Oregon legalizes recreational marijuana

Oregon has become the fourth US state to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. As of Wednesday, adults 21 and older are allowed to possess up to eight ounces of marijuana inside their home and up to one ounce outside their homes. They can also grow up to four marijuana plants inside their homes and gift and receive pot. Public smoking remains illegal, but Oregonians will be discouraged from reporting public pot smokers to the police.

The law will eventually allow the production and sale of marijuana, which will be regulated by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Regulations governing weed sales are still being written, and the Commission expects marijuana stores to open by autumn 2016.

Marijuana will be taxed at the point of sale at $35 per ounce, and the funds will be set aside for education and law enforcement programmes.

The Pacific north-west state joins the states of Alaska, Colorado, Washington and the capital Washington DC in legalizing the drug, with revelers cheering in the new law as it passed at midnight.

“Marijuana prohibition has been a costly failure – to individuals, to communities, and to the state of Oregon,” said Tamar Todd, marijuana policy director at the Drug Policy Alliance, an organisation that advocates against harsh criminal penalties for drug users.

“Oregon is taking a smarter, more responsible approach to marijuana that ends the wasteful and racially disproportionate practice of arresting and citing people simply for possessing a small amount of marijuana.”

Advocates are finding increasing success in introducing ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana as a criminal justice reform – as a way to reduce unduly harsh prosecutions and to limit the lopsided enforcement of drug laws against ethnic minorities.

Similar to ballot measures in the four states where marijuana is now legal, advocates are now targeting the states of California, Arizona, Maine, Nevada, and Massachusetts for ballots in 2016.