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The recent legalization of cannabis in both Washington state and Colorado — and many other states are poised to follow suit in the coming months and years — remains a major point of contention for many social conservatives who still view the plant as an illicit drug rather than the all-natural medicine and food that it actually is. But a growing number of right-leaning media outlets are coming forward to urge the conservative base to relax: there is nothing to fear from putting an end to cannabis prohibition.

In a recent column for
The Daily Caller, Michael Anissimov, founder of
More Right, sets the record straight on cannabis, rectifying everything from the entrenched misperception that cannabis is some kind of “gateway” drug to expounding upon the immense economic benefits associated with legalization. No matter how you look at it, ending cannabis prohibition just makes sense, he writes to his mostly conservative audience.

“More and more law enforcement officials are coming forward in favor of cannabis legalization, arguing that legalization would disempower gangs and bring the business into the sunlight, removing the criminal element,” writes Anissimov.

This is just one positive element to legalization among many, of course, but it is an important one that many still opposed to legalization fail to consider. Cannabis, which the media for decades has disparagingly referred to as “marijuana,” is always going to be around whether it is legal or not. So regardless of one’s personal opinion on the merits of cannabis, the real question is whether or not we as a society want it to be peddled in dark alleys by criminal street gangs or grown and sold by law-abiding citizens.