On November 7th 2012 the population of Colorado and Washington voted on legalizing marijuana for recreational use. It was a close call, 53% of the people voted on legalizing marijuana while 47% voted on not legalizing marijuana. Colorado and Washington are the first U.S states to legalize marijuana, putting the Denver/Seattle (Reuters) at a possible showdown with the Obama administration. The new law of legal marijuana defies the federal law of illegal Marijuana!
There was also another ballot to remove personal penalties for the possession of marijuana, which was not looked at too much, if compared to the marijuana legalization. What this would have done would be to remove any passed criminal record for possession of marijuana. This was not passed because there was not as much money on the campaign to promote itself.
Federal law still says that Medical Marijuana is still illegal yet; California and many other states have made medical marijuana legal. The federal law still hasn’t changed but many believe the reason federal administrations have not taken action to this is because they don’t find it that important to deal with. Now that marijuana has become legal as a recreational use in two states it is very likely that the federal administration will begin to take action. Since states are beginning to go way against federal law. John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado who was against the legalization of recreational use of marijuana says “Federal law still says marijuana is still an illegal drug so don’t break out the cheetos or gold fish to quickly”. This takes us to the Universities point of view, of this new law Colorado state proposed. Universities say that the federal law is still against marijuana and that they must abide by the rules especially students. Universities receive federal funds, and must go by the federal law after all they are helping students.
