According to the Chicago Sun Times, the state of Alabama is backing the state of California on medical marijuana laws. Phillip Rawls writes:
This southern state, which has some of the nation's toughest drug laws, has become an unlikely ally of California on medical marijuana use.
In a legal brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments Monday on California's medical marijuana law, Alabama Attorney General Troy King said states, not the federal government, should have the right to decide drug-control policies.
''I could not disagree more with the public policy that underlies the California law. I think it's flawed. I think it's bad public policy,'' King said. ''But if somebody can go in and tell California you can't regulate drugs the way you want to regulate them in California, the next step is they could come to Alabama and tell us we can't do it.''
Alabama is tough on marijuana use. Between 1995 and 2002, the state averaged almost 9,500 arrests a year for marijuana possession, the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center reports.
If I did not know better, I would believe that this was either 1) a miracle or 2) a result of work by variety of individuals, not excluding Bill Piper at the Drug Policy Alliance.
