Oregon, Alaska, and D.C. Have Legalized Recreational Pot — Is Nationwide Legalization Inevitable?
The legal recreational marijuana industry, now thriving in Colorado and Washington (state), will soon be expanding to Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, D.C., thanks to ballot initiatives passed last week. And encouraged by those victories, marijuana legalization advocates in other states, such as Missouri, are putting together proposals for 2016 state contests.
But marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, meaning that all of those legal recreational pot shops from Denver to Seattle, and all of those legal medical marijuana dispensaries from Sacramento to Jersey City, are operating outside of federal law.
So will these statewide legalization efforts bring about a change in marijuana policy at the national level? The answer is far from clear, but the path to finding an answer to the question begins at the White House.
At the federal level, drug policy is carried out by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which is itself a part of the Justice Department. The Justice Department is part of the Executive Branch, which means that the DEA, at least indirectly, answers to the president. What that means on a practical level is that one phone call from the Oval Office could send a van full of DEA agents in SWAT gear to every medical and recreational pot dispensary in the country before the day is out.
Fortunately, the Obama Administration’s approach to statewide marijuana legalization has been one of “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.” But on January 20, 2017, all bets will be off.
Of the possible Democrat contenders for 2016, Hillary Clinton seems the most likely. Since she spent eight years as First Lady to Bill “I Didn’t Inhale” Clinton, don’t expect her to release the DEA hounds on the legal pot industry, but whether she’ll pursue nationwide legalization is anybody’s guess.
If a Republican takes the Oval Office, things could be starkly different. Although Republicans, in the main, support states’ rights, an ardent social conservative such as Rick Santorum in the White House could send the nation’s marijuana policy back to the Reagan Era with a single phone call.
Things look far less hopeful in the Legislative Branch. With the Republicans taking over the Senate, and maintaining their majority in the House, it appears as if the GOP’s main goals for the remainder of Obama’s lame-duck administration seem to focus on taxes, energy, and dismantling Obamacare. Changes in federal marijuana policy are likely not on anyone’s radar.
There is, however, a possibility of marijuana legalization coming from, of all places, the judiciary. Late last month, United States District Judge Kimberly Mueller heard arguments in favor of re-classifying marijuana, which is currently a Schedule I narcotic (“no medical use”) as far as the federal government is concerned. However, if Mueller rules in favor of re-classifying pot, essentially the nation’s pot laws would be changed with a stroke of a judge’s pen. At this point, it’s probably a long shot, but a ruling may come after the first of the year, according to The Weed Blog.
Regardless of how things play out over the next few years, one thing seems to be obvious: The path to nationwide marijuana legalization is not likely to be through Washington, but through the individual state capitals.
[Image courtesy of: CNN]
