U.S. finds it can no longer afford to be backward
Progressive priorities save dollars because they make sense.
Time For Marijuana Legalization? - CBS News
Apparently, it was nothing personal after all. Apparently, it was strictly business all along.
After generations of defending capital punishment and marijuana possession laws on moral, ethical and religious grounds, after years of declaring that the death penalty acted as a deterrent against violent crime and that pot smokers were more dangerous to society than, say, alcohol consumers, all of a sudden thanks to our economic crisis more and more mainstream powerbrokers are considering dramatic changes to our criminal justice system.
The New York Times today has a late-arriving piece by Ian Urbina which posits that lawmakers in several states are considering abandoning the death penalty because it’s just too expensive and cuts into other law enforcement priorities. State officials are beginning to acknowledge that they can more productively spend their budget funds on cracking unsolved cases or ensuring better police protection than on keeping pot smokers in prison or fighting for decades with capital defendants.
