Atlantic writer Andrew Sullivan has done a fine job of hammering this point again and again over the past couple months on his blog The Daily Dish (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com), both with his own thoughtful analysis and in a series of posts tagged "The Cannabis Closet," in which he publishes mostly anonymous responses from his readers. "Contract manager with a government agency [and] Treasurer for the PTA" one describes himself. "If I got busted, I'd lose a lot," writes another.
"I truly believe that if marijuana users felt as emboldened to come out as gay and lesbian people did some years ago," says Nadelmann, "marijuana prohibition would come crashing down very quickly." The problem is that "it's hard to get people to come out of the closet about something that does remain a crime."
There are "millions of Americans who smoke marijuana for whom it's not a problem, who are part of the middle class, who are well-off, who are role models," says Mirken. Most people know this. Yet still the caricature persists of the feckless stoner, slack-jawed and speckled with Pringles crumbs.
As long as the sorts of people who write into Sullivan's blog can't come out and correct that stereotype — as Mirken says, "The only people who end up coming out are the ones who show up at the hemp fests and get in trouble" — the battle for wider acceptance will be a hard slog.
Slowly, state by state, that may be changing. One Massachusetts reader e-mailed the Daily Dish to say that the Bay State's recent decriminalization "has also allowed me to 'come out' publicly as a smoker. When I go out for drinks with co-workers and they comment on my lack of drinks, I simply say that I prefer marijuana because it's less debilitating (at least for me). This still takes people aback a bit, but they'll get used to it."
. . . or get off the pot
Whether our representatives in Washington will be brave enough to embrace this emerging political sentiment remains to be seen. "While in general I don't think the criticism that 'Politicians are lagging the public in enlightenment' is accurate," says Frank, "I do think it's true in this case."
Does he wish his colleagues in the House and Senate would be more outspoken? "Oh, of course. But I wish I could eat more and not gain weight. I wish a lot of things."
Because of their clear majority and Obama's abiding popularity, the Democrats may now be encouraged to move swiftly on everything from health care to the environment. But it seems true, so far, that few are inclined to start singing Peter Tosh songs. "They're in power now, and they feel like they have a lot to lose," says Silver. "The Democrats are gonna be reluctant to spend a lot of political capital on it — especially at a national level."
Nonetheless, Nadelmann reports of his private meetings on Capitol Hill, "in frank conversation, the willingness of members of Congress to say, 'Of course you're right, of course this makes sense,' is growing. Before, they'd be scared to say it."
As for help from the White House, don't count on it — yet. Sullivan called Obama's guffawing dismissal of the pot question at that online town hall "pathetic." ("I'm tired of having the Prohibition issue treated as if it's trivial or a joke," he wrote. "It is neither.") But others have suggested that timing is everything.
"I think partly it needs a term-limited president," says Miron, who believes the only reason Schwarzenegger feels intrepid enough to broach the subject in California is that he's a lame duck. He says he could envision Obama taking the reins on the issue "at a minimum, in the middle or at the end of [his] second term, assuming he gets re-elected."
Until then, we can take solace in politicians like Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, whose bold and sweeping prison-reform bill, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009, was introduced in March. Calling our jails a "disgrace" — and noting that the number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased 1200 percent since 1980 — Webb has in the process become one of the highest-profile politicians to signal his openness to marijuana legalization. "Nothing," he's said, "should be off the table."
Adds Frank: "I guess it's better to be on the table than under the table."
Reefer madness
However many encouraging signs there have been in recent months, there are still more people who will fight hard to maintain the federal pot ban. Marijuana abuse does carry some health risks, after all. Moreover, there are plenty of law-and-order types out there who simply believe, as South Park's Mr. Mackey says, that "drugs are bad, mmkay?"
"Marijuana prohibition is a powerful drug in and of itself, and one to which we are heavily addicted," says Baum. "Marijuana [illegality] has tremendous political power, and I think we're going to give that up very reluctantly.
