Legalizing Marijuana

This post offers links to issues of the CQ Researcher, additional articles from EBSCOhost and ProQuest (including newspaper articles on the 2012 Washington initiative), as well as print and online books in our collection.

CQ Researcher (Comprehensive reports)

Katel, Peter. Teen Drug Use: Do weaker drug laws encourage youths to try pot? CQ Researcher June 3 2011. Teen drug consumption is on the rise in the United States after years of decline. Marijuana is the major substance involved, but use of the hallucinogen Ecstasy also has risen. The trends are reported in “Monitoring the Future,” an annual survey of high school students conducted since 1975 by University of Michigan researchers. The latest survey results are adding fuel to the ongoing national debate over drug policy. Some experts argue that a recent wave of state medical-marijuana laws, as well as statutes that eliminate criminal penalties for personal use of pot, have persuaded teens that drugs such as marijuana are innocuous. That notion is especially dangerous to young people predisposed to addiction, specialists in teen drug use say. Proponents of drug legalization counter that no hard evidence exists of a connection between teen use and drug-law changes. From the CQ Researcher. Reprinted with permission from CQ Press.

Katel, Peter. Legalizing marijuana: Should pot be treated like alcohol and taxed? CQ Researcher June 12, 2009. From statehouses to the White House, attitudes toward marijuana laws are changing. California's top tax collector is endorsing proposed state legislation to legalize and tax pot, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he'd like the idea debated. More than a dozen other states have enacted or are considering laws to permit medical-marijuana use or remove criminal penalties for possession. In Congress, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia — a hard-nosed Marine combat veteran — wants marijuana legalization considered in a top-to-bottom review of sentencing and drug laws. Full-scale, nationwide legalization still seems distant, but the Obama administration has declared a hands-off approach toward California's medical-marijuana outlets, unless the state-sanctioned sites are determined to be trafficking operations. Opponents of marijuana legalization object on moral and health grounds, but the opposition appears to be weakening, especially in a time when the economic crisis is cutting into police and prison budgets nationwide. From the CQ Researcher. Reprinted with permission from CQ Press.

More Articles

EBSCOhost

(drug or marijuana) and (legaliz* or decriminaliz*) and united states - EBSCOhost, 300+

(marijuana or cannabis) and United States and (medic* or therapeutic) - EBSCOhost, 400+

ProQuest

 all(cannabis OR marijuana) AND all((legaliz* OR decriminaliz*)) -1800+ published after 2010

marijuana AND (initiative OR I-502) - 88 Washington newspaper articles 2011-2012.

Books

Search the CBC Library Catalog for books on kw:Marijuana or kw:Cannabis or kw:Drug Legaliz

Search ebrary for ebooks on marijuana legalization

See also Topic of the Week posts on Mexico's Drug War and Drug Abuse.

updated 10/16/2012 yy