In 2014, more than a century after The New York Times began warning readers about the insanity-inducing, violence-provoking properties of "a harmless-looking plant" known as "marihuana," the paper published an editorial endorsing legalization of a drug it had once blamed for causing madness, mayhem, and murder. That reversal happened 18 years after California became the first state to legalize medical use of cannabis, two years after Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational use, and a year after Gallup reported that most Americans already favored repealing pot prohibition.
The Gray Lady's cannabis conversion followed decades of hemming and hawing, during which the Times first toyed with the idea of "legalizing or at least decriminalizing marijuana" and then cheered on the Clinton administration as it threatened to punish doctors for recommending marijuana as a medicine. Today's editorial urging the replacement of the war on drugs with "something more humane or more effective" is similarly belated and confused.
