Checking in from our usual extended vacation. Regular programming should start up again Monday, January 4th. Hope everyone has a happy new year’s eve. Be safe!

2009 was a seminal year for marijuana and not just because of the debut of our little publication. Today, at the very end of the year, marijuana usage and medical marijuana usage in particular has achieved a level of public acceptance that seemed impossible a scant twelve months ago. But over the year, state after state began phasing in medical marijuana programs in open defiance of federal law. And when the American Medical Association reversed course and put their lobbying heft behind marijuana’s medical efficacy, it was game, set, and match for medical marijuana. At this point it seems fairly certain that medical marijuana in some form or another is here to stay.

So, what changed? Certainly not the medical properties of marijuana. Perhaps people’s awareness of them, but this proposition seems suspect when one considers that marijuana has been used medically for thousands of years.  There was no great social movement or even an empathetic awakening to the suffering of the ill that have found relief through marijuana.  Rather, what seemed to push marijuana to new heights was money, or to be more precise the lack of it.  With the Great Recession in devastating effect throughout 2009, Americans realized it was both time to tighten the belts and also discover new money making businesses.  So, it seemed silly to waste money targeting pot smokers especially those that used the drug medically.  But perhaps more importantly, people began seeing dollar signs in their eyes about the potential of the marijuana industry.  Our states and cities’ desperate need for new cash revenue streams did more to establish medical marijuana than any scientific research or stories of people’s alleviated suffering ever did.   Perhaps the lesson of 2009 is that, at least with respect to marijuana, greed can be good?

As big as 2009 was in the world of marijuana, it was but a prelude to the fireworks that await us in the coming year. There are many questions that must be and will be answered over the coming year including:

1. How big is the marijuana industry going to be?  Is this going to be a niche industry or are there industrial applications for marijuana that we have yet to discover. In related news, what about hemp?
2. What about recreational use?  Is marijuana forever medicalized?
3. Is marijuana going to be rescheduled? It’s days as a Schedule I drug have to be numbered, right?
4. How will the powers that make money on prohibition, the Drug War Empire, strike back?
5. Which state will be the first to legalize and tax marijuana?

Related articles:

• Top 10 Events that Shaped Marijuana Policy in 2009 (stillisstillmoving.com)
• The Year on Drugs 2009: The Top Ten US Domestic Drug Policy Stories. (Drug War Chronicle)
• High expectations? States weigh marijuana reform (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Colo. judge: Pot shops have constitutional rights (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• First marijuana coffee shop opens in America (telegraph.co.uk)
• Still Illegal in Over 35 States (horsesass.org)
• 2009 Top 10 Wisconsin medical cannabis stories. (Examiner)