Legal Marijuana Favored by 58% of Americans, 1% of Senators

This week
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told
Talking Points Memo he is inclined to vote yes on
Measure 91, which would legalize marijuana for recreational use in
his state. “I think folks on both sides of the argument make a good
case,” Merkley said. “And there is concern about a series of new
products—and we don’t have a real track record from Colorado and
Washington. But I feel on balance that we spend a lot of money on
our criminal justice system in the wrong places and I lean in favor
of this ballot measure.”

This makes Merkley the first U.S. senator to endorse the
legalization of marijuana. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), whom you might
expect to agree with Merkley, so far has shied away from supporting
legalizaton, although he has said drug policy should be left mainly
to the states. A few more senators, including
Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and
Lamar Alexander, have said the federal government should not
try to block legalization in Colorado, Washington, or any other
state that follows their example. But at this point Merkley is the
only senator to openly say that legalization is better than
prohibition.

On the face of it, Merkley’s status as the Senate’s sole
legalizer is puzzling, since recent polls indicate
that somewhere between 48 percent (CBS News) and 58 percent
(Gallup) of Americans think marijuana should be legal. You would
think that more than 1 percent of the U.S. Senate would agree by
now. The picture is similar in the House, where many members

seem to agree with Roberts and Alexander that states should be
free to legalize marijuana but very few are prepared to say it’s a
good idea.

Legislators are much less shy about taking controversial
positions on other contentious issues. When it comes to, say,
abortion or gun control, there are plenty of senators and
representatives on both sides of the debate, even though they are
bound to alienate many voters by taking a stand. But on the subject
of marijuana, politicians seem terrified of saying anything that
could be portrayed as soft on drugs, even when dealing with
reforms, such as legalizing medical use, that have had solid
majority support for years. Presumably that’s because they think
prohibitionists are more passionate than legalizers and therefore
more likely to vote based on this issue. The only way to really
test that hypothesis would be to follow Merkley’s lead and see what
happens.

In the end, it may not matter that almost no one in Congress is
willing to say pot should be legal, as long as enough of them are
willing to take a federalist approach to the issue. A legislator
could oppose legalization or remain agnostic on the subject even
while supporting legislation like the Respect State
Marijuana Laws Act, which Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.)
introduced last year. Rohrabacher’s bill would essentially repeal
the federal ban on marijuana, making it inapplicable in states that
decide to legalize. That’s something that any conservative who pays
lip service to federalism should be able to get behind without
looking like a pot-loving hippie.