Editor's Note: This article from Rolling Stone is one of the best I've read on the nation's shifting attitudes and laws regarding drug policy. It not only explores changes in marijuana laws, including a pretty in-depth history, but also changes related to other drugs and their impacts on the U.S. prison system and society.Â
Leading at the ballot box from Alaska to Washington, D.C., Americans are charting a path to a saner national drug policy
The conservative wave of 2014 featured an unlikely, progressive undercurrent: In two states, plus the nation's capital, Americans voted convincingly to pull the plug on marijuana prohibition. Even more striking were the results in California, where voters overwhelmingly passed one of the broadest sentencing reforms in the nation, de-felonizing possession of hard drugs. One week later, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD announced an end to arrests for marijuana possession. It's all part of the most significant story in American drug policy since the passage of the 21st Amendment legalized alcohol in 1933: The people of this country are leading a dramatic de-escalation in the War on Drugs.
