FILE - In this March 12, 1941, file photo, Louis Armstrong, wearing a Brooklyn College sweater, performs on the campus in New York as the school honored him with the degree "Doctor of Swing." Armstrong, a lifelong fan and defender of the drug he called "gage," was arrested in California in 1930 and given a six-month suspended sentence for pot possession. "It relaxes you, makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro," he once said. In the 1950s, he urged legalization in a letter to President Eisenhower. On the occasion of “Legalization Day,” Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012, when Washington’s new law takes effect, AP takes a look back at the cultural and legal status of the “evil weed” in American history. (AP Photo/File)