3 Striking Signs of Growing Pot Tolerance

As public support for legalizing marijuana
rises and Americans get used to the reality that two states
have already taken that step, signs of pot tolerance are
mutiplying. Here are three recent ones that are pretty remarkable
in light of marijuana’s long history as a taboo substance:

1. Last month Pat Roberts, the 78-year-old
Republican senator from Kansas, was asked about marijuana
legalization during a debate with Greg Orman, the independent
candidate who is
beating him in recent polls. Here is
Roberts’ reply:

That’s not a federal issue. That’s a state issue. If you want to
get a Rocky Mountain high, go west. That should be for the Kansas
legislature and the governor to decide, not federally.

Roberts, who has been a member of Congress since the beginning
of the Reagan administration, is not advocating legalization. But
his willingness to let states go their own way on this issue is
striking coming from a Republican senator with an American
Conservative Union rating
of 86, especially since he is fighting for re-election in state
that is not known for its pot friendliness.

2. A few weeks after Roberts endorsed
marijuana federalism, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that
marijuana does not belong on Schedule I of the Controlled
Substances Act, which is supposedly reserved for drugs with a “high
potential for abuse” that have “no currently accepted medical use”
and are so dangerous that they cannot be used safely, even under a
doctor’s supervision. Here is the relevant exchange from Holder’s

interview with Katie Couric of Yahoo News:

Couric: At the federal level, marijuana is
still classified in the same category as heroin. In your view,
should that change?

Holder:  I think it’s certainly a question
that we need to ask ourselves—whether or not marijuana is as
serious a drug as is heroin, especially given what we’ve seen
recently with regard to heroin, the progression of people using
opioids to heroin use, the spread and the destruction that heroin
has perpetrated all around our country, and to see, by contrast,
what the impact is of marijuana use. Now, it can be destructive,
you know, if used in certain ways. But the question of whether or
not they should be in the same category is something that I think
we need to ask ourselves, and use science as the basis for making
that determination.

Since Holder, as attorney general, has the
power to reclassify marijuana without new legislation from
Congress, it would have been nice if he had talked about this a
little more before he was
on his way out the door. Still, his willingness to question
marijuana’s Schedule I status—something no sitting attorney general
has ever done before, as far as I know—reflects a dramatic change
in the climate of public opinion. Contrast Holder’s remarks with
the more traditional position taken by Michele Leonhart, the head
of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who adamantly
refuses to concede that marijuana might be less dangerous than
other drugs.

3. Last week on Everyday, the
mid-morning show on KDVR, the Fox affiliate in Denver,
co-hosts Chris Parente and Kathy J. were discussing
the best bargains at Trader Joe’s with “money maven” Sandra Hanna
when they casually touched on the hazards of shopping while
stoned:

Hanna: Now, when you’re in the cheese
aisle—

Parente: Which Chris Kattan said you should do
stoned.

Kathy J.: Do stoned. Get stoned and go in the
cheese aisle. Apparently, it’s awesome.

Hanna: It’s not a Smart Cookie move to go
shopping stoned ever. That’s a general rule of thumb.

Parente: You’ll spend a lot of money.

Hanna: A lot of money. 

In some ways, this jokey exchange is especially revealing,
reflecting the sort of cultural shift that occurs when an
intoxicant moves from illicit to licit. It seems likely that local
TV hosts in Denver would be less inclined to allude to their own
experiences with marijuana on the air if Colorado voters had not
approved Amendment 64.

[Thanks to Tom Angell, Paul Armentano, and Robert Woolley for
the links.]