I notice that both Colorado and Washington have just voted yes on propositions that will effectively legalise the production and sale of marijuana. I'm guessing that the federal govt can block this somehow, but nevertheless, is this the beginning of the end of the war on drugs ?

Yes, and perhaps that can be mandated as free in the new health care plan.

I'm surprised that nobody else is interested in this tbh. If nothing else, we could be witnessing the birth of a new electoral strategy. Bush and the Republicans had a lot of success with planting gay marriage propositions onto the ballot in key states so they could bring out more of their core support, this could do the same for the Dems (or even for certain Republicans like the Paulistas if they get behind it). The success of these props in two states will motivate activists to try it in more and more states, and it'll get loads of students to the polls. Since the Dems dominate the youth vote it could be really useful for them, because even if the Democrat candidate doesn't endorse the proposal they're still likely to pick up most of the votes anyway.

It's really much more interesting than that though. The 'war on drugs' has probably been one of the most destructive policies ever pursued, destroying communities, packing the prisons, driving revolutions in unstable countries and funding terrorists and organised criminals on an epic scale. Pretty much everybody in positions of power these days realises that it's been a failure but nobody seemingly has the balls to do anything about it, presumably calculating that it's easier just to keep the status quo than run any kind of political risk. A change in policy from America would change all of that overnight. As soon as America withdraws from the war on drugs the rest of the world will rush to follow, and for the first time in recent years we're seeing a number of US states that are challenging the federal policy and voting to ease up. If this movement grows in strength, which it may very well do, it could have significant consequences for the rest of the world.

I'm with you Sass 100%.

In Mass. pot is decriminalized and we just passed a ballot measure that allows its use for medicinal purposes. It's interesting that at the same time, physicial assisted suicide failed on the ballot. So, if you are terminally ill, you can't kill yourself, but at least you can get as stoned as you like. (I'm just joking around -- I agree with you that the war on pot is a huge waste of time, money, resource, and unproductive for all the reasons that you mention.)

Fine by me. Non-criminal status, and tax the heck out if it. Perhaps that is the revenue stream that would be "smoking hot".

We could tax the highest 1% also.

Badumm-tish.

Sass, I am interested in it. It will also be interesting to see how the states that have legalised marijuana deal with Federal anti-drug laws. As well as pot being not much more dangerous than legal drugs (less addictive than tobacco or alcohol, and about as harmful to health), it's also becoming clear that spending a lot of effort on combating it and other 'soft' illegal drugs makes dealing with the hard drugs (heroin, cocaine, etc) harder and just creates a lot of work for law enforcement.

And there is a case (not that I'm convinced fully myself) to legalise and regulate all drugs, even those harder ones

So, Brad & Neal, as Washingtonians, did you guys support the proposition?

Brad did not, although it was not a big issue to me.