Social Policy

The Legalization of Marijuana

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The legalization of marijuana by Colorado and Washington State is a first for drug policy and represents the escalation of state-federal conflicts over hot-button issues. As public opinion becomes increasingly at odds with federal marijuana law, are there win-win solutions? Brookings scholars and other experts look for sustainable, sensible paths forward.

A man smokes marijuana during a rally for the legalization of marijuana in Toronto (REUTERS/Mark Blinch).

Paper

The New Politics of Marijuana Legalization: Why Opinion is Changing

May 29, 2013, William A. Galston and E.J. Dionne, , Jr.

Surveying a wealth of new data on public attitudes toward marijuana legalization, E.J. Dionne, Jr. and William A. Galston explain the forces and limits behind the trend toward legalization. They seek to answer the following: Will America see the emergence of a broad pro-legalization consensus, or rather of a durably divisive cultural disagreement?

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    How would a crackdown backfire? Because it would produce, immediately in Colorado, and eventually in other states, an atomized, anarchic state legalized but unregulated marijuana market that federal drug enforcers lack the manpower to contain and lack the legal power to force the states to contain.

    May 8, 2013, Stuart S. Taylor, Jr., KCRW

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The Legalization of Marijuana

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