Legions of middle-aged women follow travel aficionado Rick Steves’ televised tours through Europe. Now the ACLU of Washington hopes they will follow him in the crusade to legalize marijuana. Last month the ACLU launched an infomercial hosted by Steves about the unjust history and legacy of marijuana law, the Stranger reports. According to station guidelines, the 30-minute show cannot advocate any legal reform, so it urges viewers to visit its website. The ACLU’s target audience is mothers, who are proven to respond to the infomercial format. Among Steves’ credentials for addressing marijuana law, besides his travel-tested appeal to moms, are two teenage children and time spent in Europe, where, Steves says in an ACLU news release, he “learned that more thoughtful approaches can work.” Steves says the United States should follow Europe’s example and treat “drug use as a public health issue instead of building more jails.”
