Today, PBS airs Ken Burns documentary, Prohibition. There aren’t many people who would argue we should go back to the bad old days of alcohol prohibition—crime was up but alcohol consumption didn’t go away.

Coincidentally or not, October 1st, 1934  is the day that the Marijuana Tax Act was enacted. And on the next day, October 2nd, (74 years ago today) this poor man

Samuel R. Caldwell, became the first man to be arrested for selling marijuana.  He spent two years in jail and died soon thereafter. How ironic that less than a year after alcohol prohibition was repealed, marijuana prohibition began.  I wonder if this coming year, the 75th year of cannabis prohibition, will mark the beginning of the end of this stupidity.