Maia Szalavitz, Substance
Waking Times
Editor’s Note: This article was originally featured at Substance.com and reprinted here with permission.
Last week’s midterm elections prove that support for legalizing weed continues to grow. But progress has been rolled back before—it’s important to remember how we got here if we’re to keep moving forward.
When I first started writing about drugs in the mid-’80s—before I got into recovery in 1988—it was almost impossible to imagine an America where four states and DC have legalized recreational marijuana use, 58% of Florida midterm voters just cast their ballots in favor of legalizing medical use (the measure needed 60% to pass), and California passed a ballot initiative to lower drug and other nonviolent crime sentences. (Nineteen other states have legalized medical marijuana.)
