A year ago this month, countrywide marijuana legalization was implemented in Canada. Also a year ago this month, the transition team of then-President-elect and current President of Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced marijuana legalization discussion was on the agenda of a trip to Canada by high-level Obrador administration members. Now, a year later, it looks like the Mexico national legislature is prepared to approve countrywide marijuana legalization soon, maybe even this month.
Next up, the United States government adopts countrywide legalization.
In America, marijuana legalization has been adopted in 11 states with a total population of over 90 million people, while medical marijuana legalization is much more widespread. Nevertheless, marijuana prohibition remains the national law, though the US government has applied restraints, both legislative and administrative in origin, over the last few years on arresting and prosecuting people complying with liberalized state laws.
With marijuana legal south of the border in addition to in the Great White North, there will be added pressure on the US government to give up on marijuana prohibition. As with legalization in a growing number of states, the legalization in two neighboring countries will help increasingly make evident to Americans that much of the argued detriments of marijuana legalization are, in reality, either significantly overstated or nonexistent. This, in turn, will contribute to further increases in growing majority public support for countrywide legalization.
Sooner than many people expect, countrywide legalization will be in place in America as well. In fact, if the US House of Representatives and Senate would have floor votes on legislation simply ending the US government’s marijuana prohibition, that legislation would likely quickly be on its way to President Donald Trump for consideration. But, instead, congressional leadership continues to block such legislation.
When the pressure for legalization becomes too great to resist, countrywide legalization will likely come to America loaded up with special interest benefits, regulations, and taxes. That’s politics in America today.
The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is a project of Dr. Paul’s Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (F.R.E.E.), founded in the 1970s as an educational organization. The Institute continues and expands Dr. Paul’s lifetime of public advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties at home. Visit http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org