Dear Mom and Dear Dad: new ads regarding legalized marijuana

I've never used marijuana and I'm not trying to encourage other people to use marijuana. But neither am I discouraging adults who want to responsibly use marijuana the same way as many people responsibly use alcohol and prescription drugs. The reason I promote the legalization of marijuana is that I am horrified by the way that our politicians make personal marijuana use a criminal justice issue. Arresting 800,000 people each year (the equivalent of the population of the state of South Dakota) is a waste of taxpayer dollars and it makes our streets violent. We should tax and regulate marijuana for the same reasons we did away with Prohibition. This position is advocated by many people with careers in law enforcement, including all members of LEAP. Colorado is soon going to vote on Amendment 64, which would do the following:

• makes the personal use, possession, and limited home-growing of marijuana legal for adults 21 years of age and older;

• establishes a system in which marijuana is regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol; and

• allows for the cultivation, processing, and sale of industrial hemp.

Amendment 64 (here's the full text) also does the following:
Amendment 64 removes all legal penalties for personal possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and for the home-growing of up to six marijuana plants, similar to the number allowed under current medical marijuana laws, in an enclosed, locked space. The initiative creates legal marijuana establishments – retail stores, cultivation facilities, product manufacturing facilities, and testing facilities – and directs the Department of Revenue to regulate a system of cultivation, production (including infused products), and distribution. . . . The general assembly will be required to enact an excise tax of up to 15 percent on the wholesale sale of non-medical marijuana applied at the point of transfer from the cultivation facility to a retail store or product manufacturer. The first $40 million of revenue raised annually will be directed to the Public School Capital Construction Assistance Fund. . . . The initiative does not change existing laws regarding driving under the influence of marijuana, and it allows employers to maintain all of their current employment and drug testing policies. . . . Take a look at two commercials being run by the proponents of Amendment 64, on which the people of Colorado will vote in November:
Colorado has some smart and media savvy people working on this campaign, including Mason Tvert: By the way check out Tvert's comments on industrial hemp at the 3 minute mark. How bizarre is it that our politicians are so dysfunctional about the false alleged dangers of marijuana that they also outlaw industrial hemp, with which people cannot possibly get high? Listen to Tvert talk about the economic benefits of making marijuana and industrial hemp legal.

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Facts, figures and hypocrisy regarding marijuana

I've never used marijuana. I'm not promoting the use of marijuana, or alcohol intoxication, or the use of prescription drugs to get high. On the other hand, I know that many people do these things. In my opinion, it is not for me to tell other folks how to run their lives, as long as A) they are not minors and B) these activities don't seriously interfere with their duties to their family or work. How is it that getting high on alcohol or prescription drugs (or runner's high and other natural ways to get high) are OK, yet smoking a joint will cause you to end up in jail and give you a noteworthy criminal record? Yes, if you are arrested on your own property for the crime of trying to escape stress or pain, you can be marched through the same criminal justice system as those who steal cars, those who rape, and those who commit arson. With that in mind consider the following statistics regarding marijuana usage from Huffpo:

While Obama's term began with great promise for drug policy reformers, in the past two years it has been difficult to distin­guish Obama's drug policies from those of his White House predecessors. Although President Obama has acknowledged that legalization is "an entirely legitimate topic for debate" -- the first time a sitting president has made such a statement -- his administra­tion has made a string of increasingly disappointing moves over the last year. Half of all U.S. drug arrests are for marijuana -- more than 850,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana in 2010 alone, 88 percent for mere possession.
Please note carefully that 850,000 is more people than the entire state of South Dakota. America has massively dysfunctional priorities, and it's time to think of a better way to handle urges people to get high. I would propose that we handle marijuana like we handle alcohol. Regulate it and tax it. When people whine that others are getting high illegally, I'm inclined to tell them to shut the hell up, because they are probably getting high on something (most likely alcohol or prescription drugs). And perhaps they are getting high on their feelings of moral superiority and the the excitement they get when they support laws that invade the private lives of their neighbors. The above Huffpo article makes the legitimate point that Barack Obama would not be President if the harsh marijuana crackdown he is supporting had been applied to the young Barry Obama smoking a joint. How many otherwise law-abiding people are thrown into the criminal justice system because of the sin of wanting to feel some pleasure or some escape from the stress of the crazy world, or some relief from serious chronic pain?

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The anti-science promoted by the federal governement regarding marijuana

Your doctor can prescribe morphine, but not marijuana. That's how dangerous it supposedly is. The problem is that the government has consistently concocted bad science in order to villainize marijuana. This link will lead you to a short post by Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic. Embedded in that post is the following video featuring Irv Rosenfeld, a man who is one of the few persons in the U.S. who can legally use marijuana. He made an excellent presentation that left me perplexed: How did we ever get to this point where we are denying sick people a substance that can help them? And how is it that the U.S. is willing to arrest 800,000 people per year for using a harmless drug. Harmless, you might ask? Yes, watch the video starting at minute 7. I've never used marijuana or any other illegal drug. I don't plan to. I hate to see what Prohibition is doing to this country, though. It's time to end the craziness, but instead of acting sensibly, Obama is ramping up the war against marijuana? What is he on?

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Obama: I’m only the President of the United States.. My hands are tied.

Glenn Greenwald points out Barack Obama's hypocrisy when he asserts that he cannot stop the federal government from prosecuting sick people with prescriptions. He said everything but this (with sums up his idiotic position): "Sorry, but I'm only the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the United States." Here's an excerpt from Greenwald's insights on Obama's crackdown on medical marijuana:

"As an emailer just put it to me: “Interesting how this principle holds for prosecuting [medical] marijuana producers in the war on drugs, but not for prosecuting US officials in the war on terror. Or telecommunications companies for illegal spying. Or Wall Street banks for mortgage fraud.” That’s about as vivid an expression of the President’s agenda, and his sense of justice, and the state of the Rule of Law in America, as one can imagine. The same person who directed the DOJ to shield torturers and illegal government eavesdroppers from criminal investigation, and who voted to retroactively immunize the nation’s largest telecom giants when they got caught enabling criminal spying on Americans, and whose DOJ has failed to indict a single Wall Street executive in connection with the 2008 financial crisis or mortgage fraud scandal, suddenly discovers the imperatives of The Rule of Law when it comes to those, in accordance with state law, providing medical marijuana to sick people with a prescription."

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Why is Obama ramping up the war on marijuana?

The war on drugs, including the war on marijuana (i.e., prohibition) is extremely expensive and destructive, and a strong majority of Democrats now approves of medical marijuana. With that as the backdrop, why is Barack Obama cranking up the war on medical cannabis patients, providers and, in some cases, their advocates? At Alternet, Paul Armentano reviews the draconian steps being taken by the Obama Administration and considered several possible explanations for reigniting the drug war with regard to marijuana. Is this the result of pressure put on the Administration by Big Pharma, which will soon market a cannabis-based drug? Is it pressure by drug-war hawks? Perhaps these are factors, but Armentano argues that Obama fears that Americans were starting to see the truth about about the hyped-up federal fear-mongering about marijuana:

While the passage and enactment of statewide medical marijuana laws – 16 states and the District of Columbia now have laws recognizing marijuana’s therapeutic use on the books – is not solely driving the public’s shift in support for broader legalization, it is arguably a major factor. Why? The answer is simple. Tens of millions of Americans residing in these states are learning, first hand, that they can coexist with marijuana being legal! And that is the lesson the federal government fears most. In states like California and Colorado, voters have largely become accustomed to the reality that there can be safe, secure, well-run businesses that deliver consistent, reliable, tested cannabis products. They have come to understand that well-regulated cannabis dispensaries can revitalize sagging economies, provide jobs, and contribute taxes to budget-starved localities. Most importantly, the public in these states and others are finally realizing that all the years of scaremongering by the government about what would happen if marijuana were legal, even for sick people, was nothing but hysterical propaganda. As a result, a majority of American voters are now for the first time asking their federal officials: ‘Why we don’t just legalize marijuana for everyone in a similarly responsible manner?’

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