National Review and Willie Nelson Unite for Pot Legalization
The characteristically liberal National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Legalization (NORML) and incredibly conservative National Review seem like strange bedfellows, but they're not. On Monday, NORML posted a link to a National Review editorial that attracted hundreds of likes and dozens of comments. "You know it's a strange day when the National Review calls Lamar Smith out for his mistakes," writes one commenter of the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who has vowed to block Barney Frank and Ron Paul's bill to end federal prohibition pot.
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Both NORML and National Review are arguing from the typically conservative position that states should legislate marijuana laws as well as the increasingly widespread argument that the war on drugs has been a failure. In fact, National Review has argued this case for years. The National Review staff op-ed reads:
The War on Drugs, which is celebrating its 40th year, has been a colossal failure. It has curtailed personal freedom, created a violent black market, and filled our prisons. It has also trampled on states’ rights: Sixteen states have legalized “medical marijuana”--which is, admittedly, often code for legalizing pot in general--only to clash with federal laws that ban weed throughout the land.
That last sin is not the War on Drugs’ greatest, but it is not insignificant, either. A bill introduced by Reps. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and Ron Paul (R., Texas) would remove the federal roadblock to state marijuana reform, and though the Republican House seems almost certain to reject it, the proposal deserves support from across the political spectrum.
NORML and their spokesperson Willie Nelson could not agree more! The collaboration between Frank and Paul reveals how left-wingers and libertarians see eye-to-eye on this particular issue. In blog post last Thursday, the non-profit advocate for legalizing marijuana showered praise on the Frank-Paul bill, HR-2306 or Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011. The Willie Nelson-narrated PSA included may as well have been written by National Review editors.
