fb-pixel Skip to main content
letters

For marijuana, prohibition is the experiment that failed

Workers processed marijuana in the trimming room at the Medicine Man dispensary in Denver.Ed Andrieski/Associated Press/file

Tom Keane is right that Colorado’s legal marijuana market may become a model for Massachusetts, but he misses one key point (“An experimental state,” Op-ed, Jan. 7). Prohibition, not legalization, has been the experiment.

Leaving the production and distribution of marijuana to criminals has had the same consequences as our experiment with alcohol prohibition: a violent market, widespread use of an unregulated product, and biased enforcement largely targeted at the disadvantaged.

It’s time to end this experiment, just as we did 80 years ago.

Shaleen Title
Revere

The writer was a consultant to Colorado’s Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.