Community | June 16, 2009 | 6 comments

Legalize pot movement gains steam

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ClipsFC
The savage drug war in Mexico. Crumbling state budgets. Weariness with current drug policy. The election of a president who said, "Yes — I inhaled."

These developments and others are kindling unprecedented optimism among the many Americans who want to see marijuana legalized.

Doing so, they contend to an ever-more-receptive audience, could weaken the Mexican cartels now profiting from U.S. pot sales, save billions in law enforcement costs, and generate billions more in tax revenue from one of the nation's biggest cash crops.

Said a veteran of the movement, Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance: "This is the first time I feel like the wind is at my back and not in my face."

Foes of legalization argue that already-rampant pot use by adolescents would worsen if adults could smoke at will.

Even the most hopeful marijuana activists doubt nationwide decriminalization is imminent, but they see the debate evolving dramatically and anticipate fast-paced change on the state level.

"For the most part, what we've seen over the past 20 years has been incremental," said Norm Stamper, a former Seattle police chief now active with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. "What we've seen in the past six months is an explosion of activity, fresh thinking, bold statements and penetrating questions."

Some examples:

* Numerous prominent political leaders, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Mexican presidents, have suggested it is time for open debate on legalization.
* Lawmakers in at least three states are considering joining the 13 states that have legalized pot for medical purposes. Massachusetts voters last fall decided to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of pot; there are now a dozen states that have taken such steps.
* In Congress, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., are among several lawmakers contending that marijuana decriminalization should be studied in re-examining what they deem to be failed U.S. drug policy. "Nothing should be off the table," Webb said.
* National polls show close to half of American adults are now open to legalizing pot — a constituency encompassing today's college students and the 60-something baby boomers who popularized the drug in their own youth. In California last month, a statewide Field Poll for the first time found 56 percent of voters supporting legalization.
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6 comments // Legalize pot movement gains steam

  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • a fanatic is a fanatic no matter what kind!

      Thank you PressCore

      PS
      I'm not a fanatic for I don't asking anyone to use, but I am guilty of testify to the wonders of "the Cure".

    • 3 years ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • I am an avid student of History. Have been all my 60 years. But before you think I'm all burned out and washed up, consider that 60 years out of a likely 120. And now that I've got your attention, please know this. It is nothing less than the trajedy of the USA that so few people know and even fewer care to know its History. I have a mini library of books on this subject pertaining to the history of Cannabis in the USA spanning 400 years. And the history of Cannabis in every civilization in the world spanning 4000 years. During colonial times, the use of Cannabis for everything immaginable was as legal and common as aspirin in your bathroom medicine chest. It was, and still is a wonder drug.The Indians here in America were using it at the same time the English across the pond were using it. It's only during the 20th century that white anglo saxon culture lost touch with it
      and like Mohammed converting everyone to his religion by the sword, starting exerting undue influence to ban it. Whenever a minority wants to overwhelm a majority the easiest way to accomplish that is to sap the strength of what made the majority strong. Spanish Conquistadors like Pizzaro subdued South American dominant Indian tribes by destroying their Amaranth grain which is superior. We have been subjugated by the Flunkie Bureau's propaganda movie invasion of Hollywood and the subsequent Big Pharma domination after the 1937 Prohibition by an unlawful Prohibition which Abraham Lincoln described as UnAmerican. And thus separated from the unlawfuly outlawed wonder drug that theretofor innocuated all humankind from 90% of all infectious and degenerative diseases. It's like modern humans are finaly climbing up the long ladder out of the pit
      that totalitarian fascists dug and threw us into for the past 72 years. Ask yourself: How many people do you know that were experienced young adults before Prohibition ? Almost none right ? So who can you turn to to tell it like it realy was before the fascist minority subverted our powerful way of life and liberty to the weak substitute that exsists now where 1 in 10 Americans is unjustly in Prison for Cannabis ? David Sutter, a senior U.S. Supreme Court Justice was recently in the news for his retirement back to New Hampshire, a colonial State which reverberates with Hemp Culture. He told us the great trajedy of the USA is that too few people of its citizens care to know its History, traditions, and laws. And if we don't care to know how we were meant to be, how then could we possibly know how to proceed to preserve the legacy we were bequeathed with. As in our Liberty. As a 4.0 law student myself, I understand.The herb itself IS a stairway to heaven like the classic Led Zepplin song, But this is still the real world where the evil in it won't tolerate anything guaranteed to bear you Peace & Love. Because the pathetic trolls will always want to steal what is rightfuly yours, then sell it back to you for a King's ransom in their greed for power & domination. So it's still the trajedy of climbing a long ladder out of the pit so that we might someday obtain deliverance back to where we were when we were free. Maybe. It was all so easy for them, in 1937, to foolishly second guess the ancient wisdom of the founding fathers of Washington and Jefferson who had hemp plantations in Virginia. And to stray off the path. But after 72 years of the BIG LIe, when we're now bankrupt for it, and too many can't even admit to the UnAmericanism of Prohibition because we've lost too much to admit to their failure, we'd rather sink like the Titanic than reform.

    • 3 years ago
  • N_Dank
  • Conniepae
    • 0
      Conniepae  
    • Classifying cannabis and heroin as equal misleads children, more than it helps. Heroin and cannabis are night and day different. It's no wonder children are experimenting with dangerous drugs. Dangerous drugs are classified equal to cannabis and that's just crazy.

      Cannabis promotes peace and tranquility. Cannabis is the rope, which enables many to tie a knot and hang on when times are tough. Times are tough for many in America right now. Much of the problems are not due to things people have done, it's due to things which are not within their control. Companies are closing due to bad economy and glutney run-a-muck.

      People who did nothing wrong are now out of work and unable to find jobs. Now that's stress! Cannabis is a good stress reliever. Some times, suck it up, just isn't enough.

    • 3 years ago
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • Conniepae:

      Talk about sending the wrong message?!?

      the coal ash spill E. Tennessean got for Xmas can only be cleaned up by HEMP(phytoremediation)and we have a small amount of time to do it in Before it gets to the water table

      soon Kids in the coal belt will be drinking Mercury,arsenic,lead,...........

      but thank god they didn't see hemp used to heal the land and GET the wrong message.

      70 years of Treason will not change ...............it is Wrong.

    • 3 years ago
  • ClipsFC
    • 0
      ClipsFC  
    • "The notion that we have to keep something completely banned for adults to keep it away from kids doesn't hold up," said Bruce Mirken, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project.

      As for Obama, the activists don't expect him to embrace the cause at this point.

    • 3 years ago
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