Marijuana, pot, weed, cannabis, the green monster, the salad, the good stuff. It has many names and has been the cornerstone of many a heated debate.
23 states have now legalized weed in some form or another and four states and the District of Columbia have (finally, yay) legalized weed for recreational use.
But weed has always been on the long and winding road from cultural staple, to labeled as toxic, to recreational to illegal, to kind of legal and finally (hopefully) legalization for over a hundred years. People have been fighting to get pot legalized since the 1970s. And we thought prohibition was a bitch, sheesh.
There have been many justifications for keeping cannabis illegal in the United States. The government has called it a “gateway drug,” we’ve likened it to heroin and cocaine, we’ve kept our children from it, warning them not to become “potheads.”
