A Century Later, The New York Times Rejects the Anti-Pot Propaganda It Peddled
On Sunday The New York Times officially turned against marijuana prohibition, and this week it has followed up on that historic editorial with a series of essays on various aspects of the issue. Tuesday's installment, headlined "The Federal Marijuana Ban Is Rooted in Myth and Xenophobia," accurately describes the irrational origins of that policy. But as I point out in my latest Forbes column, the Times conspicuously overlooks its own role in disseminating the propaganda underlying the war on marijuana. Here is how the column begins:
According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 54 percent of American adults support marijuana legalization. That's around 130 million people. It turns out that some of them are members of the New York Times editorial board, which on Sunday declared that "the federal government should repeal the ban on marijuana."
Given its timing, the paper's endorsement of legalization is more an indicator of public opinion than a brave stand aimed at changing it. Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor at the Times, told MSNBC's Chris Hayes that the new position was not controversial among the paper's 18 editorial writers and that when he raised the subject with the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, "He said, 'Fine.' I think he'd probably been there before I was. I think I was there before we did it." Better late than never, I guess, although I confess that seeing a New York Times editorial in favor of legalizing marijuana briefly made me wonder if I've been wrong about the issue all these years.
In their gratitude for the belated support of a venerable journalistic institution, antiprohibitionists should not overlook the extent to which the Times has aided and abetted the war on marijuana over the years. That shameful history provides a window on the origins of this bizarre crusade and a lesson in the hazards of failing to question authority.
