Well stay safe out in the 'Stan, and keep up the good work. Also, cool YouTube vid!
Regarding the cannabis issue, bear in mind that DuPont and William Randolph Hearst (*SPIT*) were two of the greatest proponents for the illegalization of marijuana in the US, mostly in opposition to the use of hemp fibers for clothing and fabrics manufacture. If one or both of those entities are butterflied away (please get rid of Hearst, seriously), it may be a harder sell to criminalize the plant given its industrial use. And if THAT'S the case, it could be more trouble than it's worth to criminalize, erm, "recreational" use as well.
That certainly is very true, and butterflying DuPont & Hearst would be helpful(greatly so on the national level!), but unfortunately, it will be far from the end-all, be all. Racism did still play a major role in getting recreational marijuana banned on the state level in several states, particularly that against Chicanos, in the Southwest, at least, and given that there was plenty of hysteria concerning Chinese and Blacks having interracial relations with white women, supposedly because of the use of this drug, in these areas and some other places, I still don't think marijuana prohibition would be entirely butterflied, especially not in those areas south of the Mason-Dixon Line(basically Virginia and the Carolinas going west past Texas and including N.M. & Ariz.)
Getting rid of the prohibition on the national level wouldn't be too hard, with the right PODs. Unfortunately, it will be much, much, harder to do away with local & state prohibition. One scenario I can see possibly happening here is the tobacco and booze industries heavily lobbying in favor of statewide cannabis(though not necessarily male hemp as well) prohibition in certain states, particularly in places such as North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky where tobacco was practically king-of-the-hill as far as cash crops went. I can also see the equivalent of wet and dry counties across states where total prohibition of cannabis isn't as likely to occur, such as Iowa, Kansas, or Nebraska. It may even fail completely in some areas, like New England & New York, or the Pacific Northwest, where racial fears tended to be at the mininum for the era........in fact, if a significant Latino, particularly Mexican influence, can develop in New York City(and it was fairly noticeable IOTL), it may actually become a center for "stoner culture", kind of like how San Francisco did IOTL, but just with different circumstances.
