The Marijuana Insurgency: Federalism and Social Reframing in Policy Reform

After fifty years of federal prohibition, marijuana reform efforts have won political and legal success. These victories hold lessons for anyone seeking to resist federal law without being able to directly affect it. Victory can come from reframing an issue. For marijuana reform, social reframing—not formal legal analysis or material factors—provides the best explanation for how advocates achieved change.

Their unconventional political tactics, akin to those used by insurgents in wartime, undercut federal prohibition by winning hearts and minds. This is an analysis of the sociology of legal change. It is also the story of how ordinary Americans retook personal liberty from the centralized state. Despite what anti-liberal critics have argued, local self-governance and individual freedom can sometimes go hand-in-hand.