Legalization of Marijuana: Unraveling Quandaries for the Addiction Professional

For more than four decades, a movement to shift cannabis control policy away from prohibition has gained momentum in such countries as Australia, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United States (Caulkins et al., 2012, pp. 207–224). When the issue is debated, researchers, and clini-cians in the addictive behaviors field may face a difficult choice when asked where they stand with reference to making legal the retail sale of marijuana to adults. It is clear that there are health and behavioral risks to marijuana use. But, do those risks in and of themselves close the door to considering alternative policies? Or, to frame the issue somewhat differently, does pro-hibition's track record in protecting public health and safety justify its continuance when considered alongside one or another non-prohibition policy? These questions are posed with increasing frequency as public attitudes in the U.S. concerning legalizing marijuana become more accepting. In 2011 the Gallup Poll found 50% of Americans saying marijuana use should be legal (Gallup, 2011). Then, in 2013 a Pew Research Center poll found that 52% favored legalization, a 10 point increase since 2010 (Pew Research Center, 2013). These indications of greater tolerance of marijuana appear to mirror a popu-list push back among voters and legislators in a number of states, a willingness to carve out exceptions to complete prohibition, the stance still held by the federal government. The U.S. is a signatory to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs which requires all nations to prohibit both the production and use of marijuana for all purposes whether medical or non-medical (Single Convention, 1961). The subsequent 1988 Convention further requires each country to enact criminal penalties for the production, distribution, possession , or purchase of marijuana (United Nations Convention, 1988). Nonetheless, in the past 15 years, 18 states and the District of Columbia have adopted medical marijuana laws which essentially bypass the drug's Schedule 1 classification under the Controlled Substances Act, the national implementing legislation of the Single Convention. Its placement in Schedule 1 is based on the premises that marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use, and has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision. These treaties and laws notwithstanding , in 2009 the Obama administration made an accommodation to those states that had approved medical marijuana legislation. Individuals who were in compliance with those state laws would not be subjected to …