Is Legal Pot Good for Business or Good for Society?
FEDERAL LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA WOULD BE A TRAGIC MISTAKE
by Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D
MARIJUANA SEEMS TO BE EVERYWHERE these days. In the movies, on the school playground, in the senior center. It has united Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. A once-counterculture drug of the 1960s, it’s now the topic of annual reports and stock prices. It’s even made it into the boardrooms of Big Tobacco, Pharma and Alcohol.
But we should slow this weed train down.
Legalization advocates often begin with the well-worn saying that we should not jail pot users. Instead, they say, we should regulate marijuana to gain tax revenue and reverse social injustice.
It’s a great theory.
But it’s never worked in practice. Legalizing marijuana is, at the end of the day, all about one thing: money. Let me rephrase: It’s about making rich white men richer.
It need not be that way. We have set up a
