Here's a balanced AP article on California medical marijuana. Establishment media wouldn't have run this one even 5 years ago. I think the proximate factor for shifting attitudes is economic. When the country was running a surplus sending messages seemed like something positive and affordable.

Now that the government can't afford to balance the budget, pragmatism comes to the fore.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/200907 ... 0SEG0.html

A politically wise friend even suggested what to do with law enforcement displaced by a new marijuana policy. Her very good suggestion was to retrain them as food inspectors. Something like 2% of the US food supply is currently inspected. Hundreds of people a year die because of tainted food and zero deaths are attributed directly to pot smoking.

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