In a bit of good news from the states – Minnesota has become the 23rd state to legalize marijuana:
As of August 1, adults 21 and older will be able to possess in public up to two ounces of cannabis and they will be allowed to cultivate up to eight plants at home, four of which can be mature. People can possess up to two pounds of marijuana in their residences.
Gifting up to two ounces of marijuana without remuneration between adults will be permitted.
It’s expected to take 12-18 months for licenses to be issued and regulated sales to start. As of March 1, 2025, existing medical cannabis businesses can receive new combination licenses that would allow them to participate in the adult-use market.
The Minnesota law has several other provisions, which you can read about here.
Minnesota now joins the ranks of states that have withdrawn from at least part of the long-running, profoundly expensive and deeply corrupting federal war on drugs. Not every state has followed suit, and in some, like South Dakota, the self-described “conservative” political class has gone out of its way to thwart voters on the idea.
That’s to their lasting shame. If they had the will or courage to do so, they could read William F. Buckley’s speech on why he opposed the drug war. It might go over the heads of some pols, whose attention spans mimic those of mayflies. But here’s Buckley’s bottom line:
I leave it at this, that it is outrageous to live in a society whose laws tolerate sending young people to life in prison because they grew, or distributed, a dozen ounces of marijuana. I would hope that the good offices of your vital profession would mobilize at least to protest such excesses of wartime zeal, the legal equivalent of a My Lai massacre. And perhaps proceed to recommend the legalization of the sale of most drugs, except to minors.
It’s similar to Milton Friedman’s stance on the issue:
What scares me is the notion of continuing on the path we’re on now, which will destroy our free society, making it an uncivilized place. There’s only one way you can really enforce the drug laws currently. The only way to do that is to adopt the policies of Saudi Arabia, Singapore, which some other countries adopt, in which a drug addict is subject to capital punishment or, at the very least, having his hand chopped off. If we were willing to have penalties like that–but would that be a society you’d want to live in?
Some do, though a Venn diagram showing the overlap between hardboiled drug warriors and regular users of legal and highly addictive substances like, say, coffee, tobacco, sugar or alcohol would be very telling.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
READ NEXT: Will Russian Wagner Group ‘Mercenaries’ Overthrow Putin?
so as the bodies pile up
where do we draw the line
the policy makers are never on the end of the of the
ppl who are killed by criminals
when the tables turn and those policy makers
families end up being the who are dead or harmed
will anyone care
the other could be is to vote the criminal politicians out of office
this wish is a joke
Why not legalize murder too, because we can’t stop or control that either?
Marijuana has been the gateway to more and even worse drugs from every available study, specifically UC Davis. Any police officer who has performed a Field Sobriety Test on a driver under the influence of Marijuana has seen the exaggerated step up 12” or more due to their time/space disorientation. They think they are driving 25 MPH when their actual speed is closer to 65 MPH. They fail the eye convergence test, meaning take a finger and hold it up slowly moving it towards the end of their nose. Both eyes would normally cross, instead they both look right or both look left. There are numerous other signs and symptoms of a marijuana influence that can be readily documented by an officer who has been qualified as a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) in court. Alcohol is a drug, with all the ills and disastrous problems, why encourage more drug problems?! Because some think it is a right? No, it is a rabbit hole of drug problems that every state who has allowed this pathetic problem is experiencing from driving under the influence to accidental ingestion hospitalizations of small children to even laced fentanyl and other drugs mixed into street drug concoctions.
This is wrong, I as a working police officer witnessed the pathetic issues brought on by such usage and pray it is stopped!!!
It’s called Dope?
The marijuana that can now be readily obtained or grown is not the marijuana that Norman may have “grown up” with.