The absurdity of marijuana law in the USA

Eight years ago, Colorado became the first state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. In the the late 1990s several states had legalized the drug for medical use. Although cannabis does have a variety of legitimate medical uses, “medical” marijuana became a pathway for de facto recreational legalization in many jurisdictions, before the current wave of recreational legalization began to pass over the country less than a decade ago.

The upshot is that marijuana is now legal to use in states that are home to nearly three-quarters of the nation’s population, while in much of the rest of the country it’s either decriminalized, legal in certain cities, or de facto legal (For example, the legal system in Austin, Texas has a policy that it won’t prosecute any possession of the drug that involves four ounces or less).

Despite all this, marijuana is still very illegal under federal law: it continues to be classified as a Schedule I drug, meaning it’s treated as having no legitimate medical use. Furthermore, marijuana producers, whose activities are now unambiguously legal in the places where the vast majority of Americans live, can’t deduct business expenses, payroll taxes, etc., on their federal taxes — which they are of course still required to pay — because under federal law they are considered illegal drug dealers.

Nor can they take advantage of the mainstream lending industry, since almost all federally insured banks understandably refuse to expose themselves to the legal risks they would face if they did formal business with “drug traffickers” (as opposed to, say, the Sackler family).

This situation is both fundamentally unjust and practically untenable.

Moderate marijuana use should be no more disqualifying for federal employees than moderate alcohol consumption. Indeed, there’s no real question that alcohol is on the whole a much more dangerous drug than cannabis.

Rationalizing marijuana law on a national level would require having a political system in which states that are home to 173 people and several million tumbleweeds didn’t have as much say in such matters as for example California. In other words this is another nice thing we can’t have, at least until all things fall and are built again.