You know things are shifting in America when Fortune magazine, the bible for business journalism, runs a cover story titled “Is pot already legal?”. You also know it when Barack Obama’s Department of Justice publishes a long-expected memo signalling that the federal government will no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries if they are legal under state law. That happened formally this month.
It was not, moreover, a symbolic gesture. Marijuana for medical reasons — to tackle chemotherapy-induced nausea or Aids-related wasting or glaucoma, among other conditions — is now legal in 13 states, including the biggest, California. Next year, 13 more states are planning referendums or new laws following suit. Last week a California legislative committee held the first hearings not simply on whether medical marijuana should remain legal, but on whether all marijuana should be decriminalised, full stop. The incentive? The vast amounts of money the bankrupt state could raise by taxing cannabis.
Now look at the polling on the question. In 1970, 84% of Americans supported keeping marijuana illegal. Today, that number has collapsed to 54%. The proportion believing that marijuana should be legal has gone from 18% at the end of the 1960s to 44% today. On current trends, a majority of Americans will favour legalisation by the end of Obama’s first term. In the western states, 53% already favour legalising and taxing the stuff. Support for legalisation is strongest among the young — the Obama generation — but has climbed among self-described Republicans as well.
But the reality is already ahead of the polls. Take a trip, so to speak, to Los Angeles today, where one would be forgiven for thinking that marijuana was already legal. There are more than 800 marijuana dispensaries in the city — and an estimated 7,000 in the state of California as a whole (many times more than in Holland).
Getting a doctor’s recommendation for marijuana is easier than getting health insurance — just look at the ads in the papers, where a consultation costs about $200. The dispensaries range from the dime store to elaborate palaces of capitalist taste. Seminars are held for entrepreneurs who want to start a business selling medical cannabis. On display are sophisticated strains that can provide exquisitely tailored effects: some best for countering nausea, some for building appetite, others for going to sleep, others for staying alert or for watching movies or for general relaxation.
The concentration of THC, the active compound, is much higher than in the past. But since no one has ever overdosed on marijuana, it’s difficult to say why that matters. Yes, if someone has a history of mental illness, it’s not that smart to experiment with the cannabinoid receptors in the brain. But it isn’t smart for such people to take any drugs — or too much alcohol — for that matter. For most people, stronger pot merely translates into a need for less of it to get the same effect. Too much and you’ll likely nod off — and wake up later with no hangover. If pubs served pot rather than beer, crime rates would plummet.
Americans, for whom the use of marijuana is almost a rite of passage in most colleges, know all this. And at some point they stopped pretending otherwise. The past three presidents smoked marijuana in their earlier days, even if only one has openly written about it. (Obama, when asked the Clinton question — if he had inhaled — responded: “I thought that was the point.”) In an online press conference with his younger supporters, the first question was about whether legalising and taxing pot would be a good thing to help raise revenues. Obama laughed it off. With an annual deficit of more than a trillion dollars, he may not be able to laugh it off much longer.
The key to the shift has been the emphasis on marijuana’s medical properties. Human beings have used marijuana as medicine for millennia. It was once sold in the States by Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical manufacturer. Allowing this compassionate use for a few soon revealed, accidentally, how harmless it is. It is not chemically addictive, although some mild withdrawal can happen if you are a regular pot-smoker and go cold turkey. Its side-effects are minimal compared with those of most authorised drugs for similar conditions. It is far less addictive than tobacco or alcohol. It leads to no measurable degree of antisocial behaviour, as is the case with, say, crystal meth or cocaine or heroin. Many of its users are successful, productive members of society who simply prefer it to alcohol as a relaxant in the evening or as a way to get through cancer treatment.
Denying Aids patients a tool to stay alive tips the balance. I have one friend who would never have been able to tolerate the medications that saved his life without it. That’s pretty persuasive stuff and lots of people have similar first-hand experiences. A gateway drug? Yes, many users of hard drugs smoked pot in the first place. But almost all started out with alcohol as well — and that is not illegal.
Of course, nothing is inevitable. The police still police it and hundreds of thousands of Americans — disproportionately black and poor — are in jail for it. Los Angeles’s failure to regulate adequately its hundreds of dispensaries may lead to connections with organised crime that could come back to delegitimise the whole thing.
I give it a couple of years to become a non-issue or to go into reverse. And my bet is that in a decade’s time, the banning of cannabis will seem as strange as the banning of alcohol. In the end, unnecessary prohibition undermines itself. And this time around, there are millions of cancer and HIV patients who are on the side of legalising and some truly desperate branches of government looking to see what they can tax next. In fact, I’ll go further: sooner rather than later, marijuana may be more acceptable than tobacco.
The need for taboos is eternal. But the object of the taboo is always shifting. The age of tobacco may be ending; and the millennium of marijuana may be about to begin.
Hey...I know it's change I can believe in.
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The closer we get the more radical the idea sounds. Only amsterdam has done this so we would effectively be amsterdam x190 if we legalize it in the U.S.
I love the idea but it blows my mind to imagine this country on weed.
The closer we get the more radical the idea sounds. Only amsterdam has done this so we would effectively be amsterdam x190 if we legalize it in the U.S.
I love the idea but it blows my mind to imagine this country on weed.
Uh, you mean 1969?
It's not some unfathomable idea...it was already legal before and it will be again. And nothing will change except there will be less crowded prisons. Otherwise, it will be business as usual and, as the article stated, nobody will even remember why it was illegal in the first place.
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im beginning to think legalizing and taxing is going to make it illegal to grow your own
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Originally Posted by verklingen
instead of setting out to connect all the dots, the intent of zen is seeing the dots, letting them connect and then seeing how oneself connects to them.
"Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens" Hendrix
"A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger"- words to live by
Isn't it so obvious that we only say taxation just to get the politicians attention? Cause really, I would rather have the stuff tax free, but whatever gets them to get off their asses fastest.
Isn't it so obvious that we only say taxation just to get the politicians attention? Cause really, I would rather have the stuff tax free, but whatever gets them to get off their asses fastest.
shh shh, they'll hear you
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Human rights went on vacation
Money took over a long time ago...
Cuando la historia no se puede escribir con la pluma, se escribe con el fusil
"I think this would be a good time for a beer,"
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt said upon signing a bill that made 3.2-percent lager legal again, some months ahead of the full repeal of Prohibition.
"I inhaled—that was the point."
~ Barack Obama as he presides over the dismantling of our contemporary forms of prohibition...
U2b
Stop The Medical Marijuana MadnessBy Robert J. Corry Jr.
CN Source: Denver Post November 02, 2009 Denver, CO
Today, not much about Colorado's economy moves. The state is broke and releases prisoners because it cannot afford to keep them. The governor slashes the higher education budget 40 percent. People lose jobs, homes and financial security. Our leaders face serious issues. And what keeps some politicians up at night? That sneaking suspicion that some suffering cancer patient may gain limited pain relief through medical marijuana, coupled with that gnawing certainty that someone, somewhere, actually grew the plant for that patient.
Rockies Ski Town To Vote Tuesday on Legalizing PotBy Kristen Wyatt
CN Source: Associated Press November 02, 2009 Breckenridge, Colo.
Voters in this Rocky Mountain resort town will decide Tuesday whether to legalize pot for all adults at a time when the movement to allow medical marijuana is gaining steam around the country. A measure before Breckenridge voters in a municipal election would legalize possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana along with bongs, pipes and other pot paraphernalia. Supporters of the measure say it would inch the whole state closer to full legalization.
Yeah, you can grow your own tobacco with a permit. And honestly, if there are dispensaries or (or true 'smoke shops'), then most people, including myself, probably won't anyway.
__________________
There's a door open to walk through
All I want is just beyond
What if I could let my guard down
Into freedom, on and on
The federal government will continue raids on medical marijuana operations in California despite guidelines issued by the Justice Department two weeks ago indicating the contrary.
“I think it’s unfortunate that people have for some reason picked up on this as a change in policy, because it’s really not a change at all,” said Joseph Russoniello, federal prosecutor for the northern district of California, who was appointed in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush.
Asked if federal officials will halt investigation and prosecution of medical marijuana operations in the state, Russoniello said simply, “The short answer is no.”
"...and as a mom I look at such key emerging science which our government as neglected over the last decade. It shows that alcohol has a far more detrimental effect on juvenile brain development than marijuana ever will. Marijuana doesn't kill people. Marijuana doesn't make people violent. And in my own state of Colorado, like fourteen other states in the United States, we see that prescription drugs are the number one killer now - more than accidental car deaths - so, we need to refocus our priorities. And for so long marijuana has been villainized and been the bogeyman, but the science shows that it is actually much safer, and our public policy priorities, in these incredibly difficult fiscal times should reflect these realities. ... Is it worth it to send 850,000 Americans into our criminal justice system every year because they're smoking a substance far less dangerous than alcohol? ... We spend THREE TIMES the amount on incarcerating individuals than we do on educating the average American student."
Profound observations!
"For where your treasure (deposit, wealth) is, there will your heart be also. ...(dissertation on the mind's eye and light .vs darkness, good vs. evil)... Ye cannot serve God and mammon (confidence, that is, figuratively wealth, personified); mammonas, that is, avarice(deified))." -- Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:21-24)
Its always all about the money, and we know the heart of the investors by where they've invested it. If you haven't seen it yet, please watch the documentary The Union - a good video with some info on the law and privatized prisons.
Kudos to the intelligent voice of Jessica Corry!!! If you're inclined, please join me in sending her some love, thanks and encouragement: Jessica@JessicaCorry .com
Thanks to DdC and others who posted good info here.
Wait, so you're saying that it really doesn't have as much to do with the actual dangers of the pot, so much as the funding the agencies recieve to combat the 'problem'?
The hell you say...
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There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on.
I know... hard to believe any gov't agency could be so selfish. But I suppose, to be fair, there is always the very real danger of disappearing Cheetos.
Wait a sec... Why aren't the snack food companies on board?
im beginning to think legalizing and taxing is going to make it illegal to grow your own
you're right. or you'd have to acquire an almost impossible to get license. like the marijuana stamp act back in the day. you'll probably have to have a harvest to gt the license, hence you're already breaking the law.
although you can grow tobacco with a license, you can also get a beer brewing license. a license to poison people....
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Originally Posted by Chuck Palahniuk
We are not special. We are are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything.
I don't know why people are acting like pot is already legal. The initiative in California won't be voted on for over a year and if there is only a small percent change in opinion, it will fail (like 3 to 5 percent, can't remember). Before the election, there will be a media blitz from the drug warriors as they try to kill this bill. I expect there will be a nationwide crack down on potheads so the drug warriors can point to it and say "see? Prohibition is working!" Once it's legal in California, everyone in the country will see that pot won't destroy the country. They can't afford to let it pass.
That bill is being sold as a cure for California's budget problems. You know, when it comes to businesses and individuals, the solution to budget problems is always to cut back one's spending, but when it comes to government, the proposed solution is more revenue. If they can't balance a budget now, why do they think they're going to be more responsible with this new tax revenue? They're just going to spend it away like they are doing with the money they already have. If the bill doesn't fix their budget problems like it's supposed to, are they going to keep it legal/decriminalized?
Even if the California bill passes, it's still going to be against federal law, and I'm sure it's going to be a very long time before federal law changes. This battle is far from over. The legalization movement needs to be prepared for a long, difficult campaign and it looks to me like they are expecting an easy win.
Edit: Does anyone know if there have been any raids on medical dispensaries since Obama took office?
Last edited by Mr Mister; 11-03-2009 at 05:17 PM.
Reason: raid q
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