The new generation of gun laws, which run directly counter to national public opinion, is rooted in the fealty of state lawmakers to the 10th Amendment, to the 2nd Amendment, to gun industry lobbyists and to its tribune, the National Rifle Association. And these measures, if passed, would be patently unconstitutional. You can amend or repeal a federal statute, in other words, including of course a federal gun regulation, but as a state lawmaker you cannot seek to punish federal officials who are trying to enforce it.

On the other hand, the new generation of marijuana laws, which represent growing national support for reasonable reform, is a direct result of the stunning election success last November of two legalization measures in Colorado and in Washington. These measures, too, on their face, violate federal marijuana law. And, ultimately, either the federal law will have to change, or these state laws will have to change. That change isn't likely to come first from the courts. It's going to have to come from lawmakers, from Congress, and the White House.

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Legalize, regulate, and tax. Since the beginning of the year, lawmakers in Rhode Island, Hawaii and New Hampshire (twice) have introduced legislation that would legalize marijuana for adult use -- along the lines of what voters endorsed in the two Western states. New Hampshire's effort is explicitly infused with that blend of finance and federalism that always seems to inspire conservatives:

In the interest of the efficient use of law enforcement resources, enhancing revenue for public purposes, and individual freedom, the people of the state of New Hampshire find and declare that the use of marijuana should be legal for persons 21 years of age or older and taxed in a manner similar to alcohol.

Rhode Island's Marijuana Regulation, Control and Taxation Act goes even further. Apart from its operating provisions, it is remarkable for its pointed preamble. Here are just three of the 12 paragraphs which form the factual bases for the pending measure:

More than seven (7) decades of arresting marijuana users has failed to prevent marijuana use; a study published in the American Journal of Public Health compared marijuana usage rates in the United States with rates in the Netherlands, where adults' marijuana use and sales are de facto legal, found "no evidence to support claims that criminalization reduces [marijuana] use." In June 2005, five hundred thirty (530) economists, including three (3) Nobel Laureates, endorsed a study on the costs of marijuana prohibition by Harvard professor Dr. Jeffrey Miron which estimated that taxing and regulating marijuana would yield ten billion dollars to fourteen billion dollars ($10,000,000,000 - $14,000,000,000) in increased revenues and savings, and which called for "an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition," adding, "We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods." There is an alarming racial disparity in marijuana arrests in Rhode Island, with African Americans arrested at nearly three and one half (3½) times the rate of whites in 2009, although their marijuana usage rates were very similar.

And so on. These aren't merely political pronouncements. They are based on nonpartisan facts which federal policy makers (of both parties) have been slow to recognize. They are based also on a sort of logic that has been gnawing at more Americans, and which likely accounts for the growing popular support of legalization: Along the drug spectrum, marijuana is much closer to whiskey and wine than it is to heroin. Colorado's Amendment 64 passed in November in large part because it made explicit the obvious analogy to alcohol use.