The great pot experiment: The economist!

[Sir X]

The great pot experiment

Legalising a drug is harder than it looks
Jul 12th 2014 | SEATTLE | From the print edition
Timekeeper

SINCE late 2012, two states have voted to legalise marijuana for recreational use; licensed shops in Colorado and Washington now sell it to anyone who wants it. Six states have legalised the drug for medicinal use, bringing the total to 23. Most Americans now say they favour legalisation (see chart 1). The House of Representatives has voted to defund federal raids of medical-marijuana facilities in states that allow them. Serious newspapers (though not, alas, this one) have appointed pot critics. And an Oklahoma state senator has campaigned to legalise the drug because in Genesis 1:29, “God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed...upon the face of all the earth’.”


In this section
The great pot experiment
Digging dirt, digitally
Why Democrats flip-flop on guns
They can’t imagine not working
Matches made in heaven—and hell
Marco Rubio and the safety net
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Colorado
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Medical Marijuana
When Colorado became the first state to license pot shops on January 1st, tokers merrily queued in the cold for a puff and a place in history. But the mood in Washington state, which opened its shops on July 8th, is more downbeat. Severe shortages meant that barely half a dozen shops opened on day one; including just one in Seattle, the largest city. Several warned that they probably had only enough weed to last a few days.

http://www.economist.com/news/united...pot-experiment

[Sir X]

DEA may be losing the war on marijuana politics
DEA Museum
At the Drug Enforcement Administration Museum in Arlington, Va., an exhibit re-creates a head shop selling marijuana paraphernalia in the 1970s. (Evan Halper / Los Angeles Times)
EVAN HALPER contact the reporter Laws and LegislationCrimePoliticsU.S. SenateWhite HouseJared PolisFrank Wolf

Drug Enforcement Administration is under attack in Congress as it holds its ground against pot legalization
The DEA may be losing the war on marijuana politics in Congress and elsewhere
Public opinion on marijuana has softened. Not so at the Drug Enforcement Administration
For narcotics agents, who often confront hostile situations, Capitol Hill has been a refuge where lawmakers stand ready to salute efforts in the nation's war on drugs.

Lately, however, the Drug Enforcement Administration has found itself under attack in Congress as it holds its ground against marijuana legalization while the resolve of longtime political allies — and the White House and Justice Department to which it reports — rapidly fades.

"For 13 of the 14 years I have worked on this issue, when the DEA came to a hearing, committee members jumped over themselves to cheerlead," said Bill Piper, a lobbyist with the Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-legalization group. "Now the lawmakers are not just asking tough questions, but also getting aggressive with their arguments."

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...ry.html#page=1