Nationally-renowned Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne decries the inequitable application of anti-marijuana laws and argues for decriminalizing the drug. Citing the ACLU’s 2013 report “The War on Marijuana in Black and White,” the column dismisses the premise that there are moral and social benefits to keeping marijuana an illegal drug. Dionne says the ACLU report should be the key document used in the now occurring legalization debates and he points to the ACLU findings that, though marijuana is used at about the same rates across racial lines, Blacks are arrested for procession 3.73 times more often than Whites.

One way or another, public sentiment is moving toward change, and for good reason. A 2013 Pew poll found that 72 percent of Americans agreed that "government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth." 

That's true, and those costs are far heavier for some of our fellow citizens than for others.

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Learn about the effects of marijuana laws in Illinois.