The Incredibly Simple Case for Decriminalizing Marijuana

It’s so easy and obvious, even politicians can use it. In fact, here’s Connecticut’s Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney demonstrating how to discuss marijuana reform in terms almost anyone can understand.

“Our state should not encourage illegal drug possession and use; however, possession of small amounts of illicit substances and related paraphernalia for personal use should not leave a person with a life-long criminal record.” (NBC Connecticut)

That pretty much sums it up. No shortage of drug war scumbags have come forward to insist eagerly that we don’t need decriminalization because “hardly anyone goes to jail for marijuana,” but the idiocy of prohibition doesn’t begin when the iron bars slam shut.

Every last aspect of marijuana enforcement is an exhibit in mindless injustice, whether it’s digging in people’s pockets, testing urine specimens, sniffing around doorways, pulling guns on people, or condemning our youth to a lifetime of criminal stigma over a $10 stash. The very idea that we keep records of the people we’ve identified as marijuana users is so damagingly and unfathomably stupid that one can’t help but marvel at how accustomed to it we’ve become.

The opportunity to end this terrible embarrassment is upon us at last, and it’s exciting to see the Connecticut Legislature learning the right lesson from what decriminalization has accomplished for their neighbors in Massachusetts. This is how it starts.

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