Much ink has been spilt in describing the precise nature of the soul-searching the GOP is undergoing in the wake of getting totally shellacked last Tuesday. There are a plethora of suggestions — of varying degrees of helpfulness — as to how the Republican party can re-brand and re-orient itself; ranging from capitulating on taxes to deciding that gay marriage isn’t a hill to die on. But there’s one easy ideological maneuver that Republicans could make that would simultaneously burnish their stance as the party of freedom and expand their base while alienating the president from his. It is a move that might also make one swing state a little easier to win in 2016. Congressional Republicans and conservative leaders could get on the weed bandwagon.

Call it the Marijuana domino effect. Less than two weeks after Washington and Colorado voted to legalize and regulate cannabis, lawmakers in five other states say they are considering similar bills. In Latin American, Mexican President Felipe Calderon says Uncle Sam now has lost the “moral authority” to ask other nations to maintain the cannabis prohibition and combat trafficking. What didn’t seem remotely possible a fortnight ago suddenly seems inevitable.

Few would have predicted the pot prohibition could fall almost overnight like the Iron Curtain, nevertheless the two-state triumph for has set off a series of tremors that suggest the people’s will has shifted. America appears to have reached a tipping point in terms of attitudes toward cannabis and, if the weight of public opinion truly has passed the fulcrum, change could be rapid. Legalization campaigns are no longer smoky affairs financed by dime bags peddled by Cheech-and-Chong aficionados and Big Lebowski-Dude wannabes. They’re well-funded, well-organized and cross partisan lines: In swing state Colorado, pot outpolled President Barack Obama.

President Obama may be willing to go with flow. The U.S. federal government so far has refused to denounce — or accept — what has happened, even after the state governors asked this week for clarification. Obama faces 18 states that have legalized medical marijuana with a spectrum of regulatory models that range from supplying anyone with so much as a broken heart, to meting it out to only the seriously debilitated and dying. As a candidate in 2008, and again as president in 2009, Obama promised restraint when it came to enforcing federal laws against med-pot.

His record is questionable — he has been tough on states with liberal access and less aggressive with those maintaining more rigorous regimes. Regardless, many of his donors and advisers urge him to use his second term as a chance to pursue authentic drug-policy reform. He could watch as more and more states vote on legalization, or he could lead. Regardless, the dominoes have begun to topple: and Canada will follow.

The bill introduced Thursday in the lower house of Congress would allow citizens to grow up to six marijuana plants and to buy 1.4 ounces of marijuana every month. It would also allow for the licensing of marijuana clubs with up to 15 members, 90 plants and an annual production limit of nearly 16 pounds.

Public opinion about marijuana has moved sharply over the past few years; about half now support legalization. Tuesday voters in Washington State and Colorado took the leap of approving commercial production and sale for non-medical use, under more or less the same rules that apply to alcohol.

Ideologues on both sides are claim to know with certainty what the results of legalization would be; all good in the view of the legalization advocates, all bad in the view of those who support the current laws.

But those of us who try to study the issue scientifically find ourselves in a world of doubt. How much lower would legal prices be than current illegal prices? If there were heavy taxes, how much evasion would there be? Would buyers in a legal market favor possibly more dangerous high-potency varieties, or would lower-strength products dominate the marijuana market as beer dominates the alcohol market? Would legalization greatly increase problem marijuana use? Use among teenagers? (That might depend on the price.) Would there be an increase in auto accidents due to stoned driving? Would problem drinking decrease – or increase – as result?

All of those questions matter. None of them can be answered by abstract reasoning, or by studying small variations in marijuana policy such as decriminalization of possession for personal use. The only way to find out how legalization would work in practice is to actually try it.

Ideologues on both sides are claim to know with certainty what the results of legalization would be; all good in the view of the legalization advocates, all bad in the view of those who support the current laws.

But those of us who try to study the issue scientifically find ourselves in a world of doubt. How much lower would legal prices be than current illegal prices? If there were heavy taxes, how much evasion would there be? Would buyers in a legal market favor possibly more dangerous high-potency varieties, or would lower-strength products dominate the marijuana market as beer dominates the alcohol market? Would legalization greatly increase problem marijuana use? Use among teenagers? (That might depend on the price.) Would there be an increase in auto accidents due to stoned driving? Would problem drinking decrease – or increase – as result?

All of those questions matter. None of them can be answered by abstract reasoning, or by studying small variations in marijuana policy such as decriminalization of possession for personal use. The only way to find out how legalization would work in practice is to actually try it.

But actually trying it on a national basis carries heavy risks. If it goes badly – if, for example, heavy use and use among teenagers quadrupled – it would be very hard to put the genie back in the bottle. All those new users would become potential customers for an expanded illicit market if the drug were re-prohibited.

So the obvious way to learn something about marijuana legalization would be to try it out one state at a time: relying on what Justice Brandeis called “the laboratories of democracy.”

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"We've got bigger fish to fry," Obama said of pot users in Colorado and Washington during an exclusive interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters.

"It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it's legal," he said, invoking the same approach taken toward users of medicinal marijuana in 18 states where it's legal.

Recently, a federal Drug War official recently admitted what some growers and activists have been saying for years: if it really is the Mexican drug cartels operating in the forests, there is scant evidence.

The official in question is Tommy Lanier, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Marijuana Initiative. Buried in a Los Angeles Times story that ran over the holidays are Lanier's doubts about the reality of Sinaloas, Zetas, and other narcotrafficos in Mendocino and Humboldt counties.

"Based on our intelligence, which includes thousands of cellphone numbers and wiretaps, we haven't been able to connect anyone to a major cartel," he said.

Lanier said authorities have long mislabeled marijuana grown on public land as "cartel grows" because Mexican nationals are arrested in the majority of cases, and the narrative of fighting drug cartels helps them secure federal funding.

Sporting a mix of flannel, ponytails and suits, dozens of those angling for the job turned out Wednesday for a forum in Tacoma, several of them from out of state. The Liquor Control Board, the agency charged with developing rules for the marijuana industry, reserved a convention center hall for a state bidding expert to take questions about the position and the hiring process. Washington and Colorado this fall became the first states to pass laws legalizing the recreational use of marijuana and setting up systems of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores where adults over 21 can walk in and buy up to an ounce of heavily taxed cannabis.

Both states are working to develop rules for the emerging pot industry. Up in the air is everything from how many growers and stores there should be, to how the marijuana should be tested to ensure people don't get sick.