Another great read, this time from http://www.slate.com and regarding the role the WTO's enforcement of international trade competition may play in the legalization of marijuana.

Excerpted from: http://www.slate.com/id/2115008?obref=obinsite

The irrationality of U.S. marijuana policy is not news. Support of legalization has made bedfellows of people like Willie Nelson and William F. Buckley Jr., backed up by Richard Posner and Dr. Dre. And a Supreme Court decision on whether the federal laws can trump state statutes in this area is expected any day. But the strange status of marijuana may also bring down the scrutiny of a different entity altogether: the World Trade Organization and its powerful condemnation of inconsistent national laws. The American ban on marijuana is what the WTO calls "a barrier to trade," raising the question: Can U.S. marijuana policy survive the tough scrutiny of world trade law?

WTO scrutiny of American drug laws may sound far-fetched, but then until recently so did WTO scrutiny of U.S. gambling or tax laws. U.S. gambling laws, like drug laws, are erratic: Online casinos are strictly prosecuted, but state lotteries and Las Vegas are tolerated. Citing such inconsistency, last November the WTO declared American gambling enforcement an "illegal barrier to trade in services." The fate of these gambling laws may be a guide to the future of American marijuana laws.

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Two WTO principles spell trouble for U.S. drug laws. The WTO demands that countries treat foreign products the same as domestic ones (the "National Treatment" principle); and it demands that when chemicals or drugs are banned, those bans be based on good science (the "Beef Hormone" principle). Both these requirements may present a problem for the United States in the pot wars, because neither science nor logic has ever played much of a role in American crackdowns on "reefer madness."