The New York Times editorial board endorsed the repeal of federal law banning marijuana use on Saturday with the article “Repeal Prohibition, Again”, a landmark moment in the decades-long fight for legalization.

In the first of an interactive six-part series, the editorial board argues that the ban on marijuana has caused “great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.”

“There are no perfect answers to people’s legitimate concerns about marijuana use. But neither are there such answers about tobacco or alcohol, and we believe that on every level — health effects, the impact on society and law-and-order issues — the balance falls squarely on the side of national legalization,” the board wrote. “That will put decisions on whether to allow recreational or medicinal production and use where it belongs — at the state level.”

The Times is the biggest U.S. newspaper to endorse the legalization of marijuana. In recent years magazines like National Review and a few state newspapers like the Las Vegas Review Journal and the Star-Ledger Editorial Board have endorsed legalization.

The Times editorial board compared the 40-year federal ban on marijuana to the 13 years  known as ‘prohibition’ when the government banned alcohol, “in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished.”

Read Full Story On: politico