420 Use and Health

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as Borat would say

hahaha

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“If I Work Hard All Day Long And Want To Go Home And Relax With A Joint, That Is My Civil Liberty”

“To me, high is a place … and when I want to go there I don’t need the government to give me a passport.”

[sirloot]

Rick Steves is the man .. i love his travel show. Almost talked someone into getting me his hemp travel pack for my birthday they didnt wanna donate to norml tho ..prudes :P

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Ask the Republican Candidates Where They Stand on Cannabis Reform

Google and Fox News will host a debate between Republican primary candidates in Orlando on September 22nd. Similar to the “social media townhalls” President Obama has previously hosted, this debate will consist exclusively of questions submitted by the public. This forum provides advocates with a unique opportunity to put these presidential hopefuls on record regarding their position on marijuana law reform.

NORML has submitted a question for consideration:

“As president, would you stand up for states’ rights by ending federal marijuana prohibition and allow them to experiment with models of decriminalization and legalization without federal interference?”

Here is how you can voice your support and promote this question:

Step 1: Go to Fox News’ Youtube page here.
Step 2: Click the “Vote” tab at the top of the page.
Step 3: In the topics box, select “Social Issues”
Step 4: Click “Video Questions.”
Step 5: You should see our video question towards the top of the list, look for the NORML logo in the thumbnail. Click the thumbs up icon next to the question.

The current line up of candidates have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from the current policies of President Obama, yet most have remained silent on the topic of marijuana law reform (that is, of course, excluding Ron Paul). Take a moment of your time to vote up our question, if these candidates want your vote, don’t you deserve to know where they stand on cannabis?

[Mdisch]

I smoke my fair share of marijuana so I thought I might just join in - Being a Danish citizen I have a somewhat weird relationship with weed...
I mean it is illegal but highly decriminalized so basically it might just aswell be legal, especially since it would be a big plus since we have had a lot of "war" regarding the pot market in Denmark.
If it was just legal I think it would affect the economy very positivly and I wouldn't have to go to some dodgy old guys place to buy some. I wish I could go into a pharmacy or something like that and buy a small cut of hash. I consider myself a very responsible marijuana smoker and I mainly do it in private and if I want to be a little high and watch a funny movie what is wrong with that? I mean it's better than getting extremely drunk(as we have a tendency to do here in Denmark) and then go completely crazy(another thing Danish people tend to do). And it's even classified as a "drug" that is significantly less dangerous in comparison to alchohol and nicotine.
I hate being so goddamn shady about it, just because they don't want to legalize it, even if it's for the greater good.

[Ansel]

That Rick Steves video is good.

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United States

Congressman Steve Cohen Demands The Obama Administration To Reschedule Marijuana

Tennessee Congressman Steven Cohen (D) is urging the Obama administration to rethink its support for the criminal prohibition of marijuana. Rep. Cohen is a longtime critic of marijuana prohibition (Watch him grill FBI Director Robert Mueller over the claim that cannabis is a ‘gateway drug’ here) and a primary co-sponsor of HR 2306: The Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011.

This week, Rep. Cohen sent a letter to Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske calling on the agency to support changing marijuana’s status as a schedule I prohibited drug and to respect the laws of states that have legalized it for its medical utility.

“There is no evidence that marijuana has the same addictive qualities or damaging consequences as cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine,” states Cohen, “and should not be treated as such.”

He adds: “We should not deny the thousands of Americans who rely on the benefits that marijuana provides. I strongly recommend that this administration allow states that have chosen to legalize medical marijuana to enact strong regulations without fear of prosecution. [W]e should not interfere with the will of the people to enact these compassionate laws.”

You can view the entirety of his letter below:

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Washington (US)

I-502 OFFERS BETTER APPROACH TO MARIJUANA

(Source: Kim Marie Thorburn, MD for Spokane Spokesman-Review)

A ground-breaking marijuana law reform proposal recently began gathering signatures to be placed before the state Legislature in January.

Initiative 502, supported by New Approach Washington, replaces marijuana prohibition with a public health approach that allows adults 21 and over to purchase limited quantities of marijuana from state-licensed and -regulated stores.

The initiative taxes marijuana and directs new revenue estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually to drug abuse prevention, research and education, as well as the state general fund and local budgets. If the Legislature does not pass it, I-502 will go onto the November 2012 ballot.

We are two of I-502's sponsors. The others include a former U.S. attorney, the current Seattle city attorney, the two most recent presidents of the Washington State Bar Association, a state legislator, a prominent businessperson, and a University of Washington professor who is also a marijuana dependency treatment professional. Some of us are parents and some of us are churchgoers. We come from different walks of life and all of us care deeply about our communities.

As public health physicians, the two of us view I-502 through a medical and public health lens. Our goal is to improve the health of our patients and communities. And from our perspective, marijuana prohibition does more harm than good.

The United States now incarcerates more of its population than any other country in the world. We put one in every 100 adults behind bars. We represent just 5 percent of the world's population, yet we house 25 percent of the world's inmates.

As recently noted by Josiah Rich, M.D., and colleagues in the New England Journal of Medicine, the "war on drugs" has transformed the land of the free and brave into the world's No. 1 jailer. Twenty percent of the people in state prisons and local jails, and more than half of federal inmates, are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses.

In the last two decades, the war on drugs has become a war on marijuana. In 1991, 29 percent of drug arrests nationwide were for marijuana; by 2009, that number had increased to 52 percent. And of those marijuana arrests, 90 percent were for simple possession.

What has the huge cost of incarceration bought us? Broken families, reduced earning capacity and homelessness but not a reduction in marijuana use. More than 40 percent of all Americans have used marijuana at some point in their lives. Few of us believe all users will be caught or that they deserve to go to jail, have a criminal record, or lose their rights to a scholarship or an organ transplant. The 760,000 arrests made nationwide for marijuana possession in 2009 represented less than 5 percent of the 16.7 million Americans who were current ( i.e., past-month ) marijuana users. Prohibition isn't working.

But marijuana prohibition isn't simply failing; it's actively hurting us. Government budgets are a zero-sum game. Every dollar spent arresting, prosecuting and jailing a person for marijuana use is a dollar that could have been better spent on schools, family support services, community development or health care. I-502 recognizes that investment upstream in preventive services that build healthy families and communities pays much greater public health and safety dividends than handcuffs and jail beds.

Moreover, time behind bars compromises the physical and mental health of inmates. As Rich and his colleagues point out, "Locking up millions of people for drug-related crimes has failed as a public-safety strategy and has harmed public health in the communities to which these men and women return. A new evidence-based approach is desperately needed."

New Approach Washington's Initiative 502 is such an approach. We encourage you to sign the petitions to put I-502 before the Legislature and to support its passage.

New Approach Washington

[TheJanitor]

Legalizing drugs is stupid as hell. Weed included. I have kids, and legalization would send the message that drugs are OK. Medicinal use huh? Cocaine and Heroin have medicinal properties as well. Should it all just be sitting on the counter at Walgreens? More availability=more addicts. More addicts equals more crime, poverty and ruined lives. Genius.....

[sirloot]

Legalizing drugs is stupid as hell. Weed included. I have kids, and legalization would send the message that drugs are OK. Medicinal use huh? Cocaine and Heroin have medicinal properties as well. Should it all just be sitting on the counter at Walgreens? More availability=more addicts. More addicts equals more crime, poverty and ruined lives. Genius.....

Tell that to the Portuguese : http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...riminalization
5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows
Positive Results :
Street drug related deaths from overdoses drop and the rate of HIV cases crashes

In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute.

[TheJanitor]

So decriminalization makes the needles less dirty???? Those numbers only prove that treatment is effective. Has nothing to do with it being illegal or not.

[Roo]

Legalizing drugs is stupid as hell. Weed included. I have kids, and legalization would send the message that drugs are OK. Medicinal use huh? Cocaine and Heroin have medicinal properties as well. Should it all just be sitting on the counter at Walgreens? More availability=more addicts. More addicts equals more crime, poverty and ruined lives. Genius.....

Prohibition of marijuana = more crime, since obtaining and using marijuana requires "criminal" activity. Packing prisons with marijuana offenders is a tremendous burden on both the correctional system and the tax payer. Violent crime cartels operate for the sole purpose of supplying it. Lots of crime follows on the coattails of drug dealers. You aren't interested in what would happen from a crime perspective if 50% of drug dealing was rendered obsolete? You don't see people getting shot over the buying and selling of alcohol...

[sirloot]

So decriminalization makes the needles less dirty???? Those numbers only prove that treatment is effective. Has nothing to do with it being illegal or not.

no? altho freedom of choice is a good option.. the responsibility should be with the parents to inform the children of the benefits/dangers of any drugs not have the Gov't Nanny over us. Reality proves people are going to do what they want regardless of Laws .. if Murder was "legalized" you think there would be a rise of them ? Everyones going to take up arms and go blast the first person they see ? No. I would think personal morals would guide them.