Decriminalization Of Non-medical Cannabis In The United States
Attempts to decriminalize cannabis (marijuana) in the United States began in the 1970s. As views on cannabis have liberalized (peaking in 1978), almost half the states have either approved it for medical use, decriminalized it for recreational use, or completely legalized it.
Proponents of decriminalization argue that legalizing cannabis would free billions of dollars now used to prosecute users, provide several billions in tax revenue, free a substantial amount of law-enforcement resources which could be used to prevent more serious crimes, free a substantial amount of prison resources, and reduce the income of street gangs and organized crime who grow, import, process, and sell cannabis. Opponents argue that cannabis on the street today has a much higher percent of THC with a stronger drug effect and that decriminalization will lead to usage, increased crime, and abuse of more dangerous illicit drugs.
In 2005, Gonzales v. Raich, ruled in a 6-3 decision that the Commerce Clause and Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution allowed the federal government to ban the use of cannabis (including medical use) because federal law is "supreme" and trumps state law to the contrary.
Read more about Decriminalization Of Non-medical Cannabis In The United States: History, Arguments in Support, Advocacy
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united and/or states:
“I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name.... We must be impartial in thought as well as in action ... a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The line that I am urging as today’s conventional wisdom is not a denial of consciousness. It is often called, with more reason, a repudiation of mind. It is indeed a repudiation of mind as a second substance, over and above body. It can be described less harshly as an identification of mind with some of the faculties, states, and activities of the body. Mental states and events are a special subclass of the states and events of the human or animal body.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)