If youre a writer whos been in the game long enough to enter the word journalist on a tax form you have had this experience: After toiling long and hard on a piece crafting subtle-yet-devastating arguments marshaling evidence paring quotes and delivering a killer conclusion you wake up on the morning of its publication to find the entire enterprise destroyed by a thoughtless headline. Or a silly headline. Or a stupid nonsensical headline. Or a headline that is diametrically opposed to the very point you were trying to make. That is what I imagine Tom James experienced on Monday morning. James is the author of the Atlantic Monthly feature that dropped yesterday under the headline The Failed Promise of Legal Pot. Nice headline. Provocative. Clickable. And false to the bone. Jamess 4500-word piece gets at a couple of undeniable truths. In Americas three legal regulated commercial states the black market for cannabis has winnowed considerably but hasnt completely disappeared. And the racial disparities in arrests that existed during prohibition still exist after prohibitions end. Colorado Oregon and Washington arrest far fewer people now than they did in 2011 but people of color still face higher rates of arrest than white people. Thats it. Thats the failed promise of legal pot. The successful promise of legal pot is this: In Washington arrests for cannabis possession have dropped by 98 percent. In Colorado theyve fallen by 95 percent. Cannabis taxes in both states are generating tens of millions of dollars a year for education and public health. In Oregon the legal cannabis industry has created 2156 jobs and $46 million in wages. Legalization has not increased underage access as studies have shown again and again and again. Many of those positive notes were taken from Tom Jamess own piece in The Atlantic. In fact James himself makes it clear that the very headline of his piece is false: It would be a mistake to call marijuana legalization a failure even in the loosest sense of the word. Heres the rest of that paragraph: quot;After all nationally just fewer than one in eight marijuana arrests on average are for distribution; the other seven are for simple possession. That means that out of eight marijuana arrests that would have happened tomorrow in Colorado seven of them wont because possession is legal. That means seven Coloradans who could have lost everythingfrom their jobs to their housing to their college financial aidas a result of an arrest or conviction will instead simply go about another day of their ordinary lives. But the persistence of that eighth arrestthe roughly 12.5 percent of marijuana arrests that are for distributionmeans that legalization isnt a complete success either. Those few distribution arrests cause the majority of marijuana-related incarcerations and still disproportionately affect black men.quot; So yes there are still challenges to overcome regarding the racial disparities in the arrest rates for cannabis. But to acknowledge that and then blaze the header Failed Promise is not just an error. The Atlantic editors are spreading a falsehood that has real consequences for millions of Americans. Voters read headlines like that and decide to vote against legalization measures in states like California Massachusetts Arizona and Nevada. Politicians glance at the Atlantic piece and decide to turn against regulated legalization in states like Vermont. When they do they allow good people to be destroyed by senseless arrests and outrageous prison sentences. Say their names. Bernard Noble 49-year-old father of seven wasting away in prison for 13 years for two joints in Louisiana. Lee Carroll Booker 75 now serving life without parole for growing his own medical marijuana plants in Alabama. Raymond Schwab the Gulf War veteran whose five children were taken by the state of Kansas because he wanted to move to Colorado to treat his PTSD with legal medical marijuana. Heres another name to say: Scott Stossel. Hes the editor of The Atlantic. I dont know if he approved the headline but I know he has the power to change it. Hes @SStosel on Twitter. Let him know how you feel. by Bruce Barcott at Leafly News amp; Culture