However, the reported benefits and increasing demand for CBD are opening up an international conversation around CBD pros and cons. So far, the legality issues and lack of clinical trials are the only risks that CBDs pose, which is why it’s important for people to educate themselves rather than see past the unknown. So, why is there a sudden interest in CBD? The cannabis industry, of course. 

The documentary “Evergreen, The Road to Legalization” the directorial debut of Riley Morton demonstrates well how the debate surrounding Initiative-570, which passed in November 2012 legalizing marijuana in Washington State, brought such factionalism to a head. Indeed the staunchest opposition to the initiative came not from the traditional law and order conservative element but from a small but vocal cohort of medical marijuana activists, led by Steve Sarich who opposed how the legalization was implemented. 

A frank admission that the laws are biased and unfair, and have not done much to combat the drug plague, would be an admission of failure. It could ignite a real soul-searching over whether all the billions of dollars that have been squandered in the failed and flawed drug war -- the lives ruined by it, and the families torn apart by the rigid and unequal enforcement of the laws -- has really accomplished anything. This might call into question why people use and abuse drugs in the first place. 

Because drugs are illegal, one can sell them for a huge markup, and that means you can make a living, or even get by, helping to sell drugs instead of getting a legitimate job. That black market stands as an eternal temptation—often quite a rational one—for a young black boy stuck in a lousy school and growing up in a tough neighborhood. Negative interactions with often surly white cops are the main contact he ever has with the world outside his neighborhood. Hence, generations of young black men who feel like aliens in the only country they will ever know.

For the first time, over half of Californians are expressing support for the legalization of non-medical marijuana, according to new statewide survey results. With support having possibly reached a tipping point and efforts to produce a 2014 ballot initiative already underway, what might legalization look like in California? The survey, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from the James Irvine Foundation, shows that 52 percent of Californians, as well as 60 percent of likely voters, support legalization. 

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, The War on Drugs costs the federal government approximately $15-20 billion per year, and with negligible success in lowering the supply of drugs or drug abuse rates, politicians and experts on all points of the political spectrum have deemed the War on Drugs an objective failure. With particular emphasis on cutting off the supply of narcotics, the United States drug policy has been predicated on the theory that eradication of an unwanted external malefactor can only be achieved through persecution of the malefactor and its backers. 

This past week might very well mark the beginning of the end of the war on drugs as we know it, with recreational use of marijuana becoming legal in the state of Washington as a result of its citizens' vote. Coloradoans approved a similar measure and established an exchange in which citizens can grow and purchase the drug for medicinal use. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows that 54 percent of Americans support legalizing the drug, while 44 percent oppose it. As states slowly begin to decriminalize marijuana, it remains to be seen whether President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will continue to enforce federal oversight to arrest and prosecute offenders, no matter a state's laws.