--- title: I Thought Legalizing Pot Would Be a Disaster But It Was Wonderful description: We no longer arrest 12,000 people every year for possessing marijuana in Washington state. canonical: https://time.com/3815608/marijuana-legalization/ author: Bruce Barcott article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-09T19:05:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T11:45:18.000Z article:section: Ideas og:title: I Thought Legalizing Pot Would Be a Disaster. It Wasn't. og:description: We no longer arrest 12,000 people every year for having pot in Washington state. og:url: https://time.com/3815608/marijuana-legalization/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt37947302bfa8abda/6987ea5d8e0601778d45e0b1/weedthepeople.jpg?branch=production&width=1063&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1063 og:image:height: 598 og:image:alt: WeedThePeople og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: I Thought Legalizing Pot Would Be a Disaster. It Wasn't. twitter:description: We no longer arrest 12,000 people every year for having pot in Washington state. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt37947302bfa8abda/6987ea5d8e0601778d45e0b1/weedthepeople.jpg?branch=production&width=1063&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # I Thought Legalizing Pot Would Be a Disaster. But It Turned Out To Be Wonderful. > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=3aca2f54-b608-4bcb-9fb6-5128ef74214f&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Wednesday and Saturday (2x per week) | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Sam Jacobs, Editor-in-Chief | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership Globally minded knowledge seekers. Readers who turn to journalism to understand the world, with meaningful concentrations among educators, students, media professionals, civic institutions and knowledge workers. ### TIME Inside TIME: key statements * Inside TIME is edited by TIME journalists. Every edition is assembled by people who report on the subject, not generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923, and its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting. Readers can trust what they read. * Inside TIME is free. Readers select it, along with any of TIME's other newsletters, at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=3aca2f54-b608-4bcb-9fb6-5128ef74214f&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsletter network reaches more than 1.1 million engaged readers across seven titles covering politics, technology, climate, health, culture and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/subscribe?i=3aca2f54-b608-4bcb-9fb6-5128ef74214f&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What is Inside TIME? Inside TIME is a twice-weekly newsletter written by TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs. It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Inside the World of Medical Marijuana for Kids [Watch (HLS stream): Inside the World of Medical Marijuana for Kids](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6Ic4KUCK.m3u8) (16:16)  _Published 2014-10-21. The story of a family's illegal cross-country drive to transport marijuana oil for their epileptic 3-year-old daughter. A look inside the quasi-legal, science free world of medical marijuana for children from TIME's Red Border Films_ by [Bruce Barcott](https://time.com/author/bruce-barcott/) ## Bruce Barcott Updated: Dec 13, 2023 11:45 AM UTCPublished: Apr 9, 2015 7:05 PM UTC  by [Bruce Barcott](https://time.com/author/bruce-barcott/) ## Bruce Barcott Updated: Dec 13, 2023 11:45 AM UTCPublished: Apr 9, 2015 7:05 PM UTC In a California courtroom earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller wondered what exactly was at stake in the federal government’s defense of marijuana prohibition. Mueller is hearing a case that challenges the government’s Schedule I classification of pot, a status that ranks it alongside heroin as one of the world’s most dangerous drugs. As the case wrapped up – a decision is expected this month – she put a question to the U.S. attorneys defending the federal ban. “If I were persuaded” that marijuana’s status was unconstitutional, “what would you lose here?” As we approach April 20, the goofy global pot holiday, an ever-increasing number of Americans are asking the same question. Polls show that more than half of all Americans now support the legalization of marijuana for adults. On Capitol Hill, the issue has been joined by Senators Rand Paul, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cory Booker, who recently introduced a bill to federally decriminalize medical marijuana in states where it’s already legal. What would be lost? I can answer that question. I’m a middle-aged non-stoner who’s been living in a marijuana-legal state for two years. Here is what’s lost when pot goes legal: fear and destruction. Fear of the unknown, fear of skyrocketing use rates, fear of reefer madness. Here in Washington, as in Colorado, we’ve stopped destroying the lives of people who possess a drug that’s less harmful than alcohol. What we’ve gained are new opportunities for responsibility, honesty, and freedom. That’s not what I expected, but it’s the truth. A little more than two years ago, I was anti-pot. I hated marijuana. I hadn’t really touched the stuff since college. Moreover, I didn’t want my teenage children to have easier access to pot. Instinct told me to vote no to legalization. Then a friend swayed my vote. Legalization wasn’t about whether I loved or hated pot, she said. “This is a race issue. It’s a civil rights issue.” Generations of African-American men sat in prison “because they were caught with a substance that’s less harmful than alcohol,” she said. “You’re a white guy, so you don’t have to worry about it. Others do.” Fair enough, I thought. I held my nose and voted yes. The next morning I awoke to find that we’d legalized pot. My first thought involved the word _holy_ and is inappropriate for a family publication. My second thought was this: _What in the world did we just do?_ I spent the next two years searching for the answer. I’m a science journalist. I’ve sifted through peer-reviewed research and weighed competing claims on everything from climate change to brain science. So I went to work. A tide of research on pot and the developing brain flooded my office. I embedded within Colorado’s legal marijuana industry. At the 2014 Cannabis Cup in Denver, I achieved the status of Only Man Sober. At Children’s Hospital Colorado, I saw frustrated doctors dealing with the CBD craze, with parents desperate to calm their child’s seizures with marijuana-derived cannabidiol. I vaped, I ate, and I smoked – legally – with no untoward effects. And I observed how the rollout of legal, regulated pot affected my family, my friends, and my community. Here’s what I found. Legal, well-regulated marijuana has had an overwhelmingly positive change for my state, my community – and yes, my family. That’s not the answer I expected. There have been bumps. Pot-infused edibles have been a problem for some people – Google “Maureen Dowd” and “bad trip” – but state regulators quickly reduced the allowed dosage and increased controls on the products. The solution was market regulation, not mass incarceration. The upside? We no longer arrest 12,000 people every year for possessing marijuana in Washington state. Those are 12,000 people who kept their jobs, went to college, supported their kids, and enjoyed happy and productive lives. State-licensed pot farmers have driven illegal growers out of the state. Mexican cartel pot has no market here. Thousands of new jobs have been created. We’ve seen no pot-inspired crime wave, no mass conversion of citizens into stoners. Parents know more about pot than we did two years ago; when we talk to our kids about avoiding it, we come from a place of knowledge, not fear. My family is safer and healthier because marijuana is regulated and legal. Other states and municipalities are about to reap those same benefits. In Washington D.C., which implemented pot legalization last month, police made more than 5,700 arrests for marijuana in 2011\. The racial disparity in those arrests is shocking. D.C.’s black residents are eight times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than their white neighbors. This despite the fact that use rates are virtually identical. In D.C., as in so many other American cities, marijuana laws have become nets that harvest young black men into the industrial prison system. In Seattle and Denver, those nets no longer exist. Earlier this year they disappeared from Washington, D.C. That’s what the rest of America stands to lose. If you want to experience the gains, visit us out here in safe, sane, and regulated Washington State. Come see how we’re thriving. And see what the rest of America has to lose. _Adapted from the new book “Weed the People, the Future of Legal Marijuana in America,” from TIME Books, available wherever books are sold, including_ [_Amazon.com_](http://www.amazon.com/Weed-People-Future-Marijuana-America/dp/1618931407/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428519624&sr=1-1&keywords=weed+the+people+the+future+of+legal+marijuana+in+america)_,_ [_Barnes & Noble_](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/weed-the-people-bruce-barcott/1120935354?ean=9781618931405) _and_ [_Indiebound_](http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781618931405)_._ _Read next:_ [_The Business of Pot_](http://time.com/3814969/the-business-of-pot/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript We don't wanna break the law. We don't wanna do this, we have to do this. Cannabis extract is illegal. And that's what my product is. I never stop thinking about the legal issues. As I cross into every state, that's breaking a lot of federal law. I don't believe that any of the law enforcement agencies want to lock out what is potentially a last treatment option for these patients. [ NOISE ] It's okay. It's okay. There still are many, many children and adults with epilepsy who can't be controlled with existing therapies. I cannot recommend using a medical marijuana product. It was worth it because it helps my daughter. If it's helping kids, why isn't it. We thought, well, why can't you do it? [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] This is about as big of a piece as we'd wanna cut at once. This is our first day of harvest. [ INAUDIBLE ] in here, that's the problem. Say we get this big girl [ NOISE ] Each plant is a whole- plant extract, so we have to cut the plant. And final, so we'll kinda put the next plant about right here. So as long as we all know. The size that we're cutting for has to dry, fully dry before we're able to process it in the lab. Now you're through that. Now you can start on the next one. Here is the next one. I've got a, I've got a really nice one We stepped onto the field June 3rd. Is that your sandal? I'll fill this one up. Perfect. We planted 17 acres with an estimated 36, 000 plants. [ MUSIC ] We'll likely serve several thousand patients with this. These grow big. [ MUSIC ] Which is good. My name is Penn Madison and I am the head manager here at Stanley Brothers Social Enterprises. You need to change hands. [ LAUGH ] [ INAUDIBLE ] And we grow medical hemp. [ MUSIC ] We have a little girl, Nellie, who's two and a half. Yeah. Is that one hurting? Are you getting frustrated? Huh? She is intractable apolopsy. That's a debilitating form of epilepsy. One in 26 people will have epilepsy in their lifetime. Three million Americans have epilepsy. 50 million people world wide have epilepsy. It is one of the most common neurologic disorders. Yeah. We had no idea wether or not medical help would work. What we did know is that, everything else we had tried had not. We'd seen specialist all over the country. We tried multiple anti- epileptic drugs. Hm- mm. Yeah? I would say in the last year too we have seen an increase in children that are here from out of state. That have been brought by families to try variants of medical marijuana. [ MUSIC ] The laws in Tennessee didn't allow us to have this delivered to us there. It didn't allow this to be an option to give it to her there. [ MUSIC ] So the option of moving to Colorado to pursue medical marijuana was a viable option for us. And so we chose to do that. [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] We start with tissue culture plants. They'll be grown for their entire season. When they're ripe they'll be harvested. Dried. Once they're cured right they will come back to the lab for extraction. In which we will extract all of the valuable parts of the plant into a fine oil. Then that oil is used to create specific dilutions of a dietary supplement. That they'll be called Charlotte's Web. [ MUSIC ] At nine months old she was sleeping 20 hours a day. Kids that age like to grab things. Swat at things. We would have things hanging over her she would have no interest. Finally at about her nine month appointment. After we were able to find a neurologist to see us relatively quickly. He was fairly confident that [ INAUDIBLE ] spasms. She was barely able to grow in function, because she was having upwards of 200 seizures a day. Seizures are incredibly debilitating but there's also a lot of other things that can happen with a cognitive problems. Depression, anxiety [ MUSIC ] Hello! Hello! [ UNKNOWN ] Three times a day. [ UNKNOWN ] I see patients here two days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and these are the consultation days, and also days where people come to pick up their medicine. In order to be ready for those two days, I spend. It's probably about another four days in lab making oil. Or with my brothers at the girl facilities. He was our first state licensee for the charlotte's web products. And it's fitting that he is a parents of a child with [ UNKNOWN ] syndrome. I am involved in this industry because of my daughter who is ten years old now and her name is Emily. Who has intractable epilepsy. [ NOISE ] It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. At her worst times, she's had a hundred to a hundred and fifty seizures a day. We've been told by a couple of doctors that we have to go home and enjoy our daughter as much as we can cause there is really not much hope left or anything else that will help so I spent a lot of time in California trying to find this medicine and you know I didn't have a lot of luck . >> We started doing our own research to see. What type of side effects? But why not try it. I just put my daughter on a medication that could've killed her. If it doesn't work, you put it to rest and we can move on with our lives. But if it does, nothing else has. Not everybody can come to Colorado, so there has to be something. Else we can do. My daughter was not doing good. She was having seizures, and I knew that there could be something that helps her, but I can't bring it to California, or I can't transport it. so it was very frustrating. It's okay. In the state where we live they do have a medical marijuana program. However, even if you were able to get through all of the bureaucratic hoops they have set up, the appropriate product for our daughter is not available. [ MUSIC ] Here I am, desperate father. I have to help my daughter. I need to have this for my daughter. So what is it gonna take? One thing led to another. How're you guys doing? [ INAUDIBLE ] We're doing okay. I am now the director of the foundation's California chapter. And that was the only way to do this legally. [ MUSIC ] I wish. When Emily started having seizures, ten years ago, somebody in this position. Existed. Where somebody would sit down across from me and say, this is what failed for people. This is what didn't. This is what others are doing. We were scared, one, to pick up and move and leave everything behind, but we weren't sure it was gonna work. Even in Colorado, the waiting list for Charlotte's Web oil is quite long, so it's not like you can just. Fly or drive to Colorado, pick it up and come home. Which apart from violating federal and state laws, It's just you can't do it. In California we found, an apartment, that we could do a short term rental. When we started giving her the marijuana in the first couple of doses even, we saw changes. She became more verbal. She became a lot more attentive. She was a lot more awake than she had been. [ LAUGH ] After the summer we wanted to give a longer time for our trial. So we made a decision that we were going to. Bring a supply back with us. [ MUSIC ]. They were able to identify a supplier in California my understanding who had what appears to be a very good product of oil high in CBD and they didn't want to fly with it, so apparently drove cross country to get their child this medication. Well I never stopped thinking about the legal issues. As I cross into every state I tried to make sure to be very careful. Any time I was tired I took a break. My daughter is doing great. She's now down to about 20 a day. She's far more interactive with the world around her. She has far more enjoyment. She's not playing beside the world, she's playing in the world where she lives now. And that, to me, is everything. Fortunately, that child is doing quite well. And they've gone through a huge pilgrimage to get that oil and, what appears to be, help their daughter. [ MUSIC ] I actually haven't heard anything about you know, negative potential side effects in the media. And I think it's a really important thing for parents to know is this is not risk free. It's not something I told them to do but when they said they were determined to do it, I was supportive, as their physician, to say listen, I will be here to guide you on helping to adjust the therapy and monitor the other drugs and, and the girls' epilepsy. Overall, at least so far, our experience here at Children's Colorado has been that, that only about a third of families are really reporting that they see much of an improvement in their children. And of those children when we look at brain waves, none of those are we really seeing the kind of EEG change that we would expect from a really effective medication. We also don't understand how marijuana products will interact with other medicines these children are on. Concerning things that we have seen in general, her seizures have gotten worse. Severe enough to require them to go into our intensive care unit. We absolutely don't have the scientific data and I think if I could make one point to the parents, it is that you need science. The other concern with the artisanal products is that we don't always know what's in them. They vary from batch to batch, they vary from grower to grower. [ MUSIC ] Unfortunately, we're giving it out to large numbers of very vulnerable people like children. Without knowing what the correct dose it. Without knowing what kind of epilepsy it's going to work for. Most of my critics, especially in the medical field, are critics that are criticizing lack of research. I blame them. That's their job. You're a researcher. You're a scientist. You're a doctor. Why don't you research this? These procedures are gaining. Something stronger. The schedule one listing for marijuana has made it much more difficult to do research on marijuana, there is no question about that. Really all hemp products lie in a gray area. We are faced with a bit of a moral dilemma. We do have some legal area to operate here. But at the same time, that's up for interpretation. [ MUSIC ] The supply is gonna run out, because we only brought back six months. There are options. Realm of Caring is talking about challenging the law and sending medication across state lines. Right, one more on the end and let's get it there. This product, this fall. Coming from hemp regulations, this will be our first time to actually be able to ship this to patients across the country. If it works, it would make a huge difference because then we could have it delivered right to our house. Cannabis [ UNKNOWN ] and that's what my product is. The last. Drug enforcement agency position that I read stated that hemp products made for human consumption, which have any detectable THC in them, are technically a violation of federal law. Now, however, they go on to say that they realize that all of these products exist throughout grocery store shelves throughout America. At this point in time I don't feel like the legal landscape has us such that people are going to come in with guns and handcuffs and try and shut down something that is providing hope and options for people. We don't want to break the law. We don't want to do this, we have to do this. How can kids not get what they need? I mean anyone you talk to about it, it's like, it's ridiculous. If it's helping kids, why isn't it. Reba like why can't you do it? [ MUSIC ] Everything has to start somewhere [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3815608/marijuana-legalization/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3815608/marijuana-legalization/"},"headline":"I Thought Legalizing Pot Would Be a Disaster. But It Turned Out To Be Wonderful.","datePublished":"2015-04-09T19:05:44.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T11:45:18.000Z","description":"We no longer arrest 12,000 people every year for possessing marijuana in Washington state","url":"https://time.com/3815608/marijuana-legalization/","keywords":["politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt37947302bfa8abda/6987ea5d8e0601778d45e0b1/weedthepeople.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Bruce Barcott","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/bruce-barcott/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt37947302bfa8abda/6987ea5d8e0601778d45e0b1/weedthepeople.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"WeedThePeople","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3815608/marijuana-legalization/","name":"I Thought Legalizing Pot Would Be a Disaster. But It Turned Out To Be Wonderful."}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Inside the World of Medical Marijuana for Kids","description":"The story of a family's illegal cross-country drive to transport marijuana oil for their epileptic 3-year-old daughter. A look inside the quasi-legal, science free world of medical marijuana for children from TIME's Red Border Films","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6Ic4KUCK/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-10-21T21:04:57.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6Ic4KUCK.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3815608/marijuana-legalization/","duration":"PT16M16S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3815608/marijuana-legalization/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```