Nov. 6, 2012 may someday become known as the day the drug war went up in smoke. Why? That’s the day voters in Colorado and Washington state decided to legalize marijuana use, and not just for medicinal purposes. They voted to legalize marijuana for so-called recreational use.
The pro-legalization of marijuana movement signaled that at least four more states (Alaska, Arizona, California, and Oregon) may pass similar legislation this year, and as 2013 came to a close, 20 states plus the District of Columbia already had legalized medical marijuana. New York’s governor welcomed the new year by announcing that he intended to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes by executive order, thus bypassing voters and legislators.
