Over 300 Economists Agree: It’s Time to Legalize Marijuana

[RainDog]

57. Ryan Grimm was a lobbyist for MPP

and he noted in his book, This Is Your Country on Drugs, that politicians assumed only 30% of their state population was in favor of legal medical cannabis. The reality, tho, and this was more than a decade ago, was the 70% of the population of people in states such as Rhode Island favored legalization of medical cannabis.

The breakdown by region indicates the south has the fewest number of people who report to Gallup that they favor legalization of all cannabis (not just medical.)

Rural areas in the United States are always backwaters of bad policy. They are always behind the curve in the move to better law, every time, on issues regarding social policy. Every time. They have to be brought kicking and screaming into decency.

Rural areas also have a vested interest in maintaining regressive policies because they make money off of them. For-profit prisons locate in rural areas and create jobs - those jobs are comprised of a largely white, uneducated population imprisoning a largely black, uneducated population.

Drug laws also serve to inflate population numbers in rural areas - so politicians in those areas also have a vested interest in keeping regressive drug laws in place.

We cannot look to rural areas when framing policy in this nation, unless it is to see what we should not do.