The anti-smoking Brownshirts have not only pushed smokers outside, they have just about made it illegal anywhere. I'm sure they would use the same ordinances against pot.

Even down here in Red State America (Arkansas) one cannot even legally smoke anywhere on the campus of any hospital, nursing home, clinic, etc. I didn't say outside, or 50 feet from the door- I said nowhere.

We live in very intolerant times if you are out of the mainstream.

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A buzz is a buzz, it's all vodka in concept. The reasons a country supposedly based in liberty would criminalize so many millions of citizens comes down to power, control and big money. Power and big money are one and the same these days anyway. Big pharma and the beer/ liquor industry contribute too much to our 'lawmakers' to ever allow the competition, so it comes down to the state sanctioned buzz, you can drink this or pop that pill, but if you smoke that flower then we'll put you in a cage. Gimme a break.

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What is made illegal, is made rare.
What is made rare is made expensive.
Dealers rejoice...
In other news, a US plane (N987SA) full of cocaine crashed in mexico... same plane allegedly (german) used for trips to Guantanamo... Strange coincidence...

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The war on drugs is set on a principle that's totally repugnant to the ideals of a free society.

It's based on the idea that you do not have ownership over your own body; that you don’t have the right to decide what you’ll do with your body, with your property and with your life.

The position of the drug warriors is that you should be in jail if you decide to do something with your body that THEY don’t approve of. (but, of course, it's never the other way around)

Ending the drug war will help addicts, will end the black market in drugs, will help improve our economy and will make our streets safer!

That's my rant on the subject. If you'd like, read this article for more:

"7 Ways to Make Your Neighborhood Safer" - click here

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...it's high time that politicians . . . began taking notice.

You mean kinda like how Congress should be taking notice of the 80% of the public that want the US military out of Iraq right now? You mean, kinda like how Congress should be taking notice of the 80% of the public that wants universal single payer healthcare now?

Fat lotta luck we'll have to get them to notice anything the middling or working classes want or need. They're all aristocrats and they don't give a flying frack what we want, think, or need.

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Making it illegal also drove cultivation not just underground, but indoors. The bulk of the UK's weed seems to be hydroponically cultivated, and it's the most profitable drug on the market: you grow it yourself, close to where you're going to sell it - no middlemen, you keep ALL the profit!

In my youth I both smoked this stuff AND inhaled, but it's nowhere CLOSE to being the same stuff - what was comparatively safe to use a couple of decades back is no longer safe. Decades of selective breeding and hydroponic cultivation have changed a friendly dog into an unpredictable pitbull. It's the difference between weak beer and rotgut whiskey. There's just too much evidence linking excessive cannabis use and severe psychiatric illness to take risks.

Let's live in the real world: Nostalgia's not what it used to be.. and neither is cannabis.

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You all are a pathetic bunch of losers.

As a former pot smoker and alcohol drinker I can say that the best thing I ever did for myself was stop smoking pot and drinking alcohol.

Part of your argument seems to be, since so many people are breaking the law and screwing up their lives as a result of the consequences, the laws should be done away with. Actually, I agree with some of that argument. People who smoke dope and drink are perfectly capable of screwing up their lives without any intervention from the criminal justice system. No need for laws criminalizing the behavior.

However, don't start arguing next that people who drive stoned should not pay consequences in lost licenses, fines and jail time. The only way to drive is cold sober-- period. Also, don't try to tell me that I can't kick a dope smoking employee out on his ass when I catch him. I want awake, alert employees. Also, don't tell me I can't ask the city to cut the pothead's lawn for him and have his house painted for him-- at his expense, instead of having to wait for him to die until the mess he is wallowing in gets cleaned up. Also, dont tell me that I can't toss his burglarizing, vandalizing worthless spawn in jail for THEIR crimes, which they commit while he and mom are nodding. Also, PLEASE don't ask me to pay the medical bills of the helpless and hopeless dope heads who are making themselves sick through bad diet and no exercise. Also, please don't ask me to give them a nickel in public assistance because they are too screwed up to hold a job. Let them starve.

I agree: let them smoke dope if they want to. In fact, let's sell the dope to them at the liquor store, just like hard liquor. I also agree, however, that the dope heads should take responsibility for their self indulgence in every way. I do not want to subsidize their squalid lives. I do not want to pay one cent to support them. To hell with them. P J Tramdack

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Legalization of marijuana won't change a thing. Think about it like this. If it became legal the FDA would regulate it for THC content, herbicides, additives etc. This would add to the cost. Plus, there would be the required permits to grow it. There would also be required permits to sell it. The anti-smoking cancer organizations would require a piece of the action for "education". Then of course Uncle Sam would tax the living hell out of it like cigarettes and alcohol. It would be so expensive that unregulated or untaxed (read: illegal) growers and sellers would pop up. Noone would buy the weak government approved pot. They would all buy the illegal stuff. Just like they're doing now. Cops would arrest them for it... Just like they're doing now. Back to square one.
The reason this hasn't happened with cigarettes or alcohol is this. I cannot grow a tobacco plant and make it taste like a marlboro. I cannot distill spirits and make it taste like Jack Daniels. If I could do either, guess what? I'd be doing it and selling my "Tax free" marlboros and JD and getting rich.

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Good points made here by Paul Armentano-thanks AlterNet

What I can't believe is how long this craziness about THC has persisted?

All cultures since the dawn of humanity have used mind altering substances - the most common, I guess, are caffeine, alcohol and tobacco. (Don't believe the bull about caffeine and alcohol being good for your body. While I personally use both in moderation I know they are drugs - not food!)

But the waste of resources chasing after THC users is truly bizarre.

The real drug pushers of the 21st century are the big pharmaceutical companies(Big PhRMA )whose CEOs should be indicted and jailed for killing people daily Instead we lock up the poor pot smokers.

Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com

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End the war on drugs! It is paid for by citizens and the money goes to politicians and non-violent "criminals" eat up tax dollars keeping them in jail and processing them in the legal system. The War on Drugs is a failure.

Can I get a witness?

Rev. Mark J. Seydel

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The only way to end the war is to SHUT DOWN these vested interests.

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Up in Canada the only party trying to legalize a plant?! is the Green Party. Oddly enough, they have won seats, and the MSM refuses to allow them in leaders debates and so on.
Every year there support grows by 2-3%, they are up to 10% or so now, which is pretty good.

So soon, when its legalized in Canada, you Americans can come up and visit us Canadians, and we'll roll you a joint as fat as a cigar!

Seems stupid that we are refused the right to grow or smoke a plant...I mean, thats like making it illegal to eat or grow carrots!

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It seems to me the government is into controlling people's lives even more so now. It is not the business of the government to make law as to what a person can or cannot do to their body. When it eveolves to crime such as assault, felony or murder this would be a crime. Marijuana is an herb that grows freely. How many events such as domestic violence and dui leading to death as a result of alcohol use have occured? Our prisons are loaded with drug dealers and users making no room for the real threats such as child rapists and murderers who typically go free on bail. The priorities in our system have gone awry. Not to mention people with money such as oj and phil spector who buy their way out of murder, its all disgusting. This has been said many times over but it seems we as a people here like to talk and really achieve very little in action as our civil rights are being eroded daily.

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The Marijuana laws are a political tool to exclude the most educated and progressive generation this nation ever produced perhaps from participation in the government and national best interest..

It's has prevented so many with great ideas and solutions from contributing to our once great nation as they threatened the fascist swine like David Rockefeller and the other fascist groups like the Council on Foreign Relations et al, Bilberbergers etc. from enslaving us and reducing us to indebted serfs as they have all but finally accomplished..

The fear or someone saying hey he smokes pot or just some stupid minor bust on his record has allowed the fascists to maintain their strangle hold on our nation..

The Marijuana leaf is rather like the Star of David, Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany and Europe..!

These laws were designed and inflicted to exclude the best most honest and optimistic from taking part in our Republic..!

Simple as that..!

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Be this vine the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a snare?
A blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a curse, why then, who set it there?

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I notice an eerie similarity between the drug warriors' longtime hysterical argument that pot is the "gateway" to hard drugs, and lately the new charges that pot causes brain damage, impotence, etc.... and certain feminists' increasingly incoherent anti-porn crusade, in which porn is now the gateway to war, of all things.

Criminalizing other people's harmless behavior based on one's own puritanical views seems always to require raising the stakes (to borrow a term from somewhat illegal poker).

It would be an interesting sociological experiment if, for a five-year period, we could legalize pot and criminalize porn, and see what happens!

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Alcohol kills a year = 20,000
Marijuana kills a year = 0

Alcohol is legal, Marijuana is not.

Equality under the law? Or injustice?

* Statistics from National Center for Health Statistics. Alcohol deaths exclude accidents and homicides. 2003.

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Can anyone tell me what is so wrong about getting high at the end of the day in my own home?

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Those with an authoritarian conservative mindset and political or financial agenda made progress with Cannabis Prohibition by making words like "pothead"..."dope".."hippy" a stigma.

Older Americans have fewer people that they need to impress and now overwhelmingly are agreeable to the medical decriminalization of Cannabis.
Those people that still agree with Nixon's view are fewer in number....Re MJ. .Nixon said that they "smoke to 'get high' while a person drinks to have fun." He also said "Enforce the law, you've got to scare them."

Have we been scared enough yet? Maybe the older generation can start to email or write their government Reps and ask them to change the laws.

Regarding the other PROHIBITION... "For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced." Albert Einstein [1921]

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Half of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related. Alcohol use is associated with 69 percent of drownings and has been found to be involved with 70 percent of all deaths and 63 percent of injuries from all falls. Alcohol is a significant factor in the battered child syndrome.

In the United States diseases related to alcohol and tobacco killed approximately 500,000 Americans in 1987. According to official federal data death from illicit drugs - heroin, cocaine, marijuana, etc., amounted to 2,177.

"Alcohol use is our costliest and most widespread drug problem." Richard W Wilsnack - University of North Dakota School of Medicine.

According to the Consumers Union Report "Licit and Illicit Drugs" the amount of harm done to the human body by nicotine and alcohol vastly exceeds the physical harm done by all of the other psychoactive drugs put together.

A major error of the current drug classification system is that it treats alcohol and nicotine - the most harmful drugs by far - essentially as non drugs.

Bylaws to allow more pub and liquor outlets in the suburbs in order to guarantee alcohol users and abusers greater access to their "injection" sites is hypocritical in the extreme especially considering that physiologically alcohol is at least one thousand times more harmful than heroin. Why can't the so called illicit drug users purchase their drugs of choice and do them in the privacy of their homes if that is their desire? That would at least get them off the streets.

Legislated morality never worked during the prohibition era in the Unites States and it is not working with illicit drugs.

It would not help alcohol and tobacco addicts if they were disgraced, fired from their jobs and declared enemies of the state as is the case with illicit users.

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Bust someone, give them a criminal record and watch as they enter the ranks of the minimum wage, slave labor workforce - FOREVER. As the vast majority of pot smokers I know, myself included, are liberal to extremely liberal, it's a great way to keep them relegated to a position of subservience as a criminal record of any sort will almost certainly prevent you from "getting ahead".

Pot busts are also extremely useful in keeping those pesky, liberal-voting blacks and Latinos off the registrars and underemployed. It sure doesn't hurt the privately owned and operated correctional institutions either.

Chomsky summed it up best above. Keep it illegal and scarce and watch as the price skyrockets. While not nearly as costly as narcotics, pot still generates enormous revenues that must be laundered through "legitimate" banks and Fortune 500 corps. Illegal narcotics account for anywhere between $500 billion to $1 trillion in global revenue. Try laundering that at the five and dime.

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It is much easier for law enforcement to beat up on local pot growers and medical marijuana users than either trying to bust meth labs or organized crime heroin pushers. The pot busts always make good news stories and PR for law enforcement. However, it doesn't do anything to diminish the current meth epidemic or the long term problem of hard core heroin use and the organized crime behind it.

I have this ugly feeling that billionaire pharmaceutic companies will come up with a THC pill (active ingredient in pot) and patients will be able to purchase it soon from their monopoly. Until then, the FDA will continue to publish pseudo science reports about the bad effects of marijuana ( death of lab animals forced to smoke a thousand joints a day).

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I'm going to repeat this fact until these groups change their position: ALL OF THE MAJOR DRUG "REFORM" AND MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION LOBBIES--NORML, MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT, DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE--SUPPORT CONTINUING TO ARREST (AND EVEN IMPRISON) PERSONS UNDER 21 FOR SIMPLE MARIJUANA POSSESSION. Since people under 21 comprise nearly half of all marijuana possession arrests, what drug "reform" groups are saying is: give us older folks legal highs, but continue busting 300,000 to 400,000 people under 21 who are indulging the same harmless marijuana use every year. They support continuing the War on Drugs--just as long as they can get high. www.YouthFacts.org

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Even without the "war on terror," the "war on drugs" gives the government a flimsy excuse to suspend our civil liberties. Back in the '90s, in correspondence with my friend Dennis Archer, who was serving time for a marijuana bust, when I told him I had been living under electronic surveillance, his immediate response was: "Did the government have you under surveillance for using drugs?"

In his 1992 book, Visions of Liberty, former Executive Director of the ACLU, Ira Glasser writes:

"The use of wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping emerged during the Prohibition era. Roy Olmstead was a suspected bootlegger whom the government wished to search. It placed taps in the basement of his office building and on wires in the streets near his home. No physical entry into his office or home took place. Olmstead was convicted entirely on the basis of evidence from the wiretaps.

"In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Olmstead argued that the taps were a search conducted without a warrant and without probable cause, and that the evidence seized against him should have been excluded because it was illegally gathered. He also argued that his Fifth Amendment right not to be a witness against himself was violated.

"By a 5-4 vote, the Court rejected his arguments and upheld the government's power to wiretap without limit and without any Fourth Amendment restrictions, on the grounds that no actual physical intrusion had taken place.

"Olmstead's Fifth Amendment claim was also dismissed on the grounds that he had not been compelled to talk on the telephone, but had done so voluntarily. Thus the Court upheld the government's power to do by trickery and surreptitious means what it was not permitted to do honestly and openly. It wasn't until 1967, in a similar case involving gambling, that the Court overruled the Olmstead decision by an 8-1 margin and recognized that the Fourth Amendment applied to wiretapping and electronic surveillance.

"Interestingly, these cases arose in the context of crimes like bootlegging and gambling. During the past twenty years, the majority of wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping by both state and federal officials has been in cases involving drug dealing and gambling.

"Serious crimes of violence, such as homicide, assault, rape, robbery, and burglary, are rarely the target of electronic eavesdropping, which is not normally a useful tool in such cases.

"From the beginning, when wiretapping was virtually invented to enforce laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol, to the late 1960s, when gambling was a major target, to the present, when the use and sale of drugs other than alcohol are the main target, these intrusive devices have been used mostly to enforce laws aimed at punishing and proscribing personal conduct that society deems immoral.

"Because such conduct essentially involves private activities among consenting adults who are all likely to want to keep those activities secret, they are harder to investigate and prosecute than crimes like robbery or burglary, in which an unwilling victim will probably aid any investigation...the invasion of privacy inherent in wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping remains with us as part of the legacy of our attempts to criminalize personal conduct.

"The other major use of electronic eavesdropping has been to punish political dissent. For decades, former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover used wiretaps and other electronic devices to spy on political figures and citizens not yet suspected of having committed a crime. He built vast dossiers on their political activities and personal lives. Special units of local police called 'Red Squads' did the same."

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Marijuana prohibition is about as outlandishly insane as anything the government has done to the people in the last century because it is part of the quiver of abuses the it has used to manipulate the people.

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The minute a person has a criminal record, it destroys their life! Lost job opportunities and chances at workplace promotions.

The more criminal records which people have, the larger the underclass within our society and the better the opportunity of corporations to hire slave labour. Having a criminal record is just like being an illegal immigrant and thus your stuck at working in jobs that nobody else wants. It's all about creating an underclass which is a pool of slave labourers for corporations. The simple objective was to "criminalize" blacks and enslave them. The White Folks got drug treatment and Rush Limbaugh was still able to get high on prescribed drugs, but the black community within the U.S. was destroyed. Governments and orporations exploited all the Poor Folks and especially the Black Folks (gave them all a criminal record) and then offered them all menial jobs that nobody else wanted or would do. Just like illegal immigrants.

Calm

7M in U.S. jails, on probation or parole
A record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year
By Kasie Hunt
November 30, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/3bjt9q

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At least Califonia and some other states have moved toward a saner policy that may eventually result in legalization.

Prop 215 allows for medicinal marijuana which isn't all that hard to get. The law allows just about any ailment or condition. The Feds do bust a marijuana store every once in a while, but there are dozens and dozens of them in California. And they are legal, according to state law. There are maybe hundreds of them, I don't know, and they advertise in the L.A. Weekly. It's also not that hard to find a real M.D. to write a recommendation.

But it is not all so free and easy that mere potheads get a free ride. Patients, and that includes cancer patients and others with serious diseases, have to visit their doc once a year to get their certificates renewed.

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Enough ,but guess what! they've got those neat black form -fitting armored suits ,heavy weapons of mass destruction,no brains of their own and they follow orders mindlessly,..we going to fight that for pot? I doupt that,you see people today aren't made of that same cloth they were back when the Brits were directing traffic,in the 1700's...call me a quitter ,prove me wrong!

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I'm high right now. Let freedom reign!

(note, also, that Canada does not have the relaxed drug laws people expect.)

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#1. Pot issues generate a lot of comments on AlterNet.

#2. Even George Bush could grow marijuana in his back yard, with very little effort. It is just a common weed.

#3. Freedom and democracy in the USA.....?????? What scientific proof is there that smoking pot in moderation is dangerous in any way? If someone drank 20 gallons of pure water a day, then that person would have health problems.

#4. Since "rolling papers" are available to buy in most stores in Mississippi, and very few people buy "loose tobacco", exactly what do the folks who pass the laws think people are using the "rolling papers" for?

#5. America and the world is a very illogical place.

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Programs aimed at curbing the use of mind-altering substances among young people (e.g., teen drinking and teen smoking) are admirable, but does this mean mild forms of intoxication should be criminalized?

According to a 2003 Zogby poll, two of every five Americans say "the government should treat marijuana the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and only make it illegal for children."

Alcohol, not marijuana, is the most abused drug in the United States. There are an estimated eight million known alcoholics in America, and the number increases by 450,000 every year. One survey reported that 75 percent of all crimes and 60 percent of all divorces have drinking in their background. The National Safety Council reports that 50 percent of all traffic deaths are caused by drunk drivers.

According to Dr. John McDougall, over seven percent of the adult population in the United States suffers from alcoholism, resulting in decreased productivity, accidents, crime, mental and physical disease and disruption of family life. Excessive consumption of alcohol leads to liver disease, cancer, birth defects (fetal alcohol syndrome) and multiple vitamin deficiency diseases.

A report by the World Health Organization states: “Alcohol is a poison to the nervous system. The double solubility of alcohol in water and fat enables it to invade the nerve cell. A man may become a chronic alcoholic without ever having shown symptoms of drunkenness.” The conclusion of the report is that nobody is immune to alcoholism and total abstinence is the only solution.

Dr. McDougall writes further that excessive consumption of caffeine leads to an elevated heart rate, irregular heart beat, increased blood pressure, frequent urination, increased gastric secretion, nervousness, irritability and insomnia. Caffeine is known to cause birth defects in animals, and may do the same in humans. Caffeine stimulates the growth of breast cells, causing benign lumps.

Excessive intake of caffeine may cause a rise in blood fats. Cancer of the urinary bladder has been linked to caffeine use and it contributes to loss of calcium from the body. Moreover, the body actually becomes physically addicted to caffeine. Withdrawal symptoms include headaches, drowsiness, tension and anxiety.

Again, programs aimed at curbing the use of mind-altering substances among young people (e.g., teen drinking and teen smoking) are admirable, but does this mean mild forms of intoxication should be criminalized?

Rufus King, a Washington DC lawyer who has served on the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, calls the drug war “a worthless crusade.”

According to King, drug use is a social problem, not a law enforcement problem. He observes:

“Cigarette use is declining through changes in cultural values in the population. Like most smokers and alcoholics, most users of illegal drugs poison themselves because they want to be intoxicated. No human force can do them much good until they want help.”

King is optimistic that the current anti-drug hysteria will subside, and responsible and reasonable drug law policies will be adopted.

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This statement is untrue and you are well aware of that. Why do you keep repeating it? Also, you have had the opportunity to write or call me privately about this on numerous occassions? Why have you never done so? Instead you choose to post inaccurate information on message boards like this. NORML does not support the incarceration of juveniles for using marijuana, and I'm confused why you would say differently.

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I found out what I already knew. By and large, Alternet posters are either imbibers or tolerant folks who live and let live. I LOVE YOU GUYS ('guys' being gender unspecific). I don't think we are much different than society as a whole. So why the official hassle for smoking a flower in the land of the free, home of the brave? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness my ass.

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So, let me get this straight... are we crying because people are being arrested for indulging in something that's been illegal since the day they were born?
Grow up. Tough shit, pal. You know it's illegal and you're doing it anyway and that's your problem. I don't feel for any of the self-indulgent crybabies who are crying also. Why provide a profit for dealers? If there wasn't a demand, there wouldn't be a profit. I'd be getting mad about how much people are making off of your little habit if I were you!
So you need a buzz. Why? Get real. There are bigger problems in this world than your little feel good desires being denied. What a pile of crap.

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living in a country were potsmoking is legal, but commercially growing is not.
1. why not accept it is illegal but as long as you grow for own use or buy in a legalised shop it is OK???

2. as soon as it is legal, anywhere you ll find McSmokeshops and it goes into the hands of corporations.
(moost of them former criminals)

3 then advertising starts and sooner and later you have the same situation you now have with tobacco and liqor.

4.for your country it is better it is illegal since every thing is subject to profitmaking instead of serving the people.

5 legalisation will not lead to lower prices.

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Jim Crow South in the 1930's. At that time, pot was primarily used by black folks, and arresting and convicting them took away their right to vote, circumventing federal voting rights laws. The MJ laws went through several stages of increasing the penalties for use over the next decades/

In 1969, Dick Nixon figured that pot must be "destroying our boy's will to fight" in Viet Nam, since young males were no longer flocking to the recruiters offices to fight in that unpopular war. So, the Nixon administration started the most effective mis-information campaign ever devised on MJ. It was filled with myths and legends, and most noticably, ignored his own commission's findings that recommended decriminalization. Many of these myths/legends have been espoused by posters on Alternet as fact, even today! Myths die hard...I told you it was the most effective misinformation campaign ever devised, didn't I?

Since then, MJ has become the mainstay for the drug war which pays great dividends to the police coffers with DEA grants and of course, my favorite, confiscation/forfeiture/sale of personal property. The interesting thing about forfeiture/sale proceedings is that the burden of proof by the state is at a much lower standard than in a criminal proceeding, which requires for conviction "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the person is guilty. In the forfeiture case which is held before an administrative law judge (or hearing officer), the state's burden of proof is "more likely than not" that the person arrested is guilty. To put that in perspective, figure that the burden for criminal conviction to be in the high 90's% assurance, while the burden for administrative conviction to be at 51% assurance.

The property can be anything that "could have" been used in the transport, sale or storage of drugs, or that could have been purchased in any part with "drug money" is fair game. The administrative proceeding to determine if the forfeited property can be sold is usually held well before the criminal trial of the arrested suspect. The criminal case could take years to come to trial. In many instances, the administrative court has found that the suspect was guilty and his seized property was sold by the state, and then have the criminal court find him not guilty! There are many cases in my home state of KY where farms that have been in the family for 6 generations have been seized and sold due to pot being found on the land, and later the farmers were found not guilty by a jury of their peers. You can just kiss your land (house, truck, car, whatever) goodbye in these cases...you can not get them back! Of couse, the proceeds from the public auction sale are split between the arresting police departments and the other local governement entities, which gives the police adequate incentives to pursue these kinds of cases vigorously.

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From the London Times published 13th August 2000.

"TAKING the high road may not be so dangerous after all. Ministers are set to be embarrassed by government-funded research which shows that driving under the influence of drugs makes motorists more cautious and has a limited impact on their risk of crashing.

In the study, conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory, grade A cannabis specially imported from America was given to 15 regular users. The doped-up drivers were then put through four weeks of tests on driving simulators to gauge reaction times and awareness.

Regular smokers were used because previous tests in America using first-timers resulted in the volunteers falling over and feeling ill. The laboratory found its guinea pigs through what it described as a "snowballing technique" - one known user was asked to find another after being promised anonymity and exemption from prosecution agreed with the Home Office.

Instead of proving that drug-taking while driving increased the risk of accidents, researchers found that the mellowing effects of cannabis made drivers more cautious and so less likely to drive dangerously.

Although the cannabis affected reaction time in regular users, its effects appear to be substantially less dangerous than fatigue or drinking. Research by the Australian Drugs Foundation found that cannabis was the only drug tested that decreased the relative risk of having an accident.

The findings will embarrass ministers at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions ( DETR ) who commissioned the study after pressure from motoring organisations and anti-drug campaigners. Lord Whitty, the transport minister, will receive the report later this month.

Last week police revealed details of new drug-driving tests to be administered by the roadside, which were received with some amusement. They require suspected drug-drivers to stand on one leg, lean back and touch their nose with their eyes closed, and to count to 30 silently with their eyes shut. This is apparently difficult for those on a drug trip.

The advertising company McCann-Erickson has already prepared a television campaign using Pulp's song Sorted for Es and Whizz, the slogan "Never drive on drugs" and the pay-off line "then you come down".

However, if the findings are less than frightening on the effects of marijuana, they may convince ministers to put more money into raising driver awareness of fatigue. Tiredness is now blamed for causing 10% of all fatal accidents, compared with 6% for alcohol and 3% for drugs.

A low-key radio campaign will be launched tomorrow warning drivers to take breaks.

The report's surprising conclusions will not sway organisations such as the RAC, which believes there is incontrovertible evidence that drug-driving is a growing menace. DETR statistics published in January showed a six-fold increase in the number of people found to be driving with drugs in their system after fatal road accidents. The figure jumped from 3% in 1989 to 18%.

Dr Rob Tunbridge, the report's author, refused to reveal his findings before they were published but said: "If you were to ask me to rank them in order of priority, fatigue is the worst killer, followed by alcohol, and drugs follow way behind in third."

Tunbridge admitted that the effect of drugs differed with the individual, the amount taken, the environment they were taken in and the point at which you tested reactions.

Cocaine users are known to be alert drivers when they first take the drug, but then they have a tendency to fall asleep at the wheel. The particular problem with cannabis is that it stays in a person's system for up to 30 hours but its effects wear off within a few hours. "

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if you want to not smell smoke from a cigarette then dont stand next to someone smoking one. i dont think they should be smoked indoors or at hospitals just because they it's not healthy, especially in an area where people suffering from respiratory ailments are concentrated. at the same time i believe that if people over the age of 18 want to light and inhale anything they should be able to. just smelling cigarette smoke isn't going to kill you.. and since cigarettes are legal people who have problems with the smell should invest in gas masks and football pads so they cant get hurt ever... although football helmets have warnings about possible injury even with correct use... so if your scared of the world buy some armor, but don't complain about something smelly.. your automobile probably produces some cancerous fumes too.. not sure just a guess

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Speaking from the point of view of a long time former pot smoker I am so utterly amazed at the level of ignorance and knee-jerk over-reaction from the truly uninformed. Smoking a modest of MJ on a regular basis did not seem to impede my process of attaining my Bachelors degree (cum laude) while simultaneously working full time. It didn’t seem to have a negative affect in my level of discipline needed to achieve my Masters degree (3.8/4.0 GPA). Nor did it impede my creativity and work ethic while achieving my first government patent. Why did I quit? It finally got to be too much effort to find it. As I got older and moved to different parts of the country for job opportunities, I just found it harder and harder to find a connection. I have never been much more than a social drinker as I do not care for the side affects so I guess it’s all over for me and my slightly altered states of consciousness. I have no evidence or statistics to back me up but I would not be at all surprised to find a vast number of people in my exact situation. Good job Gestapo State. You managed to push your Puritan ethics down everybody’s throats.

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It's Giuliani Time: the Mussolini of Manhattan The year before Giuliani took office, 720 people were arrested for misdemeanor marijuana-related offenses; by 2000, the number had jumped to 59,495--an increase of 4,549 percent.

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... and if any person wonders why, its a rather simple thing to explain...
...it's only those with a vested interest in the "status quo" that refuse to understand reality...

Posted by: maxpayne on Oct 1, 2007 7:02 AM
The vested interests of Big
OIL/COTTON/CHEMICAL/ PAPER/FOOD/MILITARY/COAL is what started this war.
The only way to end the war is to SHUT DOWN these vested interests.

this was the vested interests of the day which banded together to bring us prohibition almost 70 years ago, and is the machine that funded the lobbyists that popularized the platform of the radical right from then, to now!

Over time, interest groups and political capital may have changed but it is the same people and same political types now as it was during the time of Al Capone and his special brand of American Capitalism!

Unfortunately its todays criminals and terrorists organizations that are the new fund raisers for "the party", along with some corporate power brokers who I'm sure are only now taking a serious second look at the importance of the hemp plant in a modern environmentally safe industrial world...

Think about it... these people started a war [with yet another concept] on terrorism, which is naturally funded with our tax dollars, and in which the terrorists fund with drug money they also indirectly glean off us...

How do you end this insane cycle of violence?... simple... legalize the black market and take the profit away from criminal and terrorist organizations, and tax the hell outta it...
Pour all the revenue thats currently funding their war on us into our health care, education and in veterans benefits...

The problem with the current political process is also simple to understand... When politicians lie to the electorate it WILL cause distrust in the entire political process.... fortunately the drug of choice for many [Hemp] pacifies the masses enough that they seem unable to defend there constitutional guarantees... regardless, the harshness of todays realities is the cause of a symptom diagnosed 70 years ago, and left to fester...

If you haven't noticed by now, a political malaise has crippled this country on which this so called [concept] "war on drugs" can be seen as beginning of the cancer [witnessed by all] to have metastasized throughout the entire body politic... it was started by the Rethugnicans [radical right] almost 70 years ago, endorsed and funded by vested interests of the day and maintained politically by the same monkeys in suits today to keep the status quo!

I would like to know who really owns and runs the Republican party...
who really runs the political process, and who really cares what becomes of the US, its flag and its beacon of individual rights to all...

Common sense must come into play at some point... but time seems to be running out...

All thanx to Rethugnican Party, all of which are bought and paid for!
How far the mighty fall!

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The only way to change things is to pass MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS. Then we can all get it for our aching bones, etc.
The hypocrites of the press will never support legalization as they take their 4:20 tokes. And the people in high positions will NEVER admit to doing a line with their extracurricular girlfriends.
QUIT BITCHING, GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES, AND START A STATEWIDE PETITION FOR A MEDICAL MARIJUANA INNITIATIVE. Others have. It can be done

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If you've EVER been arrested/incarcerated for possession of this wonderful herb...then you can relate. It's NOT for everyone but I would be the last person to take away some aged(or medically pained) person the right to use this substance,it's organic.Would you stand up for their rights,would you go to jail for another's right to free speech? Will you respect it?

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It's about the money silly. Most of these cases are not prosecuted, but it brings in a hell of a chunk of change. Everybody in the loop gets paid, from the county DAs to the bail bondsman to the defense attorneys.

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If a diabetic binges on Oreos and gets behind the wheel, s/he could go into insulin shock, pass out, lose control of the vehicle, and injure or kill him/herself and/or someone else. So because some people abuse sugar, we need to outlaw the manufacture, possession, and consumption of sweets, as well as the cultivation of sugarcane, beets, and maple trees. Just to be safe, we had better shut down apiaries as well - no more honey either.
Since consumption of excessive amounts of caffeine can make people jittery and hyperactive, affecting their reflexes and temperaments, and we know that caffeine is addictive, we need to outlaw coffee and tea.
Since consumption of chamomile teacan make people sleepy, wnd we all know that sleepy drivers are a danger, we need to outlaw that as well.
Since people who are allergic to nuts can have anaphylactic reactions if they eat something with nuts or even nut byproducts in it, we need to outlaw nuts. same goes for shellfish.
Because some people behave irresponsibly with a particular substance does not mean that we must outlaw the substance - just deal with any negative behavior on a case-by-case basis. If my diabetic grandmother wants to eat an entire package of Oreos, that's her business, even though it's not good for her. It only becomes the government's business if she does something illegal. It should be the same for any other substance. Use it, abuse it if you want. It's your body, after all. It should only become the government's business if you do something harmful to others.

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That's gonna be the noose for Universal Healthcare, so you got health problems, the system will bankrupt you before they let you die!

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Follow the money. Probation and parole violations are so inevitable, given the system, that more people are being incarcerated for anything and everything, pot possession just another in the mix. In Hawaii, possession of a small amount of pot earns only a 30 day sentence while possession of pot paraphernalia (the pipe you smked the pot in, for instance,) gets five years. showing even drug law reform can't override the overall direction of the system which is to criminalize and incarcerate more and more people, fill those jails, support the many jobs and special interest groups in those labor markets, and respond to the law and order hysteria spawned by politicians who can always get ahead by getting tough on crime and can't get anywhere being reasonable. The criminal justice system in this country is out of control, partly because we have a prison-industrial complex, unions and privatized, profit making prison corporations, etc., and partly because we have a political system that supports demagoguery and responds primarily to special interest groups with money and power. Tax payers pay through the nose for these trends, same as we do for the trend into military-industrial complex induced perpetual war. We have to say no if we don't want to be slaves.

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Look, here's how US World REALLY works; rogue black department ops of MANY governmental agencies make FAR more money from dealing illegal drugs, from Afghani heroin to Columbian cocaine to pot from just about everywhere to everywhere in Amerika, than they ever could if the poison was legalized and taxed. All for various black ops and funding wars they don't want clueless Americans to know about, and so give it up; drugs will never be legalized, especially not by the use of simple arguments of logic, fact, and emotion.

Furthermore, these same crime bosses that ARE YOUR GOVERNMENT ON DRUGS, dealing drugs, are going to make sure smoking tobacco goes the way of the dinosaur so that that particular cancer genie is put back in Alladdin's golden lamp so that all they'll have to do is rub to make even more money. The black market for tobacco and, horror of horrors, eventually alcohol, will insure the non-negotiable Amerikan way of life of waging secret wars against the rest of the planet will go on unabated, completely without the oversight of taxpayers or their elected representatives in Congress. The "War" "Against" "Drugs" perpetually funds Big War Contracting, and is going nowhere. What do you think this is, America or something?

In short, the United States of Nazi Amerika is nothing more than the biggest drug and war crime family on the planet, battling it out with all other crime families for complete control of the action. And you're not going to change it.

Now that you know how the world works, GROW UP and just say "FUCK NO!" to the assholes trying to kill you with crap you don't need to put into your stupid bodies. And making you pay for the privilege with your money, your possessions, your families, and eventually, your freedom, health, and life.

How simple is that?

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Hard to comment on bare truth. I wonder sometimes if its simple ignorance or a cunning plan.

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I know many people who have smoked pot for decades, with no apparent affect on their lives except the usual hacking cough after smoking, the glazed eyes and spaced out attitude. But I know many others, (like myself) for whom pot is an addictive and dangerous chemical, from which I was (after 20 years) fortunate to escape (20 years ago). I consider it poison. While I believe that legalization of all drugs is unquestionably the way to go, I think it is the height of irresponsibility to somehow justify your bad habit as fine for anyone else. Do you really think that people are better off smoking, or not smoking? Answer honestly, and you will see my point. From: Beenthere.

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I suffer from HEP C, HIV, Leukemia, Osteoarthritis, Blood Clots, HIV Dementia and nausea yet our government is denying me, and others like me, some relief by smoking pot. This is criminal and inhumane. Please help us change the laws. .

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Apparantly not, they're still busting folks and we're still bitching about it,!

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MJ was legal in the states until millionaires in cotton, paper and pharma felt threatened, so they bought the government and forced it to be made illegal. the surgeon general at the time did extensive research and pronounced it the safest drug on the planet. Despite this, the votes went through, driven by mass lobbying by the cotton, paper and pharma industries. If it were not for their continued huge efforts, MH and hemp would be legal today. People like me with crohn's fibromyalgia and other chronic problems would be in much better shape. Legal ingredients like BHT and other carcinogenic everyday food items contribute more to poor health than you know! Read some history. It's easy to find.

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THis is a serious issue and echoes the woes of our country today - ruled by big business masquerading as our caretakers. Marijuana has not only NOT been found to be carcinogenous, it is been found to actually reduce tumors in rats. I am so sick of ignorant right wingers who buy into every bite of pablum fed to them by mainstream media. MJ is NOT a drug that leads to other drugs, unless the user intended to go to those other drugs in the first place! Most people who smoke pot only smoke pot. I would be willing to march for legalization, if only I knew when and where. It might lose me my job, small as it is, but for my sick brothers and sisters it would be worth it. I want to see an all out educational media blast on the truth about marijuana and how it came to be illegal in the first place, exposing why it still is and who profits.

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magic music

I want people to understand...

but they don't. Maybe the music will speak to you, maybe it won't. Good luck. There is a lot of message that is not in the words.

Woman suspended in time... heal yourself, no need to stay blind.

It is all there, the pain and suffering of a whole people. Great music to have a spiritual experience to. Bless you my friends, my heart is true. I made a promise, I will keep it.

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