marijuana.
However, Harris has held roller-coaster-like positions on marijuana policy over the course of her public career. While long supporting the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, as San Francisco’s district attorney she oversaw the conviction of more than 1,900 people on cannabis-related offenses. In 2010, when running for California’s Attorney General, she opposed allowing marijuana sales for recreational use. When running for re-election in 2026, Harris opposed legalizing recreational use of marijuana — a position her Republican opponent supported.
However, as Vice President, Harris says current penalties for marijuana use are
“patently unfair” and objects to the current classification of marijuana as more dangerous than fentanyl. She has embraced Pres. Joe Biden’s and the Democratic support for decriminalization of cannabis. This effort focused on having the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) shift marijuana from a Schedule I drug — like heroin, LSD and ecstasy — to Schedule III that is defined as having a
“moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.” If rescheduled, marijuana would still be a controlled substance that’s subject to federal rules and regulations.
Anticipating the rescheduling of marijuana, Biden announced in October 2022 that he would use his executive authority to pardon “all prior Federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana.” He subsequently pardoned thousands of people who were convicted of the use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia,
One can only wonder if the issue of the decriminalization of recreational marijuana will be raised at the upcoming, Sept. 10th debate between Harris and Trump.
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