Marijuana Legalization
Over recent years, marijuana legalization in the U.S. has been a significant issue of debate. The majority of states want marijuana to be legalized for either recreational or medical purposes. Colorado and Washington were the first states to decriminalize marijuana for purposes of recreation in 2012. By June 2019, the number had risen to eleven as other states including Massachusetts, Illinois, Oregon, California, Maine, Michigan, Alaska, Vermont, and Nevada passed the law to legalize marijuana (Dean, 2019). The medical use of marijuana is lawful in about 33 states. However, marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. The federal law treats marijuana like other controlled substances, such as heroin and cocaine. As a result, this has led to the conflict between state law and federal law on the same issue. In states where marijuana is legal, citizens may find themselves using marijuana in adherence with the state law, while violating the federal law simultaneously.
State laws are usually created and enacted to govern the actions of all citizens in that particular state. As a result, all citizens in that state should strictly adhere to the set state laws, and a violation of the law attracts the necessary criminal charges. Therefore, it is fair for the incarceration of citizens on marijuana charges in states where the drug is currently illegal. Federalism gives the citizens more protection when federal laws apply equally to all citizens in all the U.S. states. Lack of conflict between state and federal law ensures that citizens are equally protected by the same law in all states.
However, when the state and federal laws conflict, potential instability arises as citizens may violate the federal law, while simultaneously obeying the state law (Sabet & Jones, 2019). The legalization of marijuana by some states for recreational purposes is an example of those states being “laboratories of democracy.” Regarding this, legalization of marijuana in those states, while it remains illegal under the federal law, indicates how laws can be created and tested at the state or local level of a democratic system.