truthout.org
This fall Californians will go to the polls with a chance to make history. They will be able to cast a vote to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol or cigarettes. California’s Proposition 19 is one of many similar initiatives cropping up on state ballots across the country.
Whether it calls for decriminalization or medical marijuana, the end of cannabis prohibition has never seemed closer. In this short animated parable, “The Flower,” award winning artist Haik Hoisington contrasts a legal marijuana economy with an illegal one, to show how everyone stands to benefit from ending the war on weed.
Found by ECA.
What amazes me is that the right-wing douchebags who want to regulate anything that deals with the individual are adamant about not regulating companies and industries that destroy and pollute and steal and cheat and…
The right is just plain evil.
Michael – Sign something? Can I have you sign something that says I won’t have to support your kids with my tax dollars? Or that I won’t have to support you with my tax dollars? Or that you PROMISE to be a decent upstanding member of society who will contribute to the forward movement of thinking and progress? If not, then why don’t you crawl away and sulk?
Dennis,
Is this a free country? Your arguments are specious.
If you want to be free, you have to allow others to be free. Many here can’t see the forest for the trees. If my smoking pot affects you, then you should have to prove it first. If you can, then I should be liable to pay restitution. Example, I smoke pot, then I get in a car accident. Does it really matter that I was smoking pot? No. what matters is I got in the accident and I owe you or your next of kin (in case of death) restitution. If you feel unsafe on the road with pot smokers, buy a more crash resistant car. If I get sick, I should pay my hospital bills. That is a flaw of law, not of the pot smoker.
The “War on Drugs” and “Getting Tough On Crime” is just COSTING TOO MUCH MONEY !!! Even the “Fiscally Conservative” Repukes will have to admit it !!! We have MORE PEOPLE IN JAIL THAN ANY OTHER NATION !!! The majority on “Drug Crimes” …
History repeats itself. Give us beer and balance the budget.
Check out this picture:
http://goo.gl/zSO0
#60
Society condones and encourages use of both alcohol and amphetamines, which are both incredibly harmful when used to excess.
Alcohol prohibition didn’t end because alcohol suddenly got safer, but because the system created more negative effects than use/abuse of alcohol.
You point that enforcement is lax also a bit twisted. If it isn’t worth enforcing then why have the law? If we are only talking about dealers legalization solves that too. This is already a huge business, and the people that run it would have a strong interest in making it legit. They wouldn’t have worry about their assets getting taken, and would see carding buyers as a very small price to pay.
#64 Yes, absolutely. Each act stands on its own. There are plenty of reckless/stupid people who cause harm to others. As much as one might like, all reckless/stupid people aren’t banned.
It is one’s actions that are judged. If you ARE intoxicated and cause some bother you should get a separate charge (like DUI).
All:
People have been, obviously, using pot for a long time. There is a neuro-receptor that it hooks directly into that isn’t used by much else besides chocolate. Contrast that to many other drugs that flood dopamine and/or serotonin receptors. Those drugs are VERY dangerous.
I would suggest everybody watch a Frontline episode called “The Medicated Child.” It is available on PBS’s site to watch online for free. It shows how doctors are using all sorts of very powerful medications, like mood stabalizers and anti-psychotics, in younger people whose brains are still developing. Tests of these drugs in this population are scarce, and the method is to just try lots of random drugs on these kids.
The effects are strange and disturbing. Ticks and other stereotyped behavior that lasts even after use is stopped, presumably for life.
And that is all okay, because it is legal…
Moralists:
I don’t see any moral aspect to being intoxicated. Your actions are still your actions. This is merely another case of one group’s morals deciding what is acceptable for everyone.
I find tyranny of moralists to be among the most objectionable of things. This whole thing comes out of the temperance movement. They were a bunch of ignorant religious sots then and remain so today.
Oh, and I notice bobbo is strangely absent.