The Controlled Substance Act, passed in 1970 and signed by
President Nixon as a part of a “comprehensive” plan on drug abuse
prevention, made marijuana an illegal substance in the United
States, the culmination of decades of increased regulation and
prohibition of marijuana and other narcotics around the country.
Some states followed up federal efforts with draconian laws of
their own, like New York, whose governor, Nelson Rockefeller, gave
his name to some of the harshest anti-drug laws in the country. By
1978,
New York and nine other states had set up some kind of
decriminalization of marijuana—in Alaska via a state supreme court
decision that found Alaskans had a right to privacy that
protected using marijuana in the home but in other states via
legislation.
But then nothing happened until a few states passed medical
marijuana laws beginning in the late 1990s. Over the last decade,
buoyed by a steady and significant shift in
public opinion toward marijuana, several states have moved
toward more decriminalization and, where pushed hardest by voters,
to legalization. In 2012, voters in Washington and Colorado
approved initiatives to legalize marijuana in the state. Tomorrow,
voters in Oregon, Alaska and D.C. do, while voters in Florida and
Guam vote on medical marijuana.
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