Wilkinson is fine with the “shameless opportunism of privileged middle-class stoners … suddenly up in arms about the systemic racism of the American criminal-justice system”:
We should welcome it. We should cheer it, even if it begins in bad faith. Indignant exhortation only gets us so far. The best hope for justice is always an alliance with self-interest. It’s unlikely that my legalisation activist friends would have come to care much about the cruelty of denying marijuana to the sick, but they came to care, genuinely and deeply. Once they saw the strategic sense of focusing first on the legalisation of medical marijuana, the needless suffering caused by prohibition truly engaged their empathy and compassion. Suddenly, tens of thousands of people too weak to fight for themselves had legions fighting sincerely on their behalf.
Previous Dish on the racial bias of marijuana law enforcement here.
The Dish 