U.S. House vote on legalizing pot is an important first step

Alittle sprout of history germinated in the U.S. House recently, with passage of a measure to legalize marijuana nationwide and expunge the records of those convicted of nonviolent cannabis-related crimes. The measure won’t become law any time soon, but this first-ever congressional nod to common sense — which, importantly, came with some Republican assistance — is symbolically urgent going for ward.

The explosion of state laws across America allowing medical or recreational pot use is increasingly running headlong into the federal government’s draconian policies, which waste public resources and victimize Black Americans with uneven enforcement. This moralistic anachronism will go the way of Prohibition sooner or later. The sooner, the better.

The Democrat-controlled House on Dec. 4 approved the More Act (Marijuana Oppor tunity Reinvestment and Expungement), which would remove cannabis from the list of federally controlled substances and expunge prior convictions. Five Republicans joined most Democrats in the 228-164 vote, the first time either chamber of Congress has approved legislation ending the federal ban on marijuana.

Even proponents acknowledge the measure isn’t likely to become law in the coming term. President-elect Joe Biden has been tepid on the issue, saying he favors decriminalizing pot usage and expunging convictions but would leave the issue of full legalization to the states. In any case, if Biden ultimately faces a Republican-held Senate, the bill won’t go anywhere. But this is how historic legislative changes start, and this is one that is surely coming eventually.

Gone are the days when most of mainstream America blindly accepted the cultural hysteria about a product that should logically be grouped with beer and wine, not cocaine and heroin as a Schedule 1 drug. The Nov. 3 elections yielded votes in four more states approving laws allowing recreational marijuana use, bringing the total to 15, including Illinois. Fully one in three Americans now live in states that allow such sales. Many more states allow it for medicinal purposes. In October, 68% of respondents in a Gallup poll approved of legalization, the highest percentage in the half-centur y the question has been asked.

This isn’t just about people wanting to get high. Criminalized pot places an unnecessar y burden on the criminal justice system, with enforcement accounting for more than 40% of all drug arrests, even though cigarettes and alcohol are demonstrably more dangerous. And that criminalization has long been disproportionately wielded against Black Americans, who aren’t any more likely than whites to smoke pot but are almost four times more likely to get arrested for it, according to a study by the American Civil Liber ties Union.

Americans didn’t end Prohibition almost 90 years ago because there were no downsides to legalizing alcohol; it happened because the enforcement solution proved worse than the downsides. This is the situation with the federal marijuana prohibition today. It’s time.

— Reprinted from the St. Louis PostDispatch