A box is filled with marijuana plants at the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Clinic {thanks, AP}

If you had asked him two weeks ago, Zach Brown would have said he didn’t think marijuana legalization would happen in his lifetime.

Things have quickly changed. Brown, the president of the University of Maryland, College Park chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, now is optimistic the country will see significant change in perhaps two decades.

“It seems up until this point, we’ve been working against the wind in a way, pushing our goals to hard opposition,” Brown said. “But there’s now a rapid growth of support. The winds have changed, and we’re riding with them now.”

It’s an exciting time for marijuana advocates, and Brown, a 19-year-old sophomore and Eagle Scout, feels even more motivated to push his cause.

On Oct. 19, the U.S. Justice Department announced it would not devote federal resources to prosecuting people who use medical marijuana, as long as they complied with state law, in a reversal of Bush administration policy.

The wind Brown feels blowing in his direction is currently a light breeze, but, he said, one that could have ripple effects. “It seems like this is finally at least a small acknowledgment of the irrationality of the war on drugs.,” he said. “It’s grounds for a whole bunch of movements pushing forward.”

Other marijuana advocates — who prefer the term “regulation” over “legalization,” place marijuana on par with alcohol or tobacco — take a similarly cautious tone. “It’s a positive step, but it’s hard to be overwhelmed by this,” said Tyler Smith, 28, campaigns director for the international organization Students for Sensible Drug Policy and a Baltimore native. Smith became interested in marijuana law when, as part of the Gilman School debate club, he had to argue for legalization, and he’s optimistic that he’ll see meaningful reform in the next decade.

Maryland is one of 14 states with a medical marijuana regulation bill on the books. Passed in 2003, the Darrell Putman Compassionate Use Act allows for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana if a defendant can prove he is using the drug out of medical necessity. Defendants still must go to court and face a $100 fine. Advocates characterize Maryland’s medical marijuana law as the strictest in the country.

Damien Nichols, 27, the member coordinator for the Maryland chapter of Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, said via e-mail that Maryland’s existing law is “so weak and vague that patients are not protected from arrest or even conviction.”

“What’s worse, most doctors and police officers are completely unfamiliar with the existing law,” Nichols said. “So it is difficult to get a doctor’s recommendation, and common for patients to be treated like petty criminals.”

Advocates said the Obama administration’s decision may change discussion in the state about the law. This year, Del. Henry Heller (D-Montgomery County), worked with Americans for Safe Access to introduce a bill that would have created a task force to make recommendations about the state’s medical marijuana law. The measure died in committee without any vote. Heller’s office did not respond to interview requests.

Advocates see the potential economic impact of a regulated marijuana industry, the drug’s effectiveness at treating symptoms of a wide range of diseases and the potential to decriminalize violent drug trafficking as factors that may revive debate. Recent polls suggest more Americans support legalization. While 75 percent of Americans supported doctors prescribing marijuana for medical uses in a 2003 Gallup poll, an all-time high of 44 percent favored making marijuana legal in a Gallup poll conducted last month, almost double what it was in the mid-1980s. The number of adults who favored legalization increased by 8 percentage points from just 2005 to 2009.

But the Obama administration has made it clear the policy change in no way reflects a wish to legalize marijuana. “Marijuana legalization, for any purpose, remains a non-starter in the Obama administration,” said White House Office of National Drug Policy Director R. Gil Kerlikowske in a statement. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in a statement, also reinforced its goal of dismantling traffickers on the Mexico-U.S. border.

Generally, opponents say legalization will not bring in a large amount of tax revenue and that marijuana is an addictive drug that could lead to dependence on other drugs. Conservative commentators, such as Laura Ingraham, have criticized the administration’s policy change. “Does this mean that brownies are going to be for sale at CVS and Walgreens?” Ingraham said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulous.”

Rush Limbaugh has long scoffed at the idea of legalizing both medical marijuana and marijuana for recreational use. “The FDA says there’s no — zilch, zero, nada — shred of medicinal value to the evil weed marijuana,” Limbaugh said on his radio show in 2006. National nonprofit The Partnership for a Drug Free America, which has produced several anti-marijuana TV public service announcements, did not respond to interview requests.

Dr. Donna Cox, the director of Towson University’s Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Abuse Prevention Center, has a background in nursing and has taught a “drugs in our culture” course. Cox said there’s probably no way of knowing if and when more marijuana reforms will take place. “Do I believe this will lead to anything more dramatic at this point?” she said. “Given policy history and sociological factors, it’s not going to happen overnight if there is going to be change.”

But marijuana advocates remain optimistic that change will come in their lifetime. Nichols, a UMCP graduate, got involved because his father has glaucoma and he has friends with diseases whose symptoms, such as nausea, are alleviated with marijuana. “I see comprehensive protections for patients, doctors and caregivers being implemented in the near future,” he said. “I see sick people pulled out of the crosshairs of the drug war.”

Brown said his focus is reaching out to students, staff and faculty on campus to show “what the facts are instead of the fearful presumptions of the past.”

“At this point, we’re still at the infant stages of the movement,” Brown said. “You know the psychological foot-in-door effect? We just started to get in the door, but we don’t have a body yet.”

Jordan Bartel is the assistant editor at b. E-mail him at jordan@bthesite.com

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