Despite last week’s defeat of Proposition 19 at the polls, new taxes on marijuana are…
Tag: Los Angeles
Latinos use marijuana at lower rates in than whites yet they are prosecuted for minor…
From 2006 to 2008, African Americans were arrested for marijuana possession offenses in California’s 25…
Los Angeles’ controversial municipal ordinance capping the total number of medical marijuana dispensaries that may…
Because of the numerous media reports and typical Hollywood hype many close observers would immediately place the city of Los Angeles as America’s cannabis capital. Or maybe they’d guess that ever-cannabis tolerant San Francisco must be it. Possibly, ‘Oaksterdam’?
But, they’d be wrong.
This week we’ve seen three usually staid mainstream media outlets – Newsweek Magazine, the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and FOX Business News – examining the growing movement in California and nationwide to discuss the inevitable re-legalization of cannabis in America.
Without a doubt the question I’m most often asked professionally is this: “Why is marijuana still illegal?”
The common inference behind this question is that there must be some behind the scenes cabal of Big Pharma, Tobacco, and Alcohol executives conspiring to keep cannabis illegal. By contrast, the real culprits behind pot prohibition are far more overt.
Even though California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has joined the calls for a debate on marijuana prohibition itself, there is still a lot of confusion about the legal status of the supposedly less controversial topic of “medical marijuana”.