College of Saint Rose alumna Alyson Martin and NushinRashidian, investigative journalists and authors of a groundbreaking book on the movement toward legalization of marijuana, will read from their new book, A New Leaf: The End of Cannabis Prohibition, as part of the 2014 Frequency North writers series at The College of Saint Rose on Thursday February 6th.
In November 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington passed landmark measures to legalize the production and sale of cannabis for social use—a first not only in the United States but also the world. Medical cannabis is now legal in twenty states and Washington, D.C., and more than one million Americans have turned to it in place of conventional pharmaceuticals.
Yet the federal government refuses to acknowledge these broader societal shifts and continues to raid and arrest people: 49.5 percent of all drug-related arrests involve the sale, manufacture, or possession of cannabis.
