Looking ahead into 2016 one thing is clear: there is a lot more to marijuana’s legalization than whether cannabis users are arrested, fined or regulated.
There was one discussion based on the belief that marijuana should be against the law, but that people shouldn’t spend much, if any, time in jail. There was another discussion about whether marijuana should be legalized or not.
It allowed people to support keeping marijuana illegal without requiring sending people to jail, or alternately to support reforming marijuana laws without making cannabis legal. For many Americans, this is still how they see the marijuana issue if they even think about it at all.
Please note that for many Americans, there are a lot more important things to think about, when it comes to public policy than what to do about the nation’s marijuana laws. What’s changed is that a lot more Americans have moved from the first question to the second, and this discussion now defines the marijuana issue in the country.
The big question dominating these year-end commentaries is which states will legalize marijuana next, and next to that is the question of just how much money is there to be made in the new legal market-whether for companies and investors or for government.
What are the new marijuana issues that cannabis users should be concerned about? Here are the three most important marijuana issues for 2016 and beyond. First, there is the old issue of criminal penalties for marijuana possession, sale, and cultivation. Marijuana remains illegal in much of the United States.
Federal legislation that allows states the option to legalize or criminalize marijuana is not an acceptable national policy. Third, marijuana users must be protected from employment discrimination.
Employers have every right to require that their employees not be impaired while at work-whether from prescription drugs, alcohol, marijuana or any other drug. Firing someone from their job because they use marijuana when they are not at work is unacceptable discrimination, as is denying employment for this reason.
