Action Alert: We the People Want to End Marijuana Prohibition

NORML image

Erik Altieri
NORML

Today, the White House launched its new, long-awaited website “We the People.” The administration describes the site as a “tool [that] provides you with a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country.”

The White House further promises, “If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.” The White House has set this threshold at 5,000 signatures within 30 days.

Demand the Obama administration defend their support for marijuana prohibition. If they can not, then why do they continue to endorse this failed public policy?

Below is the petition NORML has submitted for consideration:

We Petition the Obama Administration to: 

Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol. 

We the people want to know when we can have our “perfectly legitimate” discussion on marijuana legalization. Marijuana prohibition has resulted in the arrest of over 20 million Americans since 1965, countless lives ruined and hundreds of billions of tax dollars squandered and yet this policy has still failed to achieve its stated goals of lowering use rates, limiting the drug’s access, and creating safer communities. 

Isn’t it time to legalize and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol? If not, please explain why you feel that the continued criminalization of cannabis will achieve the results in the future that it has never achieved in the past?