I walk by two pot clubs in San Francisco every day. They're clean, well-managed, and responsible operations. There are no shady characters loitering, or happenings on the street to even attract attention to their existence.
This may even be a boon for California agriculture; too many of the cash crops, such as rice and cotton are using too much water - a diminishing resource.
This is long overdue!

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http://tinyurl.com/Henningfield-Benowitz
http://www.google.com/search?&q=tashkin+cancer

To keep Cannabis illegal while tobacco and alcohol are dispensed freely is murderously stupid.

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They're the culprits blocking progress on this matter. You should know that already a lot of other states, and yes even some of the reddest ones, are already for legalizing the plant for industrial use. Support Ron Paul's efforts to legalize this nationally and abolish the DEA. He's a rare Republican who's actually doing something normally considered "very liberal".

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than the Big Three Auto Makers combined.
Not to mention all those banks that are losing money (ours).

Sales taxes are paid by the dispensaries to the State & the Feds.

In addition, the DEA takes their cut when they pull a Sheriff of Nottingham, and steals all the dispensary's assests & makes no arrests.

This bill will hopefully stop the legalized thievery by the
DEA DEA DEADEADEAD.

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Call me a pessimest, but big pharma will never let this through. During this depression, big Pharma still has plenty of big bucks to spend, and they will spend it, to stop the competition.

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Mirken neglects to point out that this bill will require a national drug policy reform effort if it is ever to be instituted. The bill can be passed but not implemented UNTIL the United States congress acts to decriminalize cannabis.

An act of congress will NOT happen without a concerted effort by a majority of states to get the congress to reschedule cannabis.

Ammiano predicted that the public would support loosening marijuana laws that require substantial public funds to enforce.
Text of the legislation: http://www.statesurge.com/bills/491050-ab390-california

Mr. Ammiano is dead on target with this effort.

Another good reason for regulating the adult sale of cannabis is to get the sales out of the hands of users, abusers, addicts and criminals who are all too often happy to sell to children. Regulation would, for the first time since Richard Nixon started the modern drug war, put adult supervision in between children and marijuana sales.

I would recommend three actions nationally to support Californians in their effort to institute Mr. Ammiano's legislation in 2009.

1. Write to you state legislators to reschedule cannabis at the state level, to the lowest level possible. The states can do this without federal permission. The local communities can make possession a summary offense, if they so choose. Or simply ignore the marketplace altogether, which is unlikely.

2. Include a resolution, like that written by the http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n1007/a09.html?1370 Humboldt co. Board of Supervisors in Aug. 2007, instructing the your state's U.S. congressional delegation to immediately undertake conforming federal laws to allow the states to legalize cannabis.

3. Provide the state level legalization legislation to take effect immediately if and when you get federal empowerment.

In the last session of congress Rep.s Ron Paul and Barney Frank co-sponsored:

H.R.5843 : To eliminate most Federal penalties for possession of marijuana for personal use, and for other purposes.

The bill expired at the end of the session. It would have enabled Mr. Ammiano's legislation at the federal level.

Here in Pennsylvania we could do this by contacting our legislators and senators.

This link will help you to find who your PA. state legislator and state senator are.

Contact your representative in the U.S.Congress

Pennsylvanians Contact U.S. Senators Specter and Casey

Email President Barack Obama

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It might help California's tourist industry as well. In the 1970's tourists sometimes came to Ann Arbor to get busted for the souvenir value of only a $5 ticket for getting caught with grass. Times have changed with inflation:
"(F)irst-time marijuana possession of less than two ounces is only a civil infraction - rather than misdemeanor or felony - and carries a $25 fine with no jail time or probation in Ann Arbor."
http://cannabisnews.com/news/23/thread23599.shtml

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AND create tax dollars.

It will help immensely but it won't "save" California or other states just by itself.

But it will be a huge, huge improvement in the quality of life and free up unbelievable Law Enforcement resources.

In fact, we'll see we have 45% TOO many police, given that they arrest 850000 people a year, more than all real crime arrests COMBINED.

Very simple math.

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The Lord created the green seed bearing herb . . ., and called it good.

I'll take the Lord's word over that of a governments every day of the week.

pax vobiscum

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It has all the advantages but it should have less knee-jerk opposition from the right.

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Each foreign land, has it’s own brand
There is of course, home-grown.
Most of it’s grand, easy to stand,
With most, good will is shown.

It’s found it’s way, smoked every day,
In every walk of life.
From working men, to congressmen,
Even the preacher’s wife.

It can cause good highs, strange looking eyes,
It will make your mouth feel dry.
Makes food taste good, music understood,
Make you laugh until you cry.

You can talk to others, it calms the nerves,
Helps you be as you are.
But like a drink, so don’t you think
That, you can drive a car.

You’ll feel each bump, rattle and thump,
Slow down a block away
For a yellow light, want left, turn right,
You might even lose your way.

You’ll tend to forget, the end of it,
(Whatever, you were saying.)
You can look down, towards the ground
And feel that you are swaying.

A lover’s touch, can mean so much,
Send shivers down your spine,
And when in bed, what can be said,
Except, that it is so fine.

To help eyesight, ease cancer’s plight,
And who knows, maybe more.
Good things to come, from that plant some
Of those, ignorant, ignore.

It’s made illegal, the paper eagle
Is spent to promote crime.
It could be sold and be controlled
Don’t you think it’s about time.

So, maybe some day, the ol’ CIA
Won’t stop legalization.
But, until then, with a silly grin
We will just bear our frustration.

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If pot is now California's top cash crop, and valued as a 14 billion dollar a year crop based on the fact that it is illegal and thus has that high value due to the danger of the operation, then what happens to that value after legalization? It could maintain that value if more people used it. We don't want it to be priced like vintage wines, affordable only to the ridiculously rich.

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I am in favor of legalizing drugs in general to get the prices down, to have some consistent quality control, to bring in tax revenue, and most of all to take the profit out, and thereby much of the corruption of police and other civil servants. We would need fewer jails and use that money for treatment centers. I would rather pay medical/mental health professionals who have a chance of turning someone's life around than the penal system.

On the other hand, we should recognize that many farmers who now grow food may switch to marijuana, if it is more profitable. This will raise the price of food for the country.

Maybe eventually that market may stabilize, but it is a consideration.

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Can someone explain this dilemma?

I work at a company that tested me before being hired. I had no issues about this because my property and livelihood are directly linked to my not doing illegal drugs. And don’t make excuses where anyone can be falsely accused, or have illegal drugs planted, meaning politics over fairness, because I don’t deny anyone can lose anything at anytime for any reason.

My employer made an excuse a month or more after my being hired that my test results ended up at a different branch and I needed to be retested. Why the delay, or why not ask that branch to send the results to our branch? Either my boss thinks I'm stupid, or doesn't care what excuse is used and a similar excuse was used for another worker.

Unless you have your own income, or are willing to work for low wages at a company that doesn’t test, how can anyone fail to put this into perspective? If you are hurt on the job, you will be tested, and you could be denied benefits.

Couldn't insurance companies deny claims and not cover injuries related to (any form of) intoxication? Unlike alcohol, doesn't pot stay in your system for weeks or months, and even if your piss is clean (I understand certain products can help mask test results) testing hair samples can't be masked. Even shaving your head doesn't mean a sample cannot be obtained so I wouldn't recommend it.

Basically, how (or who) would set limits, like alcohol blood levels, on pot? If you’re over a certain blood level, you’re screwed, so don’t smoke too much, or weeks within an accident...am I painting a clear enough picture here?

Please provide a reasonable answer or theory regarding how anyone could accomplish such a lifestyle in California, or anywhere else, when laws would have to be changed at the federal level, and employers could still test and discriminate as private companies, or, they could test and terminate for some other reason. Google at-will states and you'll find companies can let people go without good cause. And good luck finding and fighting discrimination for being let go because you smoke pot.

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There is just one problem with this proposed legislation, which I, too, applaud. It is the federal government's intransigence when it comes to drug policy. California already has legalized pot for medicinal purposes -- and people have claimed that warts and common colds warrant prescriptions. But now and then, the feds raid the medmari shops and bust people. Until someone like Barney Frank, who has floated pot legalization as a trial balloon, does something at the national level, I am afraid the tax pot movement will fail.

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You seem to forget the actual FBI case referenced in the movie "Reffer Madness"

A guy smoked a joint then killed a family of 12.

We all know the media do not missrepresent issues to the citizens

dennis baker

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Adults should be allowed to grow, own and smoke marijuana, but not sell it. People caught selling it should be charged with a misdemeanor and fined.... high fines for selling to minors.

Why create criminals out of people who are doing no harm to anyone?Why create an industry out of a beautiful free culture ..... just for more tax revenue? Tax booze and carbon and solve some real problems.

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decriminalizing and legalization of pot is just the first step in bringing back the crop that could save our country if not our planet; HEMP.

Industrial Hemp is a cash crop, it has a multitude of uses and is sustainable.

The lumber companies and the cotton companies long ago paired IH with pot and stirred the Fear into a Frenzy and we havent been able to grow this amazing plant since.

Let's bring some common sense back and put the fear behind us so that we can utilize this amazing plant!

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The greedy asswipes at Big Pharm and Big Farm
and even Bigger finance won't let it happen. There are more than 100 million people that smoke,eat,or vaporize hemp as a medicine,protien replacement for beef, and body oils,and that's just the tip of the economic iceberg that is cannibas hemp.

In fact back in 1933 Popular Science called hemp a 3 Billion Dollar a year crop,and that was just the commerical uses not the smoking uses.

Big O isn't going to legalize Pot for one reason,Joe Biden. That pinhead created the 'Drug Czar' position. The Feds are to inept to legalize. They don't want a pacified nation either.

America has become a Warrior nation,but their view of a 'warrior' is a killing machine that blindlt follows orders even if it mean mowing down women and children. Don't believe me? Look into Wounded Knee 1890,our system of military hasn't changed at all since then. It's still 'Profit and Plunder' with the military as it's whipping boy. Pot makes you see the futility of violence. In the 1920's they used to court order drunken abusive husbands onto 'Hashish Therapy' for just that reason...it cools a hot temper.

But a nation of peaceful,happy people isn't in the Gov'ts plan even if it would save our country from the depression that's coming. They want us up-tight,angry and in fear of losing our homes,when it's really them that need to be in fear. Fear of us changing their payscale to 'minimum wage', which is our Right as the nation's true Leaders. Maybe it's time to cut their wages,from the Mayor's office all the way up to Big O's office, If you're like me,you hate having millionaire politicians telling you how to live,when they themselves tend to be the most depraved lot on the planet.

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Even as a non-pot smoker, the bill makes tons of sense. Stupid to have pot 'crimes' used to fill up California's non-correctional facilities to be tended by overpaid prison guards who suck the revenues of the state dry.

Better to empty the prisons of minor druggies and get tax revenues off the sale of pot. Then use the money to directly fund parks, education, public health or other uses that actually improve our collective quality of life. Sad to see it takes an economic implosion to get any movement at all on reasonable courses of action.

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green earth that is going to save California from bankruptcy or this country from the Depression - it's here and the entire world is in the same boat. Time for some more experts to step up to the plate with more useless theories.

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But what will we do with all the unemployed cops, jailers, bail bondsmen, judges and lawyers?

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Now who will introduce the same legislation in Congress?

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"If you keep my commandments, i. e., love God and love your neighbor, ANYTHING you ask in my name I will do." He repeated it twice, too (John 14:12-14).
All right, all you kind people, let's start praying, not for salvation, which we already have, most of us, but for a way to be made for legalization.

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I would love to live long enough to see this happen.I an in Florida, so I wish we could put the farmers back to work! Big Pharma will fight it tooth and millions! I would love to see the beautiful farmland put to use producing something that hasn't put anyone in risk yet! Now legally it will kill you if you are arrested, but we have got to move forward,not back!!!

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OF REASONS TO LEGALIZE CANNABIS

ALCOHOL ADDICTION and the resulting AGGRESSION and ACCIDENTS will ABATE.

The BUSINESS of selling pot will BOMB as people grow their own and share it freely.

CLOTHING made from hemp fiber is beautiful, 3x as durable as COTTON, and just as comfortable. Harmful CHEMICALS must be used on cotton, not on cannabis.

DRUG- and DRINK-related DEATHS will DROP DRAMATICALLY.

EMPLOYMENT will increase in hemp-based industries - farming, fiber production, seed processing for food, and clean paper production. Not to mention building materials and the rigging and sails for new ships.
The ENVIRONMENT will thank us.

FARMERS will prosper and FORESTS will recover.

The GOVERNMENT will be able to stop the hopeless 'war' on drugs, which is destroying people's faith in govt. itself.
GOD GAVE us all the herbs! (GENESIS 1:29)

HEALTH CARE will benefit from this age-old medicinal HERB, which is completely safe and HARMLESS, and effective for a myriad of problems. HEMP has been cultivated for over 10,000 years, the entire HISTORY of agriculture.

INDUSTRIAL HEMP will save tobacco and cotton farmers, reservation communities, and northern farmers who barely scrape by without this essential crop. It was once ILLEGAL NOT to grow hemp!

JUVENILE JUSTICE will be so much easier when we can stop lying to kids about cannabis.
JUSTICE itself is at risk when over 1 million Americans, mostly minorities, are imprisoned for non-violent drug charges.

KIDS will celebrate legalization, and gradually give up the use of pot as irrelevant, since they are no longer so anxious.
KILLERS will get out of the cannabis distribution system.
Community KARMA will imrove.
KNOWLEDGE will replace ignorance on the subject.

The LAND will LOVE us for growing hemp instead of cutting trees and pumping oil.

Cannabis is good MEDICINE for body and MIND.

NO MORE NEGATION of reality. Truth makes everything NICER.

a more OPEN SOCIETY will result, because half the country won't have to keep the secret from the other half.
The OIL supply will last longer, from not replacing hemp any more.
It's so OBVIOUS.

PARENTS will have an easier time talking to their children about the real world, when they no longer need to mouth PREPOSTEROUS PLATITUDES about POT.

Many young drinkers and tobacco addicts will QUIT these dangerous habits, in favor of cannabis. Pot smokers are QUIETER, too.

REGULATION is so much more useful than REPRESSION. It will REDUCE problems, RESTORE justice, and is the only REASONABLE course.

Cannabis is a SACRAMENT, SHARED by users in a SACRED manner, in several SECTS.

TRUST, TRUTH, TRADE, TRADITION, TRANQUILITY, and maybe even TENDERNESS will increase.
TERROR, TRUANCY, TIPPLING, and TEEN TROUBLES will all decrease.

UNDERSTANDING of the Web of Life will increase. We will UNDERSTAND ourselves and each other better, too, UNDERMINING the UNDERLYING UNHAPPINESS of URBAN UGLINESS.

Legalization will VINDICATE the VISION of the 60's, a VISION of community, beauty and love.

The WHOLE WORLD is WATCHING, and WILLING us to stop the WAR ON DRUGS, which is

XTREME, XPENSIVE, and XENOPHOBIC. XTASY, XCITEMENT, XPLORATION, and XPANSION OF MIND are all good and necessary to the human spirit. Cannabis facilitates these.

The YOUTH of America will breathe a huge, collective sigh of relief, as a dark layer of fear leaves their hearts forever. YES!

ZERO - that's how much cool will be attached to smoking that rank stuff gramma uses for her arthritis.

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As most people are aware, drugs are not the only products made from hemp. Hemp fibers have been used for centuries to manufacture rope and fabrics. Unchecked in the wild, the plant grows like a weed and is drought tolerant, making it particularly practical this year.

Marijuana, has been decriminalized in the EU and Canada for years. If the US government wants to save tax payer dollars immediately, they should start by decriminalizing it. Once the product is removed from the black market it will be easier to analyze what the actual levels of use are and what controls are needed.

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apologies i fail to see the connection between these 3 in this forum being as i am a heterosexual male potperson

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Forty years ago I predicted in print that MJ would be legalized within 6 months. Little did I know at the time that we were at the beginning of a 40 year span of borderline Fascism and "conservative" politics. While things may appear more promising today, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen anytime soon.

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I have been waiting for this since the sixties, too bad i don't enjoy smoking the demon weed anymore. None the less , i would certainly applaud such a move.

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Legalization will give California a quick revenue fix and then two things will happen: Other states will climb on the bandwagon and everyone will start taxing the shit out of it. Then victory gardens will spring up from sea to shining sea.


FREE AMERICA

PLANT YOUR SEEDS

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Marijuana is only valuable because it is illegal. It was a weed. It grows most anyplace by itself. Every drainage ditch and rural road could be a continuous pot patch.

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At least it's called that if you have any intention of actually passing the Bill.

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To my knowledge, Alaska and Amsterdam are the only places in the world it's legal to get high just for the sake of getting high, but you get tested here anyway.

I've always questioned the legality along with another thing that's weird here. It's also perfectly legal to carry a handgun concealed with no permit required. While lauded by some as a beacon of constitutional right the only place we are NOT allowed to carry are federal buildings.

I think the only way legalization could happen in California is broad support of doing it everywhere. And I believe it will for a terrible reason.

I left alaska because of the heat !! Global warming is beyond most of your imaginations just yet, but it's been very real and very severe in Alaska. That's melting snowpack, that sources rivers.

Marijuana is going to be legal someday however I believe the issue will be water. We just can't keep growing big consumers like cotton.

Might just get started on those strong points right away....

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I have a friend who is a former police officer and he says he would rather stop a pot user than an alcohol user any time. The pot user was always mellow and the alcohol user was combative usually.

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For all the right reasons... by allowing law enforcement focus on real criminal activity, to generate tax revenues that could fill the void of the "down" economy, and by legitimizing that which puts every day law-abiding citizens at risk when they purchase a harmless, non-addicting "drug". It's time!

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set about changing the marijuana laws. California did it with the smog laws. Right now the states that have not done DNA laws are starting to just look stupid. The same sort of thing can be done with street drugs.

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Lets just place a cost and the possible dangers associated with getting arrested with a roach of weed?

police, corrections, courts and all the paper work involved... I figured it cost the city about 8000.00 wow...

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