“Four score and seven years ago” are words that many associate with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but that also describes how long marijuana has been illegal in Pennsylvania.
At a Wednesday news conference on the Capitol steps urging action to reverse that law, Les Stark, executive director of Keystone Cannabis Coalition, likened Lincoln’s address delivered on the Gettysburg Battlefield to what he termed a “war on the people over plant that has always been here with us.”
He pointed out it was “four score and seven years ago” when Pennsylvania Republican prohibitionist Gov. Gifford Pinchot signed a law banning marijuana in the state, which he said took effect Sept. 1, 1933.
“Eighty seven years, that’s how long we have suffered,” Stark said “What has the war on the people over cannabis wrought? Is there less cannabis in Pennsylvania today than there was in 1933? … Wake up.”