Oregon set to decriminalise heroin and LSD as Joe Biden eyes opportunity of federal cannabis legislation
... As of Monday, the possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine, meth and other controlled drugs for personal use will cease to be a crime in Oregon. Instead it will be a civil offence, punishable by a $100 (£73) fine that can be waived by taking a health assessment.
Those cited will be referred to "addiction recovery centres", funded from the new tax revenue that is generated by legal weed businesses such as Mr Horton's. The system is loosely based on Portugal's decriminalisation in 2001, which has been praised by many abroad.
Separately, 'magic mushrooms', whose psychedelic effects have been used for centuries by native Americans, are set to be legalised for medicine and therapy in two years' time.
These measures, backed by 58pc and 56pc of Oregon voters in referendums last November, make Oregon's drug laws the most radical in the USA, and could augur yet more change for an America already softening marijuana prohibitions at rapid pace.
With the Democratic Party in control of three branches of government, advocates hope for an end to the "war on drugs" first declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971, which they believe has become an Iraq-style quagmire....
he question now is whether other states will follow. November saw votes to legalise cannabis not only in liberal New Jersey but traditionally red Arizona, Montana and South Dakota, plus medical use in Mississippi.
Five states have now legalised marijuana, with 36 others approving medical use. Shane Schmitt, general manager at the cannabis growing firm Wy'East Oregon Gardens, sees change from an unexpected source: baby boomers are a growing pot-buying demographic, and prefer trustworthy, mellow highs with labelled ingredients.
Mr Johnson believes further decriminalisation will be the next step.
"These are our first big sledgehammer hits against the overall drug war in the United States," he says. "Oregon was the first state to decriminalise cannabis, the first to pass a vote by mail measure, the first to pass a death in dignity act. Each time we've seen other states follow suit because they see success on the ground."
He predicts blue states such as Colorado and California will follow in the next four years, with federal decriminalisation of all drugs within ten or twenty....
In the long run, liberal drug laws could also help reverse the mass incarceration and military-style policing that exploded last summer in the George Floyd protests.
The threat of tooled-up drug gangs justified the mushrooming of warlike SWAT teams and mass transfers of equipment from the armed forces. Back then, one of the drug war's biggest allies in Congress was one Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris made "tough on crime" a centre of her early career.
These days both have changed their tune, promising to decriminalise cannabis at the federal level and leave the rest to states. Democrats in the House of Representatives have voted for the same, and might have more success now their colleagues narrowly control the Senate.
Mr Biden's nominee for health secretary is Xavier Becarra, the former attorney general of California who oversaw its first legal pot sales, while his pick for commerce secretary, Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo, included plans for state-run weed shops in her 2021 budget.
Ironically, Roy Moore believes that Mr Biden's past support for the drug war actually makes him more likely to reject it now, because of how it forced him to confront Democrats' anger.
"He had to address that, he had to denounce that, and then make promises to not be that," says Mr Moore. "His base lies in the group of people who are expecting change. He has enough people around him to hold him accountable."
Elections have . . . uhh, I forgot what I was going to say.
I'd been a regular pot smoker for more than fifteen years when my daughter was born. Anyway, I'm glad Tucker doesn't use pot; that just means more for me. Besides, Tucker is a fine example for why people should not sniff glue or other petrochemical solvents. It turns the brain to mush. You go, Tucker.
You know.