All Indicators Point to a Softening of America's Harsh Marijuana Laws

With key medical marijuana ballot initiatives likely to pass, and a more pot-friendly majority in Congress, there is room for optimism.

By Alexander Zaitchik

You have to hand it to the Republican National Committee: Those guys really know how to pick the wrong fight.

John McCain, already running against the public opinion grain in support of the Iraq War and Bush tax cuts, received no help from headquarters last month when the RNC made medical marijuana a campaign issue. After Barack Obama told an Oregon weekly that he would end federal raids on medical marijuana users and providers in states with compassionate use laws, the RNC pounced. Obama's position, said an RNC statement, "reveals that (he) doesn't have the experience necessary to do the job of President (and) lacks the judgment to carry out the most basic functions of the Executive Branch." Because the Supreme Court has ruled that federal drug laws trump state drug laws, the RNC reasons that halting federal raids would be tantamount to ignoring the law.

They're right. But the RNC might want to get some new pollsters. What they and their candidates don't seem to realize is that a steadily shrinking minority of Americans oppose the controlled medicinal use of cannabis -- around 20 percent, according to the last Gallup poll. It's a safe bet that an even smaller number considers paramilitary raids on the homes of peaceful cancer patients to be a "basic function of the Executive Branch." During the New Hampshire primary, every Democratic candidate recognized this political reality by promising to end federal harassment of state-approved medical marijuana facilities and users. Republican candidates Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul pledged the same.

And John McCain? When pressed by activists from the group Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana, the Arizona senator responded in lockstep with most of his GOP peers, sounding less like a maverick than a Reagan-era after-school special. "I do not support the use of marijuana for medical purposes," McCain said. "I believe that marijuana is a gateway drug. That is my view, and that's the view of the federal drug czar and other experts."

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