“Drug reform is also being driven primarily by ballot initiatives, not governments.”

An article about legal marijuana discusses the frustration of the rulers with the voters, and notes that change comes from the bottom up:

Culture is not shaped from the top-down, but the bottom-up. Virtually every major legislative achievement — from civil rights to gay marriage — was precipitated by the people. The politicians had to be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity, and only did so once they realized the rest of society had already changed their minds. Drug reform is also being driven primarily by ballot initiatives, not governments.

The idea that allowing adults to freely decide what substances to put in their own bodies is somehow an endorsement of said substances is also completely false. People who don’t want to smoke marijuana are not going to start, just because it is available in stores.

If we see a drop in price, people who already consume marijuana will likely purchase more of it. It will also prevent millions of dollars from ending up in the pockets of gang members and other criminal organizations. Saying that legalization will lead to more people using the drug, however, is not supported by the facts.

When enough people are fed up with something, they will use the vote to get rid of it.

Marijuana laws were imposed on the country in 1937. At the time, people were deliberately lied to — and told there was a serious problem which created the need for these laws. How the country got along so well for so long without such laws doesn’t seem to have been asked.

I’m glad they’ve wised up. It often takes time, though.