Marijuana is the most popular illicit drug in the United States. More than 25 percent of Americans admit to having tried it. Leading up to 1980, marijuana was at its most popular. Thereafter, its use in the United States decreased steadily until the early 1990s, when its use again began to increase (Nadelmann, 111). Notably, this decline in use has been accompanied by an increasingly tolerant view of the recreational or medicinal use of marijuana. Currently, several states û including Maine, Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Nevada, Hawaii and Alaska û allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes (Paul, 18). This paper explores legal and public attitudes toward marijuana use in the United States. The paper advocates that the United States should adopt a legal approach to recreational use of marijuana similar to that of Western European countries such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and concludes that marijuana use for medical purposes should be decriminalized.
Many legal experts have advocated for the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana possession. As early as 1972, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, which was created by then-President Nixon and chaired by former Republican governor Raymond Shafer, recommended that possession of up to one ounce of marijuana be decriminalized (Nadelmann, 111). Nixon, however, rejected the recommendation. But again in 1982, another panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences reached the same conclusion as the Shafer Commission. Once again, however, Congress and the Reagan administration rejected this proposal.
More recently, in 1993, the Drug Policy Task Force, sponsored by the New York Country LawyersÆ Association, established a panel of prominent and respected individuals from various disciplines û including legal, medical and academic, as well as the legislative, judicial and executive branches branch of government. The ...