"If drug gangs in Mexico are successful enhancing the quality of their product, they can sell the improved marijuana for up to five times the normal price. The going rate for top quality U.S. marijuana is around $2,500 per pound, while Mexican types sell for under $500, U.S. law enforcement officials say." ~ Mexico marijuana growers learn new tricks from US
My response:
"They say its used for pain management, but drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels would have the same effect,"
Yes, but the difference is that the bottle of Jack Daniel's can kill you, while the Cannabis can't. That is, unless you can ingest approximately 1500 pounds of it within 15 minutes.
Like fine wine, people will pay good money for quality cannabis. The Mexican cartels have recognized this truth and are upping their game to compete in the black market opposite "Primo" California bud."
C'mon, we can't be surprised by this - we all know that Cannabis is worth more because it's illegal. The best solution to stop the drug war violence is re-legalization and regulation, a controlled production, quality tested, sales industry much like what already exists for the previously banned alcohol. The bonus will be tax revenue, legitimate jobs in an already booming, established market, and taxpayer savings through lower legal, court, incarceration and probation costs. Plus, Industrial Hemp is a plant mine eagerly waiting to prosper, so the environment also wins.
Have you seen this, for lack of a better word and a chance of sounding crass, BS? Oppose Legalizing Marijuana (Prop. 19)
From marijuanaharmsfamilies.com:
"Marijuana bosses are moving beyond "medicinal marijuana" and now want to usher in a FULL-BLOWN marijuana culture to forever change California (Prop. 19). They want the next generation to think it's "normal" to "get high"!"
"Studies show marijuana is a gateway drug to cocaine and meth. Teens and young adults are especially at risk from today's potent, mind-altering marijuana, which can permanently damage their developing brains and young lungs. If pot is legalized, your health and auto insurance will likely cost more because increased addictions, accidents, and drug rehab will burden all Californians. “Drugged driving” will become commonplace. It will be a new "right" to get high on marijuana at work, even in transportation jobs. Marijuana legalization means cities and counties can OK selling pot in grocery stores and permit marijuana operatives to buy thousands of acres of farmland. " -
"Marijuana Operatives!" "Marijuana bosses?" "Gateway to Crystal Meth!?" Please!
As we head towards November 2nd. and the vote for Prop 19 initiative to legalize cannabis for adults on the California ballot, please take heed of the rampant propaganda running amok. While there's so much ignorance and misinformation in this video that it would take me quite awhile to break it all down, I'd like to point out this particular thorn: the main reason for the high numbers of young people in rehab for cannabis is because once busted for pot possession they are often presented with two choices: Go to Rehab or go to Prison. Which one would you choose? Also noted is that the ability to rate and comment features have been disabled for this video. Convenient eh.
So, being irked I decided to do a little googling about the group marijuanaharmsfamilies.com and came upon SaveCalifornia, an arm of SaveAmerica and the Campaign for Children and Families, responsible for posting the video.
"SaveCalifornia.com is your pro-family organization dedicated to defending and representing the values of parents, grandparents and concerned citizens who believe in family, faith and freedom. Based on the Left Coast, SaveCalifornia.com, along with our national arm, SaveAmerica.com, works, leads and fights in the media, culture and government on behalf of marriage and family, parental rights, the sanctity of human life, religious freedom, financial freedom, and real education for children."
Along with fighting Prop 19, the Savers also supported Prop 8 and release statements like:
"This is just the beginning of this new, blatant and perverse indoctrination of children via Harvey Milk Gay Day. “Milk Day” is designed to teach children they may be homosexual, bisexual or transsexual, and that they should support political activism to destroy marriage and family and religious opposition to the harmful “LGBTQ” agenda. It will increase even more next year, and then Harvey Milk’s indoctrination will manifest in many more government schools in 2012 when May 22 finally falls on a school day, Monday. Parents and grandparents, I plead with you to rescue your children and grandchildren from immoral education and awful peer pressure. Harvey Milk Gay Day is just one of 6 school sexual indoctrination measures passes in the last several years. And there’s a raft of other pressing reasons to save children from government-run schools."
Randy Thomasson of the Savers and the Campaign for Children and Families once compared county clerks who offer marriage licenses to same-sex couples to "Nazi officers during WWII [who] had been ordered to gas the Jews."
Really.
Thomasson blames the acceptance of cannabis, gay rights, and a womans right to choose on "dumbed down" voters and government (Public) schools:
"DUMBED-DOWN VOTERS - Elections used to be about what kind of government we would get. Now I think elections are more about what kind of people we are. Hear me on this. Most voters went to government schools where knowledge of the written United States and California Constitutions are NOT taught. Nor are the historical Christian convictions of our founding fathers and the Judeo-Christian foundation of the U.S. Constitution. Instead, most government school graduates are taught that God should be kept in the closet, that evolution is fact, and that feelings are as important, as or even more important, than hard facts (which is why some school districts don’t even give A-F grades anymore). Ignorance makes people easy prey."
Californian voters, he says "are not as virtuous or morally principled as they used to be."
"Today, the main influence upon the minds and hearts of children is government schools, with dumbed-down academics, political correctness, anti-God and anti-morality sentiments, negative peer pressure and now even hints of socialistic teaching. Public schools these days don’t teach the Christian foundation of our government, which is why many voters today support immorality and socialism. The best thing parents and grandparents can do for their children and grandchildren is to permanently remove them from the government school system so they can develop good character, critical thinking and learn to stand for truth."
"FACT: California laws have changed so radically in the last few years, your child WILL be sexually indoctrinated and subjected to very negative influences if left in the government school system. Take action. Rescue your child now, before it's too late." ~ rescueyourchilddotcom, a project of SaveCalifornia
The Savers want you to:
"Target the culture: Work to change the culture at the same time you work to reform the government. Encourage more parents to home-school. Invite union workers to resign from the anti-family unions so they don’t fund anti-family, anti-life political candidates or campaigns. Promote sexual abstinence among church children and all schoolchildren, and sexual purity in general. Work to clean pornography out of your community. Visit employers to encourage them to promote man-woman marriage in their businesses for the benefit of their product/service as well as their employees." as highlighted in their missive 10 WAYS TO BUILD A PRO-FAMILY ARMY.
"Hold regular meetings" they say.
"Consider a bi-weekly movie night where you show a patriotic or spiritual message or "classic film with a message" (*Reefer Madness, perhaps?) movie in a large house or church hall. Bring the DVD and popcorn, and provide a brief introduction and lead a discussion afterward to educate and provide examples from the movie. This is where you sign up more people to join your army. Sign up teenagers too and make sure you have them join your email list, mailing list, Facebook and Twitter pages, if you have them."
They highlight videos from single mothers, one with 7 kids who says marijuana addiction(!) destroyed her life. (Even though she was doing crank and meth and continuing to have kids - but yeah, it was all the fault of the "evil gateway drug" marijuana.) She herself stated she made bad choices.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Cannabis doesn't make you try harder drugs, never once have I ever puffed on a joint and thought "Hey! Now I gotta try me some heroin!". Her own decisions and choices led to her addiction of hard drugs - not cannabis, it's like blaming Twinkies and KFC Double Downs for that extra 10 pounds you gained, not the fact that you chose to shove them down yer piehole.
Even though I'm an Atheist I'm not anti-religion in the sense that if people want to believe in a god that's their perogative and who am I to say what you should believe or who you may believe in. Some of my very best friends in the whole world are very religious, one is even married to a pastor and teaches Sunday School, the difference between them though and the Randy Thomasson's of the world is that they aren't condemning everyone who does not think like them as deviant sinners. Judgy Judgersons belonging to any religious brigade who profess diatribes like "It's our way or way or the highway, veer away from our conservative status quo and yer evil and trying to bring society down!" just seems so... blasphemous** to me....
I'm also not "anti-family", I'm a married mother with 5 wonderful sons and promote strength in the family unit - however that unit is made up. I am for personal autonomy and freedom. People have the right to love who they love right along with what substances they ingest. I don't need a zealot like Randy Thomasson inciting hatred in the name of a god and telling me how to vote, and certainly not how to raise my children!
I teach my kids love, compassion, tolerance, respect, responsibility and acceptance - they know not everbody is the same and being different is what makes all of us special in our own way. Now that's a part of building a strong family unit. And wouldn't you know it, I came up with those values all on my own, because that's just a part of being a good parent, and a good person, regardless of religion.
So. Voting, Gay, Atheist, Pro-Choice, Cannabis Consumers With Kids Attending Public Schools in California and the People Who Love You for Who You Are - you are officially SaveAmerica''s #1 Enemy. Take that info with you into the voting booth on November 2nd. Just Say Now and be the generation who ends destructive Cannabis Prohibition!
C'mon now, Mama said.
*****
"So many things in life come down to people making personal decisions for themselves. We don't always make the best choices, but such is life, and each experience - great or small, right or wrong, happy or sad - shapes the person we become. Everyone has regrets and can question their actions (did I really wear that top to that party back in grade 11? What was I thinking??!!??) and hindsight is 20/20. But that is the beauty of life, it's a journey, sometimes it's bumpy and sometimes it's smooth sailing and in the end each of us owns the road we've travelled down. There are different views of "The Meaning of Life", and no two people have the exact same philosophies and I think that's wonderful, otherwise this would be one really boring existence. What would be the point of a life with no individuality and no personal autonomy? The geek in me rejoyces that we are not living in Hives of The "Borg" - I subscribe to a more "Browncoat/Independent/Resist The Alliance" way o' life."
The Borg is a collective, meaning that they—or it—possess a single mind. That Borg mind has the single intent of “assimilating” all organic species into the collective. The Borg are utterly without mercy or compassion. In a collective society only the needs of the group as a whole are considered, and in this utilitarian calculation the needs of the unrivaled number of Borg will nearly always override any other considerations.
The Alliance (from Firefly/Serenity)
A scene at an Alliance school, where a teacher sadly muses that it's hard to understand why the benighted Independents, the secessionists, have resisted the attempt to bring them the gifts of civilization. Young River Tam knows:
"We meddle... people don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads, and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome." ~ River Tam
~MaryJane Cannabian, from my post Science Trumps Ideology
*****
*(Reefer Madness, perhaps?) - My suggestion, mwahahahaha.
**the Latin Vulgate employs the word blasphemare to designate abusive language directed either against a people at large (2 Samuel 21:21; 1 Chronicles 20:7) or against individuals (1 Corinthians 10:30; Titus 3:2).
“I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast.” ~ Ronald Reagan
The following is by my friend Steve Elliot. Check out his blog Reality Catcher and his other brilliant articles on the San Francisco Weekly.You can also follow Steve on Twitter: @alapoet
Chronic City: Revealed -- California Cops Are Trained 'Marijuana Is Not A Medicine'
A recent court case in San Diego has revealed some California police officers are basing their sworn court testimony in medical marijuana cases on badly outdated, legally inaccurate information.
This goes a long way towards explaining why it is that so many law enforcement officers in the state still seem to harbor such personal animosity toward medical marijuana and those who use it, even after it's been legal in the state for 13 years. Above and beyond the seemingly eternal cop/pot dichotomy, the cops' own "medical marijuana training materials" tell them that -- contrary to the law -- there's no such thing as medical marijuana, and that all marijuana is illegal!
This misinformation has real-life consequences. Californians who legally use and provide medical marijuana are faced with hostile police and judges who have only heard or choose to believe information which is plainly wrong regarding medicinal pot's legal status here, and inaccurate regarding its effectiveness as medicine, as supported by thousands of doctors and hundreds of studies.
Courtesy eugenedavidovich.com
Eugene Davidovich: Victim of the pot culture wars?
Eugene Davidovich, a San Diego medical marijuana provider who was arrested last February as part of Operation Green Rx (aka Operation Endless Summer), told me that the chief investigative officer in his case testified on the stand that he bases his expert testimony, as far as "medical marijuana training," on a handout from something called the Narcotic Educational Foundation of America, "Drug Abuse Education Provider of the California Narcotic Officers' Association."
In this toxic little screed, with the title Use of Marijuana As A "Medicine"(the quotes are theirs), we learn right off the bat -- in the first sentence! -- that "Marijuana, a plant from the cannabis family, is illegal and highly psychoactive." No mention of the fact that medical use of marijuana is legal, mind you -- and this in materials used to educate law enforcement officers.
I'll bet you thought that the issue of medical marijuana was settled when Proposition 215 was voted in back in 1996. Not so fast! You're just a civilian. The cops know better; and guess what? It sure looks as if the cops get to pick which laws they like, and which ones they want to ignore. "MARIJUANA IS NOT A MEDICINE," the "educational" pamphlet screams at its gun-toting, badge-wearing readers.
Screen capture: Reality Catcher
Misinformation has consequences: Inaccurate handout used in officers' court testimony
More than a decade after California voters spoke loudly and clearly on the topic, these folks just aren't giving up the pot culture wars. You'd think the "medical marijuana training" of law enforcement officers might include the rather pertinent fact of its legality might merit at least a mention. Reading the sordid little hate-filled pamphlet, you keep expecting to eventually encounter some level-headed caveat for these eager officers, some kind of sensitivity training, some sort of warning that since marijuana is, in fact, legal in this state for medical use, that officers must be careful to protect the rights of patients. But it never comes.
"Many well-intentioned leaders and members of the public have been misled by the well-financed and organized pro-drug legalization lobby, into believing there is merit to their argument that smoking marijuana is a safe and effective medicine," the pamphlet informs officers. "There is no justification for using marijuana as a medicine."
Once the officers have been, er, "trained" as to the illegitimacy of medical marijuana, they are dutifully informed that it is just ever so immoral and icky as well. "We have seen first hand the debilitating and often tragic results, both psychologically and physically, of those who choose intoxication as a part of their lifestyle," the pamphlet laments in one particularly purple passage.
The pamphlet then attempts to cloak its (legally incorrect for California) estimation of marijuana's uselessness as medicine and its enormous moral judgments around the weed in some sort of scientific respectability by citing outdated studies, all of which have been since refuted by more modern findings.
"It is actually scary what goes on in court," Davidovich told me. "I really hope that somehow a stop can be put to this. This is one of the reasons I am so public about these hateful people. There are a lot of patients who are needlessly suffering here in San Diego." ~Steve Elliot, SF Weekly
To read more about the fight to use Medical Marijuana, including the latest news regarding last weeks statement by the drug czar and the subsequent letter writing campaign that followed, please visit The Marijuana Policy Project.
Bill Maher, host of HBO's "Real Time" speaks out about America's War on Cannabis to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) annual conference, San Francisco, 2002. His friend Todd McCormick was in a California prison at the time - serving 4 years for researching a book to help medical marijuana patients grow their own medicine, as a collaborative effort with motivational author Peter McWilliams.
Bill is right, everyone can do their part.
When siblings David and Elizabeth Gregorywere laid off from their jobs in January, they used the time to create an iPhone application focusing on the legalization of Cannabis. CHRONIC-les was released for sale May 21 and has had more than 1,000 downloads. If you have an iPhone, please check it out in the Appstore - it's only 99 cents! It also includes a pre-written letter to President Obama that can be sent by pushing a button. The app can also locate the nearest NORML chapter for you. Follow along with this dynamic duo on Twitter @CHRONIClesApp
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"Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use." ~President Jimmy Carter: Message to Congress, August 2, 1977
Law Enforcement gone mad! This is honestly one of the saddest stories I have ever heard of. In the name of Government Asset Forfeiture, Francis Scott's Husband Donald is murdered right in front of her eyes.
"We put him down."
In Malibu, California, the National Park Service tried repeatedly to buy the home and land of 61-year-old, retired rancher Don Scott, which was next to national park land. Scott refused. On the morning of October 2, 1992, a task force of 26 LA county sheriffs, DEA agents and other cops broke into Scott's living room unannounced. When he heard his wife, Frances, scream, he came out of his upstairs bedroom with a gun over his head. Police yelled at him to lower his gun. He did, and they shot him dead.
Update: Eric @ showmethefacts.org gives you the lowdown, aka, the facts, regarding John Walters and his "Stats". Go read it. It's awesome.
Last night (May 6/2009) on AC 360, Anderson Cooper's guests discussing the re- legalization of Cannabis were Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron, and John Walters, former President George Bush's "Drug Czar".
The following is the Transcript of the segment. While I'm quite confident that Mr. Miron can back up everything he says, where John Walters is getting his statistical information is beyond me. He used one that was "60, 70, 80%"
John Walters -" Studies have now shown 60, 70, 80 percent of the people who are arrested for violent crime have drugs in their body. One of the most prevalent drugs they have in their body are marijuana."
And what do you think of Walters statement: ... "In California, where medical marijuana has been used as a kind of a wedge issue, or kind of phony effort to try to say, "It's only going to go to people who are sick."...
Medical Marijuana - a "phony effort"?
And as far as Drug opponents disagreeing with Legalization, saying any new revenue could be swallowed by new problems for law enforcement and health officials, in my opinion they are discounting the fact that millions and millions are already using it. The damage created by the war on drugs far outweighs the effects of the plant itself.
My favourite part is at the end, where Miron responds to Walters statement of increased non-medical use because of more medical marijuana dispensaries in California.
Jeffrey Miron - "But if there's been an increase in use, then where's the surge in violence? California is just as peaceful and just as normal a place as it's been for a long time, despite this alleged surge in use from the medicinal marijuana. So then, doesn't support the claims being made by the prohibitionist in any way, shape or form.
Also ahead tonight in California, the growing debate over marijuana. It seems just about every politician has an idea on how to get the economy going again, but few have generated the reaction that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting tonight. And here's why.
The California governor thinks it's time to talk about making marijuana legal. Now, this is him back in 1977 in the movie "Pumping Iron." You can see him smoking a joint right there. Two years ago he told the British version of "GQ" magazine that is not a drug; it's a leaf. The spokesman downplaying the remark at the time as a joke.
But now he's speaking out as governor, favoring a debate over legalization. Not because it might reduce violence or make the border safer, but because it might create more revenue. Tom Foreman has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nearly 15 million Americans smoke marijuana each month. The U.S. government says 44 percent of high school seniors have tried it, and some adults openly use it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I do. I'm not afraid to admit that.
FOREMAN: Now amid rumbles that legalizing and taxing marijuana could bring California $1.3 billion a year, lawmakers there are considering just that. A poll shows voters favor it, and the governor wants to talk it over.
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: And I think that f we study very carefully on what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana.
FOREMAN: In New York, the Drug Policy Alliance, encouraged by more than a dozen states that have already approved medicinal marijuana, has long argued for full legalization, comparing the costly war on drugs to prohibition.
ETHAN NADELMANN, DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE: The No. 1, two, and three factors that brought alcohol prohibition to a rapid end in 1933 were the depression, the depression, the depression. And what's driving things very quickly right now with ending marijuana prohibition is the recession, the recession, and the fear of another depression.
FOREMAN (on camera): Drug opponents disagree, saying any new revenue could be swallowed by new problems for law enforcement and health officials. Because, as the marijuana trade has grown lucrative, the drug itself has been reengineered to be stronger.
(voice-over) Drug Watch International is a nonprofit group against legalization.
JOHN COLEMAN, DRUG WATCH INTERNATIONAL: No question about it. I mean, it's the difference between having maybe a 4 ounce glass of beer versus an 8 ounce glass of Jack Daniels. It's far more potent today than it was back in the '60s.
FOREMAN: The president himself doubts the positive economic impact of legalization.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy.
FOREMAN: But the drum beat to consider it is growing.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: What do you think? Would making marijuana legal help our economy? Send us a text message with your question to 94553. The message has to start with the letters "AC", then a space, then your name and question. If you don't include "AC" first and then a space, we're not going to get the text.
Let's talk -- let's talk about the issue right now. Joining us tonight Jeffrey Miron, a senior economics lecturer at Harvard University. He's for legalization. And against it John Walters, executive vice president of the Hudson Institute. He's also the former drug czar under President George W. Bush.
John, people who want to see marijuana legalized say it's not addictive as other drugs are, that it doesn't increase violence, and by some estimates legalizing it could bring up to $7 billion of income a year to the government. You don't buy that?
JOHN WALTERS, EVP, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Well, I don't think the facts sustain that. I mean, the fact is that marijuana is the single biggest cause of treatment need among illegal drugs in America based on the same -- on the same studies you talked about.
We just ran an earlier piece on this show about violence in Chicago and the killing of kids that are students in elementary school and middle school and high school. Police made the point, drugs are a factor in this. Guns, violence, and out-of-control behavior that fuels and is made worse by drugs.
We already have too many people who suffer from dependency and addiction. Having more people who use only makes that worse. And would the country be better if, instead of 14 million users, as you talked about in the setup piece, you had 20, 30, 40, 50 million users?
COOPER: Jeffrey, what about that? Would legalizing marijuana increase violence? JEFFREY MIRON, SENIOR ECONOMICS LECTURER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Absolutely not. There's not a shred of evidence or any good reason to think that legalizing marijuana would increase violence. Just the opposite.
Most of the violence we associate with marijuana is because, when you force a trade underground, people in that trade resolve their disputes with guns rather than with lawyers and advertising, the things that people do in legal industries. So it's prohibition that's creating the violence, not marijuana creating the violence. It's just completely preposterous to suggest that marijuana use causes violence.
COOPER: John, what about the economic argument, though, that this would help our economies?
WALTERS: Well, first let's talk about the violence. Studies have now shown 60, 70, 80 percent of the people who are arrested for violent crime have drugs in their body. One of the most prevalent drugs they have in their body are marijuana.
There's this view that people who smoke marijuana are kind of cute Cheech and Chong characters from old-time movies. In fact, it's a source of agitation. It's a source of impaired judgment. It's a source of, in some cases, making people whose behavior already erratic get more erratic. So the greater potency has something to do with that.
The revenue that you would get from having tens of millions of more marijuana users is going to be offset by the cost of this to society. The cost not only in addiction treatment, but also the lost productivity of those individuals, the damage.
Let's think of it this way: many of our families have experience with this. They have loved ones who have had suffered from substance abuse. Many of them from marijuana dependency, many polydrug dependency. Many alcoholism and marijuana. How many of those families think America or their family or their community would be better off with more of that?
COOPER: Jeffrey, what do you think?
MIRON: The key assumption is being made by Mr. Walters is just completely not supported by the evidence, is that legalizing it would lead to some dramatic increase in use. The evidence suggests that there would be, at best, modest increases in use, and those increases that occur would be from responsible moderate users, just as we observed with legal alcohol.
For alcohol we have a huge range of potency. The vast majority of people don't consume extremely potent forms of alcohol, and they don't do the -- there are less potent ones to excess (ph). The vast majority use responsibly. That's exactly what we should expect and what the evidence suggests would be true of marijuana.
COOPER: John, we've got a -- we've got a text question from John in Pennsylvania. He asks, "Won't legalizing marijuana get petty offenders out of our already-crowded jail system?"
WALTERS: Well, in fact, there is an old wives' tale view that possession offenders are a big part of the jail system. In fact, there are 0.3 percent of those in the state prisons, the largest prison population, are there for simple possession of marijuana. Most people are there for violent crimes. Drugs and violence do fit together.
But let me go back to the professor's point about there won't be more use. In California, where medical marijuana has been used as a kind of a wedge issue, or kind of phony effort to try to say, "It's only going to go to people who are sick." It's not going to people who are sick. In fact, in San Francisco it has been reported in the news there are now more marijuana dispensaries than there are Starbucks in downtown San Francisco.
That's more use under a regime that's already halfway disassembled. If you took the lid off altogether, there are 100 million people who drink alcohol once a month or more frequently, and there are about 13 million who are needing treatment for alcoholism.
There are 20 million who use an illegal drug. Most of them use marijuana once a month or more frequently, and a third of them need treatment.
COOPER: We're almost out of time. I just want to give Jeffrey the chance to respond to that -- Jeff.
MIRON: Well, the mere fact that these medical marijuana dispensaries may be dispensing widely to people who are using for reasons other than medicinal is undoubtedly valid. But if there's been an increase in use, then where's the surge in violence? California is just as peaceful and just as normal a place as it's been for a long time, despite this alleged surge in use from the medicinal marijuana. So then, doesn't support the claims being made by the prohibitionist in any way, shape or form.
COOPER: We do have to end it there. I'm sorry. It's a fascinating debate and one we want to continue having.
John Walters, appreciate your time.
And Jeffrey Miron, as well. Thank you.
Let us know what you think. You can join the live chat right now at AC360.com. And also, Erica Hill's broadcasting during our commercial breaks there.
Mama, Wife, Writer, Political Junkie, Legalizer, Freedom Fighter, Student of Life, Atheist, Lover of Music & Written Word.
#420Friendly #Spoonie
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"I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not cross that border. Here I am the Customs Agent. I am the Coast Guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable." ~ Alexander Shulgin PhD, Chemist and author
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