The escalating campaign to LEGALIZE CANNABIS is the work of our superb guest ERIC STERLING, President of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation and a commissioner on the Maryland state commission implementing medical Cannabis there.
Eric first testified for legalizing cannabis to the Pennsylvania legislature more than four decades ago. He recalls for us the 1972 Schafer Commission, authorized by Congress and appointed by Richard Nixon, that advocated decriminalization. Nixon did his best to suppress the recommendations, which came from a blue-ribbon commission led by a Republican Governor of Pennsylvania. But 43 years later, after more than a million arrests, its wisdom is obvious.
With his decades of leadership on the issue, Eric takes us through the realities of legalization on Colorado and Washington, as well as the recent authorization of medical cannabis in Puerto Rico. He emphasizes that the term “marijuana” was adopted in the 1930s as a race-based stigmatization for cannabis, which has been used by humankind for a wide range of purposes for many millennia.
Eric also emphasizes the racial and political injustices still being perpetrated by a Drug War whose primary function has been to keep the rich in power while demonizing and disenfranchising those of youth and color.
If you’re at all interested in our drug laws, the process of legalizing cannabis and the realities of our criminal justice system, don’t miss this show!