Hehehe well yeah maybe I had naive hopes. I honestly had not thought a lot about how this would turn out in the US. The US is following such a different traject

Hehehe well yeah maybe I had naive hopes. I honestly had not thought a lot about how this would turn out in the US. The US is following such a different trajectory from what I am used to in politics in Norway where I am from. Pot isn't legal in Norway either but I found the laws extremely draconian in the US. The war on drugs really turned me off prohibiting drug sales. But what I find odd is that America seems to be moving from one extreme to another so quickly. Here in Norway pot is not legal, but there is a gradual sort of decriminalization with respect to drugs. They are still keen to point out it is illegal but police reactions to abuse is quite mild. It is mainly the big sellers they are going after. I guess naively I had expected the US to first change their laws to be milder long before any full legalization happens. But I think a major difference is that in Norway a lot of the liberalization is driven by the legal profession and actors rather than by some popular opinion in the population. Citizens aren't really favoring legalization the way Americans are, but nor are they really favoring a harsh response either. It is people working close to the issue that typically push for some form of legalization. I think the unique aspect in the US is legalization happening in the context of a very polarized population. Where many are like, just let people do whatever they dam please and others are very moralistic and want to keep going with a sort of war on drugs. This seems like an explosive combination. You might ask why do I care at all. Well American has tremendous influence on the rest of the world. I fear that a failed legalization experiment in the US would set back legalization everywhere else. People will point to the US as a horror example. The US is already used like that as a way to scare people away from any sort of privatized hospitals or clinics.