Pot: Legalize or Decriminalize?

Is decriminalizing marijuana while leaving anti-drug laws on the books a bad idea? Does it allow police to selectively enforce law and create contempt among the public? The Economist weighs in. “So the question arises of whether we should legalise pot. Two days ago Sarah Palin said we shouldn’t, but that marijuana use isn’t much of a problem, and should be a low priority for law enforcement…It would be nice if we could arrive at an ethically and logically consistent legal stance on drug use, but it may be that in practice that’s very hard to do, and not actually very important. Basically, while Sarah Palin’s position on this issue, as on many others, is semi-deliberately incoherent, it is in this case a semi-deliberate incoherence that has proven to be effective policy in many countries, and I’m not even sure it’s the wrong stance on the issue.”