DPA is working hard state by state to
educate lawmakers about marijuana and to
make cannabis available for medicinal
purposes for seriously ill people. Through
DPA's advocacy and commitment from
patients and the governor, a compassionate
use bill brought medical marijuana access
to New Mexico in early 2007. DPA is doing
similar work in states ranging from
Connecticut and New Jersey to Alabama. For
more information on our work in the
states, please visit our state-by-state
page. For more background on marijuana
regulation and criminalization, read on.
In 1937, with the passage of the Marihuana
Tax Act, the United States effectively
banned recreational and medicinal use of
cannabis.(1) Many nations followed suit
and in 1961, through the United Nations
Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs,
fifty-four nations agreed to "[a]dopt such
measures as may be necessary to prevent
the misuse of, and illicit traffic in the
leaves of the cannabis plant."(2) Despite
such restrictive control, cannabis has
become the most widely used illicit drug
in the western world.
Since the 1970s pressure has been building
to move away from the total prohibition of
cannabis. Over the past century, numerous
reports from independent,
government-sponsored commissions have
documented the drug's relative
harmlessness and recommended the
elimination of criminal sanctions for
consumption-related offenses.(3) Opinion
polls show growing support for cannabis
reform and scientific, medical and patient
communities consistently provide evidence
of the drug's therapeutic potential. As
the public increasingly demands legal
access to cannabis for both medicinal and
other responsible uses, policy makers are
being forced to consider how to regulate
the drug.
The Netherlands has led the way in
cannabis reform since it amended its Opium
Act in 1976 to distinguish among drugs
according to levels of risk. Identifying
cannabis as a "soft drug," the Dutch
government decided to treat possession and
cultivation of up to 30 grams as
activities "not for prosecution, detection
or arrest." This policy of tolerance paved
the way for the "coffee shop system" of
publicly distributing both marijuana and
hashish.
More recently, in 1996 the voters of
California passed Proposition 215, the
Compassionate Use Act, so that sick and
dying patients could legally use marijuana
for medicinal purposes. Cannabis buyers'
clubs, not unlike the Dutch hash coffee
shops, have emerged to provide marijuana
to those with legitimate medical need.
Despite the federal government's ongoing
efforts to stymie Prop. 215 by shutting
down the clubs, states continue to
consider similar ballot initiatives.
Cracks in prohibitionist cannabis control
systems constantly form. These cracks take
different shapes in different countries,
reflecting the diversity of political,
social and cultural conditions. As
clinical trials get started in the United
Kingdom, as more Australian states lower
penalties for personal possession and use,
and as more continental European countries
choose not to enforce criminal sanctions
for personal possession, alternative ways
of regulating cannabis will continue to
develop. Whether individual governments
choose to play a role in the drug's
responsible regulation remains to be
seen.
Notes:
1.
Medicinal use was still technically
legal but the tax proved to be prohibitive
for most therapeutic uses.
2.
Quoted in Abel, Ernest L. Marihuana,
the First Twelve Thousand Years. New York
McGraw-Hill. 1982. p.254.
3.
For more information on these
reports see Morgan, John P. Zimmer, Lynn.
Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts: A Review
of the Scientific Evidence. New York: The
Lindesmith Center. 1997. pp. 1-
