Pot Politics: Marijuana and the Costs of Prohibition

Mitch Earleywine

elo 2006 · Oxford University Press

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Marijuana use continues to attract interest and fuel controversy. Big, green pot leaves have adorned the covers of Time, National Review, and Forbes. Almost 100 million Americans have tried marijuana at least once. Groups such as The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana (NORML) and The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) have tens of thousands of members. Polls suggest that 70-80% of Americans support medicinal marijuana. At least 11 U.S. states have experimented with decriminalization and medical marijuana laws, with new initiatives appearing each year. Meanwhile, other groups such as Partnership for a Drug Free America and Mothers Against Drugs protest legalization. Clearly, debate about marijuana policy shows no sign of abating. In his earlier book, Understanding Marijuana, Mitch Earleywine forced researchers, policy makers, and citizens to avoid oversimplification, separate empirical findings from their interpretations, and understand that some things may be neither good nor evil. Pot Politics continues with these same themes, showing multiple perspectives from a variety of experts on an important problem with vast implications. The volume presents ethical, religious, economic, psychological, and political arguments for cannabis policies that range from prohibition to unrestricted legalization. By presenting a unique perspective on overlapping issues, each chapter demonstrates how even recognized experts draw markedly different conclusions from the same data. Some contributors evaluate policy by weighing the costs and benefits of control while others eschew policy by presenting moral arguments against our attempts at control. Pot Politics should be read by everyone interested in the politics of both marijuana use and governmental regulation of our actions.