American Bar Association Supports Ending Marijuana Prohibition

The American Bar Association (ABA) passed a resolution signaling support to ending federal marijuana prohibition. The ABA is an association “committed to advancing the rule of law across the United States and beyond by providing practical resources for legal professionals, law school accreditation, model ethics codes and more.”

Part of the ABA’s resolution “urges Congress to enact legislation to remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act,” NORML reported.

It also “urges Congress to enact legislation to encourage scientific research into the efficacy, dose, routes of administration, or side effects of commonly used and commercially available cannabis products in the United States.”

The resolution is aiming to bridge the gap of conflict between federal and state laws.

“As a young lawyer, I started NORML in 1970 because the legal case needed to be made that the criminalization of marijuana was wrong, and activist lawyers have always played a key role in the expansion of the NORML network across the country,” Keith Stroup of NORML said. “The approval of this recent motion by the ABA, which calls for marijuana to be removed from the Controlled Substances Act altogether, is welcome vindication of the efforts of NORML and all the attorneys who fought against this unjust prohibition for the past fifty years.”