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CBS News Series: Marijuana Prohibition And Possible Alternatives
Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:54:34 *By: Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director
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“When governments arrest people, it hasn’t stopped people from consuming cannabis.”

In what can be described as a comprehensive journalistic undertaking, CBS News is broadcasting an in-depth review of America’s 72-year old cannabis prohibition called Marijuana Nation: The New War Over Weed and what are some of the possible public policy alternatives that will be supported by the American public in future.

Starting with a broadcast piece on Sunday Morning, and via extensive web reportage, CBSNews.com, in my personal opinion, has done a far better job than other major news networks who’ve also recently run either a series, or documentaries, examining the growing public support for ending cannabis prohibition, cannabis as a taxed commodity, and looking into how American drug policies affect other countries’ drug policies.

Both sides, prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists, are well represented and make their cases for either reform or to maintain the status quo of prohibition.

A transcript from Sunday Morning, examining California’s ever-growing medical cannabis industry and the growing calls in America’s most important state for outright legalization, is available here.

The accompanying article, featuring quotes from NORML Advisory Board member and former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, America’s Love-Hate History with Pot, is read here.

Norm Stamper still remembers the day, nearly six decades ago, when a police detective visited his elementary school class to warn of the dangers of smoking the “devil weed.”

“That was the term he used — and he even brought along a bag of marijuana to show us,” said Stamper, 65, who would later become Seattle’s police chief. “I remember him saying something to the effect that, ‘If you smoke this, it will rot the membrane in your nose.’ He was an authority figure, and so I figured he could tell me something about the dangers of this drug. That was my early education about marijuana.”

By today’s standards, such a warning might sound as dated as the bug-eyed, morally-depraved pot fiends portrayed in the 1936 movie Reefer Madness.

But it was in line with the prevailing view of the 1950s, which considered marijuana to be not just a dangerous drug, but a stepping stone to the use of heroin or even more dangerous controlled substances. In 1979, 27 percent of Americans favored legalization, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll at the time.

A new CBS News poll released today finds that more Americans now support legalization. Forty-one percent said they think marijuana should be made legal and 52 percent are opposed. That’s even more than in a CBS News poll in March when 31 percent said they were in favor of legalization in all cases with another seven percent saying they would favor legalization if marijuana were taxed and the money went to projects.

“They told us that marijuana was a gateway drug,” said Stamper, who these days is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “It was not.”

America’s Love-Hate History with Pot
With a New CBS News Poll Finding 41% Now Support Legalization, CBSNews.com Examines Changing Views of Marijuana in the U.S.

Video: Politics of Pot
Highlights of Presidents and Presidential Candidates addressing the marijuana question.

-Amid Calls for Marijuana Legalization in the U.S., CBSNews.com Looks at the Lessons of the Dutch Approach-
This story was written by Brian Montopoli as part of a new CBSNews.com special report on the evolving debate over marijuana legalization: Marijuana Nation: The New War Over Weed.