Teachers Union Head Supports Marijuana Regulation

The campaign to end marijuana prohibition received a noteworthy endorsement last week, when the head of the second-largest teachers union in the country said that she supports this year’s ballot initiative in California to regulate marijuana.

Randi Weingarten, president of the 856,000-member American Federation of Teachers, told HBO’s “Real Time” host, Bill Maher, that “everything in moderation is pretty much fine.”

“When something becomes a forbidden fruit,” the 52-year-old told Maher, “you have to spend a whole lot of time making sure that, when you say no, people don’t think you mean yes.”

In another encouraging sign of the growing support for improving our nation’s marijuana laws, last week more than 90 percent of readers at the progressive political blog FireDogLake said they wanted to see that site “get involved” in marijuana policy reform.

Writes FDL editor Jane Hamsher:

“Our audience overwhelmingly believes that the [m]arijuana legalization initiatives are very important, and I think FDL can play a role in helping people to understand what’s at stake, and push back against the false arguments being advanced to perpetuate a [dysfunctional] status quo.”