In a 1988 interview with High Times, attorney-activist Michael Kennedy predicted that marijuana legalization was “inevitable.” 

Kennedy made that prediction as Ronald Reagan was on the warpath against pot, signing into law the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and imposing substantial mandatory sentences on federal marijuana offenders. His First Lady had become the face of the national anti-legalization movement, channeling suburban parents’ anti-drug fervor and piloting the “Just Say No” campaign in schools across the country. For a moment, parents, religious leaders, and the federal government were arrayed against the counterculture’s drug of choice.