We certainly don't want anyone to get the message that it's okay to relieve the pain and suffering of terminal cancer patients.

That's why we've got ... (cue fanfare) ... The Pharmaceuticals Industry!

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Once you get to be my age (I'll be fifty on August 16th) one has known at least that many people who have died as the result of two much nicotine and another fifty who have died from too much alcohol. Now ask your self the following question: How many people have you known in your lifetime who have died as the result of too much marijuana? Not only have I never known anyone to die in that manner, I am not even awrae of it happening in all of recorded human history!

Have a marijuana if you can.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NT
The Arrogance of Being Karl (Rove, that is!)

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Yes, there's a host of legitimate "medical" reasons for legalization, but the "recreational", (re-creation-al), serves the mind in effective stress reduction and therapeutic relaxation.

What's the worth to the reduction of stress related toxins clinically shown as precursors to a wide range of debilitating physical conditions?

I submit that the enduring popularity of Mary is her capacity to smooth the furrowed brow with a benign attitude conducive to good humor, friendliness and aesthetic appreciation.

These days, it's an especially welcome reprieve from the stupor inducing idiocy of our cultural contradictions and propensity to violence.

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I can only think of one reason why pot might be considered a gateway drug, and that is because it is illegal. To buy pot one would have to associate with criminals, and these criminals might well offer other drugs for sale in addition to pot.

Making pot legal would save smokers from having to associate with criminals, and lessen the chance that the criminals would be able to sell them other drugs.

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A study found that news coverage of "drug abuse" during the Reagan era precipitated public concern for drug abuse. That is, the yellow corporate media stirred up public support for Reagan's War on Drugs when the public really wasn't concerned at all.

Why did the media do this? Distraction. Putting the spotlight on the people and their "misbehavior" takes the focus off the military-industrial crooks and the financial services thieves (which, if memory serves, included John McCain in the '80s!).

Distract 'em and snow 'em! A tried and true strategy.

Source: Dearing, J. W., and Rogers, E. M. (1996). Agenda setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Give me a break Jim .Pot is a non starter issue.
True activists are very sober people they get more done and have more credibility..

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On the benefits of pot, I'd like to say

What?

I like this song, who does this?

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I have leukemia. When I had my first chemo regimen, the oncologist gave me a script for an anti-nausea drug. I put it in my fridge and smoked some boo instead. I never experienced nausea, although the MD said I would. Nuff said. If I have to have chemo again, I will smoke again.

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As Tom alluded above, it is true that people don't seem to die very often from pot. Especially compared to tobacco and alcohol. Could there be something to this??

Gee... do ya think so?

That is a rhetorical question. The point of the question is to help you remind yourself just how bad things have gotten... so bad to the point that a medicinal herb with spiritual properties is attacked and vilified.

The Lie is so big that we are compelled to keep searching and searching for some plausible explanation for the vilification of pot. Surely there is something bad about pot! Something so bad that it requires us to spend billions building a police state to fight the evil scourge of devil weed.

But you won't find it. You won't find a logical rational justification for the attacks on this poor herb. What you will find is that the world really is controlled by an occult ruling class that is trying to enslave humanity... and pot is one tool that can help people see these occult rulers for what they are. Like those glasses from the movie "They Live". They Live was a cheesy movie. But they got one thing right. The ruling class has declared war on our consciousness. They want to destroy it, they want to dumb us down to the point where our consciousness shuts down completely. And they want the technology to strip it from us completely. And they are well on their way to getting it.

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The rightwing motherfuckers know that if, actually make that when, more people find out the 25000+ industrial uses of industrial hemp along with the fact that it's not only renewable but that unlike corn and cotton, it doesn't deplete the soil, this world is gonna be a hell of a lot less rough. It's time to TERMINATE Big Oil/Coal/Gas/Nuclear and give the power of energy creation and usage rights back to the people.

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It won't happen, but it should. I do not understand how anyone does not see the immense hypocrisy from a society that has legalized alcohol, because they found, as dangerous as alcohol is, the harm and corruption caused by prohibition are far worse: yet,to continue to prohibit marijuana, even though, unlike alcohol, it is not physically addictive, does not cause major health problems (like liver and heart failure),does not make one violent, as alcohol does to many people,and,unlike alcohol, which kills thousands each year from a combination of the factors I've mentioned above,including automobile accidents,has never killed a single person. Although I don't believe anyone should drive under the influence of alcohol or marijuana, studies have shown that marijuana smokers who drive realize they are impaired, and usually slow down to compensate, whereas drunken drivers believe they have more control, and tend to speed up and take risks they would not ordinarily take.
Marijuana has almost no toxicity, especially if it is consumed via smokeless vaporization, which burns it at a temperature that only releases the beneficial cannabinoids, but none of the toxins, such as those found in cigarette smoke.
Legalizing marijuana for responsible adult consumers would provide revenue in taxes, stop the jailing and imprisonment of otherwise law abiding citizens (costing taxpayers multi-millions each year, plus losing the tax revenues and economic stimulus from these consumers),and make it harder for minors to get ahold of pot-after all, drug dealers do not card. Legalizing marijuana would remove many drug dealers, and the violence and harder drugs they bring to our streets.
People who do not like marijuana are not going to start smoking it just because it is legal. I also believe, if it were legalized, minors would be less likely to be attracted to it, because it would no longer be as taboo. Politicians believe their ads about "just saying no" and "this is your brain on drugs" deter minors from experimenting with pot, but studies have shown that these ads actually increase minors' desires to try pot...really, it's common sense: the quickest way to get a minor to do something is to tell them that, whatever they do, don't do this!
The horror stories and other misinformation that has been fed to minors through these anti-drug ads also undermines their credibility; because when the minor tries pot, and finds that he has no desire to attempt to fly, or to rape or kill anyone, and does not lose his or her mind..well, they realize they've been lied to. Then, they assume everything they've heard about drugs is probably false, so they try something harder--only this time, it truly is a dangerous drug. Our own "Drug Czar" said that "marijuana was more dangerous than heroin."!!! Can you believe that?
The reason marijuana remains illegal is due to the lobbying efforts of the Pharmasuetical Corporations, the Oil Companies, the Alcohol industry, and agencies like the DEA. Think how many people make their living from "busting" American citizens for pot. We have more people behind bars than any other nation, and 80% of those in jail or prison are there due to drug charges.
How can the government tell you what you can and can not put in one's own body? Especially when it is an all-natural, chemically unchanged, PLANT! Now, you could say, well, cocaine and heroin come from plants, too. This is true, but the difference is, those drugs are drastically changed through chemical processes, making them much stronger, and changing their character. Whereas pot is only made stronger through farming techniques.
And the newest argument that pot must be kept illegal because it has grown so much more potent, is absurd. It is easy to tell the diference between averege pot and high potency pot, and just as one doesn't drink whisky like beer, one doesn't smoke high-potency pot the same as average pot.

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When I was in 10th grade, I learned that George Washington's very first law, was that the hemp plant should be legal for ever!!! So, I found me a Hippie, got some, smoked it, and I knew that this was a sacred herb, from the first toke, and I've been fighting for it every since!!! Smoking, and researching, and smoking some more!!! The war against this plant, go back to the Old Testaments war against the Heathens, and their GROVES!!! Did you know, that Joan of Ark, was burnt in a pile of hemp, the church was afraid of this little girl that lead an army to victory, with this sacred herb!!! Did you ever stop to consider that no European would have ever stepped foot on the new world without the hemp plant: canvass, use to mean woven hemp(now it means molded plastic) the sails on the great ships all relied on hemp sails, and ropes...Marijuana is only a stepping stone drug, because we have to step right out of our homes and yards to get it!!! Television/ movies promoted the use of pot in the '70s, but now leads the war against it, it's time to outlaw media!!! The drug war would not be possible if no one used them!!! Marijuana was outlawed, to replace alcohol on the black market, when prohibition ended, the way it began: with a vote of the people, and a constitutional amendment, of which Marijuana, never got the same courtesy!!! The reason is treason!!! In the 1947 supreme court case, hemp was outlawed because the government was afraid that we would become self sufficient and would no longer need the government, as long as we had nature/ hemp!!!(read the book know your rights, somehow we have forgotten them!!!

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I've said it before and I'l say it again. I'm a chronic pain sufferer with degenerative disk/joint disease. The fact that marijuana is illegal for any reason is ridiculous, but denying it for medical reasons such as pain relief is criminal. If you use ANY of the currently available opiate painkillers available by prescription for more than three weeks on a regular basis, you WILL become physically dependant on them (and no, you aren't exempt from this dependence if you are a good, upstanding, moral person) meaning that when you stop, you will get really sick (withdrawal syndrome). The non-opiate painkillers such as ibuprophen, aspirin, naproxin can all cause heart damage and stomach ulcers, and acetomenophen (Tylenol) can cause serious to fatal liver damage in some people. Marijuana has proven itself a good remedy for chronic pain, has none of the nasty side effects of the above listed LEGAL drugs, and yet remains illegal? Where is the logic in that?

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For goodness sake! Some one legalise this stuff so we can be done with this endless debate on the pages of AlterNet!!

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The saddest part in all of this, is the amount of money spent by our government on this so called "war on drugs". Billions of dollars are flushed away each year. What makes it so sad, is there are families starving all across this great country of ours. Families who work hard, yet can't get ahead no matter how hard they try.

Lets also not forget that it's not just big oil, and pharmaceutical companies that benifit from this war on drugs, it's also large corporate labs and insurance companies as well. We have bought into, and allowed, corporate america to spread drug testing so far and wide, that it makes billions of dollars yearly for test laboratories. Insurance companies get kick backs from these billions, by pressuring small, and big business alike, to implement drug testing, or face higher rates. They do so with bullshit propaganda, worded so perfect, the right and left wing sheep can't help but buy into it.

Even though drugs are illegal, and a place of business can make a good case for prescreening and post screening it's imployees, drug testing is a discriminatory process. Not everyone who smokes pot, or does a line on the weekend, is a drug addict. A lot of these people are good workers being held out of better jobs for the sake of bullshit propaganda and greed.

Can you not see the irony in the fact that someone who likes to puff on a little weed from time to time, can't get a job at the local Anheuser Busch Brewery?

How about Stanley Steamer, Wal-Mart, and Target. These places do a drug test on their employees in my area. Stanley Steamer even says it on the local TV adds. Is this not pathetic? Is this truely helping our economy?

The answer is no. Well, unless your one of those making billions off of drug testing. The truth is, 99% of all drug testing is payed for by the tax payer, and the consumer. It's free money for those involved, yet it holds families back, and keeps many decent people from having better jobs.

The war on drugs goes a lot deeper that we all think. It's holding all of us back, and causing black market crime to rise. It has created a hydra, and when each head is cut off, several more grow in it's place. It's time to decriminalize all drugs, and come up with a new plan. It takes a lot less money to educate and help those in need, than to fight the problem. It's time to put this sham to an end.

Sorry to rant.

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Years ago when I was suffering from chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, and a host of allergies, I went to an alternative physician. Her questionnaire asked about marijuana use. Since I was a smoker during my teenage years, and my health problems started back then, I decided to honestly report how much I had smoked. The doctor's concerns were not so much about the negative health effects from pot's active ingredient THC, (the significant problem in her view was immune system suppression), but from the irreversible neurological damage caused by ingesting the pesticides that are sprayed on the plants during their growing stage. Let's be real, growing illegal pot is a major business. The growers are not likely to be organic farmers! The ground pot is grown on is likely to be just as saturated with heavey metals as are other commercially grown foods.

Now if medical grade pot becomes available for "stress reduction" therapy, a long term study of health issues could be practical.

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I’d like to suggest considering that one reason entheogens and naturally-occurring psychoactives are illegal may be because this is a particularly rigorous way society can control and repress the thinking and behavior of those people most likely to think and act in ways that threaten the prevailing articulation of power.

Seen in this light, it is telling that the modern “War on Drugs” was spearheaded by Nixon, who with Mundt was a key-player in HUAC and attempted to revive “Sedition-Act” style legalized thought control through the McCarran Act.

One really has to wonder how much of the criminalization of drugs is really an attempt to clamp down on people thinking and acting in ways believed by the craven martinets of social hygiene to be unorthodox (hence, alien and potentially seditious). If you want to preserve things the way they are, you have to be adamant in preventing Legalized Spiritual Discovery.
Pounds-shillings-pence is much more conducive to a serene and unruffled status quo.

I’d further propose as many potheads out there as can muster the incentive gather and nurture those seeds and plant them in the most wide-ranging and diverse settings possible. The same thing should be done with poppy seeds, still available at any supermarket (Yes, a sizeable amount of these baking delicacies are still fertile, and yes, they come from the same plant that has been cultivated for millennia for its opium). Just throw ‘em out the car window every quarter mile onto any arable soil on your next vacation.

With a few thousand dedicated and persistent Johnny Potseeds out there spreading Mother Nature’s bounty, extermination attempts would become increasingly less cost-effective, and the increased ubiquity and access to Her blessings would render interdiction and control ever more patently absurd.

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It seems to me that nicotine (cigarettes, dip) is more of a gateway drug than marihuana is. This isn't just my own observation (clinical impressions are notoriously unreliable), but also the impressions of people who have actually done the counting and statistical calculations. Wonder what the dear departed Jesse Helms would say to that.

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Marijuana should be legalized. There is only one reason why marijuana remains illegal in this country, and that is that it is a weed that grows naturally in most places and therefore it cannot be monopolized by major corporations. Why would the major pharmaceutical corporations allow something like marijuana, which any one of us could grow in our own yard or home, to compete with their overpriced pills? Monopoly doesn't mean simply not having competition from others selling the same product, it means not allowing any competition from alternative sources as well. Just look at how big oil has monopolized the energy market. Same principle, don't allow other technology to be produced which would take away from oil profits; don't allow other forms of medicine to be legal which would take away from pharmaceutical profits.

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Here in California we have had a medical marijuana law in place for quite some time. However, certain intolerant counties refuse to abide by the law and will happily turn you over to their buddies the Feds if you grow a few legal plants. Federal cultivation charges carry a long prison sentence. Crimes against medical marijuana patients are never solved because police in counties like Sacramento consider them "druggies" who deserve everything they get. Defend yourself against attack and end up in jail with your attacker reclassified as your "victim" and you vilified as "just another violent pot head scumbag". He will receive generous compensation at taxpayer expense, possibly disability payments and may well sue you and/or your homeowners insurance company. Gangsters love this policy and are subsidizing their other nefarious activities with the money raised from robbing patients and the dispensaries that supply them with no fear of consequences. What a great way to treat sick people who are trying to get relief from their pain and suffering.

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It seems that everyone here seems to be on the right track, but I fear the leading marijuana reform organizations are heading in the direction of medicalization. I understand that people are more likely to support medical marijuana laws and that this may be a stepping stone to legalization, but I think framing the issue in terms of medicine can harm its legalization in the end.

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without a ubiquitous crime?

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Good non-sequitur then don't read this. One of the Weeds writers seemed to want to spread a rumor about Laura Bush (nee' Vacuous) selling pot when she was matriculating at Texas Christian. (No comment, just repeating it). Now, it seems that Cindy McCain's vanity plates say Ms. Bud. Okay, the beer distributor reference seems a little obvious. And we may never know, because she will never be First Lady, or at least she will have to come up with a new reason to visit the RCMP and check out the fresh crop of BC Bud. Like Laura Bush did in early 2001. Like I said, only fun.

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Legalize marijuana, you may deny small county/town Law Enforcement the opportunity to feel like there big city brethren. Other than ruining lives over the BS drug war, they will have to spend time keeping those driving impaired off the roadways. Drunk, stoned or tweaking, I really don't want to share the road or workplace with any of them.

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