Pot Prices Double as Colorado Retailers Roll Out Green Carpet

Marijuana (cannabis) is arranged for a photograph inside the Evergreen Apothecary in Denver, Colorado, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014. Colorado legalized the commercial production, sale, and recreational use of marijuana, while Washington State will begin its own pot liberalization initiative at the end of February. New Jersey Sen. Nicholas Scutari wants to legalize recreational marijuana in New Jersey, too.

(Matthew Staver/Bloomberg)

The arc of history, as they say, is bending in marijuana’s favor.

In Colorado, people can smoke a joint almost as openly as they can drink a beer. In a few months, the same will be true in Washington state. New Jersey should happily join what’s certain to become a growing crowd.

Sen. Nick Scutari (D-Union) wants to make it legal to have and smoke pot recreationally in New Jersey, and license growers and sellers. That, he says, would move the marijuana market to Main Street and build a new source of tax revenue.

It’s no slam-dunk. So far, no one in the Assembly has stepped forward with a companion bill, and Gov. Chris Christie continues to obstruct the state’s medical marijuana laws wherever he can. Don’t count on him to loosen his views on recreational pot-smoking.

Public opinion is less timid.

More than half of Americans — 55 percent, according to a CNN poll — favor legalization. And last summer, a Drug Policy Alliance-sponsored poll showed 61 percent of New Jersey voters favored lighter punishments for possession, with 59 percent saying we should fully legalize, regulate and tax marijuana. (In Colorado, the 27.9 percent minimum tax rate on pot is expected to raise $67 million this year.)

The best argument for legalizing pot, however, is the failure of the government’s war against it. Today, New Jersey punishes simple possession with up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, plus a permanent stain on your criminal record.

In 2010, New Jersey busted 22,000 people for possession in a drug war that cost $125 million. Nationwide, billions are spent on an overblown drug war that arrests blacks three times more often than whites, though pot-smoking is equally common.

This, at least, is one place where reformers share common ground with Christie, who has advocated for less jail and more treatment for small-time drug offenders.

Legal pot is still far from achieving the wide acceptance being enjoyed today by gay marriage, the other social movement of the moment. The feds still classify nonmedicinal marijuana as a dangerous narcotic, alongside heroin, causing problems even where it's legal.

But, like same-sex marriage, this debate also has an air of inevitability. As the "Reefer Madness" generation's influence shrinks, a time will come when future generations wonder why it ever was a controversial question at all.

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