Pot Legalization: Already A Moot Point?
Not that the opinion of this august medical association likely will sway many of the undecided - if there are many undecided still left. (Are there any?) Judging from the tenor of the posts in the talkback section over the course of our two-day point-counterpoint, both sides appear locked and loaded in their conviction that their opponents are flat wrong.
The central plank of the anti-legalization argument is the claim that marijuana use has destructive health and social consequences. When I was growing up, that was the conventional wisdom, at least until the social changes wrought by the counterculture began stripping away the stigma around pot smoking. So it was that however ably he argued his brief - and his undeniably was a first-rate demonstration of the art of rhetoric - Evans was battling not just with Gray but also against four decades of increasing societal acceptance of marijuana use. The pro-legalization movement has good reason to believe that it's just a matter of time before local legislatures around the country rewrite local laws to reflect that change. In fact, the legislature in my home state of California recently met to hold hearings on a proposal to legalize, regulate and tax pot. On top of this comes the AMA news.
The arguments won't get put to rest, but at this point, you have to wonder it's already a moot point.