Chicago Decriminalizes Small Amounts of Marijuana

Grant J. Kidney — The city of Chicago has just decriminalized very small amounts of marijuana for personal use. Arrests will still be made however for anyone caught smoking in a public place.

Voting in favor of legalization by a margin of 43-2, the city council of Chicago has laid the ground work for future legislation with the potential of scrubbing drug laws outright.

Residents of Chicago may now possess up to fifteen grams of marijuana without violating any laws. Other major cities like Seattle and Pittsburgh have also considered going the route of Chicago.

‘High times’ upon us

As legalization pressure mounts across the nation, it is becoming increasingly difficult for our elected officials to justify a war on drugs which has yielded no positive results. For the longest of time, anti drug-war activists have championed the day when our government begins to adopt some common sense and allows folks to do as they please with their own bodies.

Though it is uncertain when full decriminalization of marijuana will take place on the federal level, one can only speculate that such will probably never happen without a major fight between activists and government officials.

As it has been well documented on this and other similar websites, Obama’s Presidency has seen one of the most blatant anti-drug crusades enacted since the reign of King Bush I. Not only has there been numerous raids on legal, medical marijuana facilities under Barack Obama, but even institutions like Oaksterdam University- a college which taught folks how to cultivate the marijuana plant- have also been shut down.

With the 2012 Presidential election fast approaching, marijuana activists haven’t a candidate to latch on to considering that both runner ups are financed by the very same, anti-marijuana, corporate oligarchs who have funded and controlled every U.S. President since the days of Woodrow Wilson.

If pot-smokers are to find some immediate solace, perhaps a move to Chicago would now be in order.

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