Marijuana in Michigan

Ann Arbor's annual Hash Bash was held yesterday with a respectable crowd despite the cold and drizzly weather. In a sign of the times, the focus was more on political parity than pot party.

Organizer Josh Soper, a U-M junior, said the intention of the rally was to bring the issue of legalizing marijuana to light instead of being "a smoke in" as it had been the case in previous years. Soper is director and founder of the U-M chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Poet John Sinclair, a 1960s activist whose arrest in 1969 inspired the very first Hash Bash, urged participants to fight for the right to legalize marijuana. "We will continue to work to alter the laws in this town," he said. Of course the town laws aren't that odious, hence the warning from the speakers to conduct any marijuana consumption off campus. It seems the university enforces state law while the city of Ann Arbor instituted the eminently sensible statute within city limits making possession a civil infraction with a $25.00 fine.

It occurs to me as we await the decision in Raich v.Ashcroft, if the court renders a bad decision, as many expect, perhaps the way to make an end run against the prohibition is to get Ann Arbor style legislation enacted in every town in America. The feds couldn't very well enforce the interstate commerce act against the whole country.